Some Details on our Assessment Journey

Okay, so we sat down (five of us) and hashed out some of the mechanisms and details we will use on our assessment journey.

First, we all agreed on the principles that Dan documented. Yes, I said some bad words when I read his three principles, because he scooped me on something that he had not written about (yet) and I thought I would have something truly unique to offer.  Oh well.

Next, we got down to the nitty gritty.  How many questions on each assessment?  What constitutes mastery?  How do we decide?  Where will these questions come from?  How do we create a continuity across four different Alg 1 teachers?  What standards are we going to actually address?  Do we have to assess everything we teach?

Answers below the fold in order to conserve space.

So, to take them in order.

1. 4 questions per assessment is what we decided.  Why?  If a learner passed all 8 questions perfectly, then they know what they are talking about.  Is 8 any different than 10?  Not really.  So, TWO 4 question assessments on each objective will be given.
2. Mastery is successfully (there is that word again) passing both assessments.  The second assessment will be more difficult than the first assessment, so there will be a ‘ramping up’ effect.
3. We sat down and wrote questions for each objective.  We wrote “A” questions and “B” questions.  The A questions are easier, the B questions are more rigorous.  Each question was then typed into Excel using the Equation Editor.  We created a template in Word to paste the problems into.
4. In order to create the continuity, the Excel file was placed on the school shared network folder, so now all teachers have access to it. when someone edits the file to add a question to it, all teachers will see the new problem.  It is now scaleable across the entire department.  [the file has tabs “obj 1” through “obj 21” for the first semester.]
5. Standards. …. I will post our files later in the week.
6. NO!  That is one thing we quickly realized.  We do not have to assess everything!  We assess only those things that are directly related to the district’s CRT and those things that are essential skills to master later skills.

So, in the end, we had a Geometry teacher, an Alg 3-4 teacher, a Calculus teacher, an Alg 1 teacher and a Trig teacher on the committee doing the work.  The insight each brought to the table was inspiring.  We are going to some interesting places with this.