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island architects, inc.

The Revisions: Comparison of Past Practices to Current Revised Assessments

Again, the goals of the revisions are as follows:

• To rework old assessments, from an easy-to-grade Multiple Choice test to a more complex, challenging assessment. The new performance assessments call upon students to analyze and synthesize what they have learned about topographic maps and mapping skills, landforms and the processes which created them, and climate and the factors that affect climate.
• To have students develop their writing, thinking and collaboration skills.

Revised Assessment Number One: Island Architects, Inc.

This new assessment incorporates many different changes when compared to the original fixed-response assessment. By having students incorporate their topographic mapping skills, they have to apply and build on previous knowledge in order to successfully complete this project. Additionally, it offers kids an opportunity to be creative, a characteristic of multiple choice tests which is missing (unless kids make patterns on their scantron sheets!) It is also asking them to do some writing, albeit just a little, in order to justify the location of certain items on this island. This taps into the core ideas, the "Big Three Geographic Questions", that all my students know from the first day: Where is it? Why is it there? So What?

Revised Assessment Number Two: Your Island's Natural History Essay

The Island's Natural History Essay builds upon the student's successful completion of the topographic map described above. This essay calls upon students to apply what they know about landforms and landform development and climate and the factors that affect climate to a new situation. It also expects them to organize and present information in a logical way (again, another strike against the multiple-choice test!) and synthesize information.

A Look at the Numbers

Because the data from last year's assessments is not available in any meaningful form, the results of this analysis of assessment are more qualitative than quantitative. What is available, however, is a grade distribution, which follows:

n = 97

A	14	14.4%
A-	22	22.6%
B+	17	17.5%
B	24	24.7%
B-	12	12.3%
C+	6	6.1%
C	1	1%
C-	1	1%
D+	0	0

At first glance, I was struck by how high the grades were. This is a result of a combination of factors: one, that this population of students is one that is high-achieving by their nature. (This is a honors-level course, and many of the students take the AP Human Geography test in the spring.) Second, I use an absolute grading system, where student performance is measured in relation to specified standards, rather than relative to other group members. Rather than having a bell-shaped distribution of scores, there is opportunity for each student, if their work is good enough, to receive an "A." Third, this could reflect grading subjectivity on my part.

Having taught this course for eight years, I have a pretty good feeling that if this assessment had been multiple choice, student grades would have been much higher. As mentioned previously, these students do extremely well when called upon to memorize, since, for this population, this presents very few intellectual challenges. I feel quite strongly that by having students show me what they know through writing and analyzing, I am tapping into their higher-level thinking skills and creating an assignment that is more challenging than the traditional paper-and-pencil multiple choice test.

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Plans for the Future/Fitting This into the Body of Knowledge on Assessment

I liked that this project required students to research, analyze and most importantly synthesize a wide variety of geographic information. That the revised assessment tapped into all these great skills is reason enough for me to continue to use this assessment. At the same time, however, there were problems that I think could have been avoided if the assessment design had been different.

• I originally designed this project for students to work on in pairs, yet I did not design any type of partner or group assessment element into the project design. I do this because I struggle with giving group grades, and blindly hope that things will work out well. This needs to be addressed. For example, some partners were not truly partnerships: in several instances, students just divided up the work ("I'll take the landform section, and you do the climate analysis") then brought the pieces together on the day the assignment was due. That was not the name of the game, but I need to design the project so that there is no question that this is not appropriate "group" behavior.
• Some essays read like a list of definitions rather than a flowing essay. Again, I think that showing students models of well-done projects will help in this area. Additionally, I can stress this point in the assignment itself.
• Some students located their island next to a preexisting island and copied its landform and climate characteristics. This was not the goal. The idea behind this project was to have students think about and apply what they know about landforms and climate. The students who researched rather than thought about their island's landforms and climates did not have the sort of experience that I wanted them to have. I think they were looking for an easy out. In the future, I could circumvent this problem by assigning students certain locations on the globe that are currently unoccupied by any other territory.
• Most of the students gave short shrift to their analysis on their island's climate. What I had hoped for was an even balance between their discussion of landforms and their discussion of climate. Again, I could have stressed this need for balance in the assignment sheet, and could also have shown students examples of exemplary projects.
• In the initial "Island Architects, Inc." project, I would have stressed that the landforms that students create would have to appear where they would in nature. In some instances, there were stick-straight rivers and mesas next to swamps. I want students to be mindful of how these land and water bodies come to be, which will hopefully help them understand their placement on the landscape.
• I should have given students an assignment rubric.

Conclusion

When I made my KWL in Phase I of this project, I knew that essays and other alternative assessments were a better way of capturing what students know. But I was looking (in vain!) for some magic alternative! The struggle, as we teachers know, is to create meaningful, challenging assignments that do not consume every waking moment in order to be graded. I think the real lesson that I have learned is that there IS no efficient way to tap into the higher level thinking skills that we want our students to develop. There may not be a way for me to return 97 essays in two weeks or less. Perhaps acceptance of my own limitations and a re-directed focus on what is truly important for students to know and be able to do is what is called for when creating meaningful assessments.

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