Issues in Alternative Assessment Reflection Week 5 Linda Norman

Current trends in assessment are driven by Goals 2000: Educate America Act.  This act called for the development of national content standards and a system of assessing the standards to see if they were being accomplished.  Linn and Gronlund state, "the impact of these new national testing and assessment initiatives remains to be seen (p. 14.)"  Our school district has not only a set of assessments that they have created for the classroom teacher, but also a set of assessments for technology standards as developed by the National Technology Standards (NTS).  I was on the committee to develop our assessments three years ago, and we have continued to evaluate and refine the assessments each summer.       These assessments are performance-based.  A pre-test is given the second week of school and a  post test is given the second week of May.  Students sit at a computer and demonstrate the ability to utilize the technology to perform tasks in researching the Internet, word processing, publishing with PowerPoint, and data collecting and publishing with Excel.  We created the tests utilizing this strategy, because it is flexible, assessment can be tailored to the test taker's ability, and it gives immediate feedback to test-taker and scorer.  We created them so that starting in third grade through eighth grade the test was applicable to the test-taker's level.  The data then was gathered and analyzed in the summer to see if students were achieving our expectations.  In many areas the first summer we felt the data was inaccurate, because students had just begun to get the skills that year.  In subsequent years students would receive the technology instruction for numerous years to allow them to progress over a period of their academic years.  This would give a more accurate snapshot of our curriculum and students than one year could.       The committee felt that these tests would go beyond any paper and pencil assessment, because it would be real world problems that we would set up for the testing.  The challenges, though, were many, because there were not a lot of examples that we could look at as we began.  Getting the right vocabulary, so the students understood the task.  Even creating the right task to make sure it tested the standard that we wanted to test was a challenge.       The pros and cons of implementing these assessment measures are many.  A pro is that students learn from taking the assessment.  Another pro is that the fall test diagnoses for the Learning Center teacher what students know and where they need to go next.  The students in the fall also see what they know and what they need to learn.  Parents and community can also see the results to inform them of the instruction that our students are receiving and accomplishing.  The biggest con is that it takes a great deal of time one must invest to create, administer, and analyze.  While students are testing, they are using academic time, which is at a premium.  Another con is orchestrating the evaluating of performance tests.  Paper and pencil tests can be scored after the test is completed and the students have left as opposed to the technology test must be scored as they take it.       Assessment is not going to disappear as so many trends do in education.  Accountability is not just a buzz word for today.  It is truly the best way to inform teachers of the instruction that is necessary and if the academic goal has been met.  "Probably the greatest public concern has been with the social consequences of testing" states Linn and Gronlund.  In our tech testing we specifically tried to be sensitive to this issue.  The testing gave us insight into not only how well were doing in regard to the national standards, but also gives us data to inform our instruction.  Hopefully, our local assessments address our students better than a standardized test would.