Online Resources for Assessment

• Assessment, Assessment Rubrics, and Evaluation Guidelines

  Carol Holzberg suggests visiting this list of Web sites for assessment tips and tools, and for help in developing, adapting, or adopting assessments that detail what you expect students to learn and evaluate what they have mastered for any given lesson.

• CLASs Primer: A Guide for Comprensive Local Assessment Systems Design and Use
  

  The CLASs Primer was developed by Southern Maine Partnership's educators to provide support for districts across the state in developing local K-12 assessment systems, as required by Maine law. The primer provides a straightforward process for design and implementatino of a district-level assessment system, including articulating an assessment philosophy and defining essential knowledge and skills; system design; technidal requirements; and data management and use.

• Comprehensive list of assessment activities and strategies by RMC Research Corporation

  This list defines several assessment strategies that you can use in a classroom setting. Some are performance assessment strategies that require students to generate, rather than choose, a response in order to demonstrate learning. Some are collaborative strategies that foster discussion with others. The common theme among these strategies is they provide alternatives to traditional standardized, normed, multiple-choice, or paper-and-pencil type methods.

• The Electronic Learning Marketplace (ELM).

  Located at the University of Southern Maine, this Technology Innovation Challenge Grant project focuses on developing teacher-developed lessons and assessments for all K-12 curriculum areas. Teachers first create a "Sketch" Assessment -- a "snapshot" of a lesson, together with an aligned assessment. Later, through a stringent peer-review, feedback, and critique process, the assessment is enriched with benchmarks, examples of student work, tips from the instructor, and other pertinent information, and then becomes a "portrait." The online collection of assessments is located at: Teacher-Developed Assessments.

• The Functional Independence Skills Handbook by William Killion

  An assessment and a full curriculum with lesson plans designed to assist people with developmental disabilities in gaining more functional independence. Domains of learning include adaptive behavior, affective skills, cognitive abilities, sensorimotor, socialization, speech and vocational.
  Initially a baseline assessment is given that reflects the specific level of independence possessed by the student for each domain. After implementing the program for a determined period of time, a follow up assessment is performed that results in a graphic representation of any progress that occurred during the teaching efforts. From this action future educational needs and program success can be determined.

• How Can I Ensure the Integrity of My Assessments?: Guidelines for Appropriate Assessment by RMC Research Corporation

  This table provides a checklist for effective assessment. Teachers can use this to ensure that their assessment -- to name a few -- is aligned with content standards, provides results that can be easily communicated to students and parents, and fosters student reflection, review, and improvement. Administrators can also use this to identify professional development needs in assessment development.

• Improving America's Schools Newsletter -- Assessments by the US Department of Education

  The newsletter section on assessments describes: (1) challenges to creating new assessments to reflect state content and student performance standards; (2) assessment requirements under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1994; (3) the alternatives to traditional forms of assessment; and (4) what the research literature says about student assessment.

• Indicators of Engaged Learning, from Plugging In: Choosing and Using Educational Technology. by the Council for Educational Development and Research, NCREL.

  This chart provides descriptions of what engaged learning looks like for a number of variables, including assessment. We took the liberty of highlighting the indicators of engaged learning for assessment.

• Instructional Module Assessment

  Sponsored by the George Lucas Foundation, this assessment modules is meant for use after the project-based learning module or for participants who are familiar with project-based learning.

• Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators - Assessment and Rubric Information

  Kathy Schrock has gathered a collection of assessments for use of the World Wide Web that might be helpful for you as you design your own.

• Mapping Out the National Assessment of Title I: the Interim Report - 1996 by the US Department of Education

  The section in this report provides a recent account of state progress toward developing performance standards and statewide assessments. By 2000-1 school year, states must develop aligned assessments in at least language arts and mathematics. Be careful not to confuse STATEWIDE assessments with from LESSON assessments.

• Peer Review and Rubrics

  This project was created by two Teachers College student teachers: Tracy Higashi and Lee Spilberg. The Web site also contains an extensive list of rubrics and rubric development sites. The intent of their project was to guide peer reviewers through the process of providing constructive, meaningful feedback to students on their writing projects and class reports.

• Portfolio trouble-shooting by RMC Research Corporation

  This table provides some strategies for some potential challenges associated with portfolio implementation. What if the portfolio lacks student reflection? What if the student has two or three portfolios? What if portfolios show little evidence of improvement? What if parents are confused or concerned about portfolio assessments?

• Student assessment in higher education

  This is Tim Roberts' devoted to world's best practice in student assessment in higher education, from Central Queensland University, Australia. It contains links to online articles, books, journals, and other information about assessment.

• Teachers and Goals 2000: Leading the Journey Toward High Standards for All Students by the US Department of Education

  This guide provides some mechanisms for systemic school reform in order to help all children reach high standards. In particular relation to assessment, the section titled "So, what can I do?" provides some considerations in collaborative reform toward instructional alignment with new state standards.

• TeAch-nology.com's Teacher Rubric Makers

  This commercial site provides a starting point for developing rubrics that make alternative assessment activities more objective in the evaluation process. The rubrics are free, and encompass solving a math problem, basic writing skills, oral expression, class participation, science fair activities, and a variety of classroom activities that are appropriate for elementary and middle grades. Note: Since this is a commercial site, there are advertisements, some of which have blinking features.

• A Rubric for Evaluating WebQuests - by Bernie Dodge, San Diego State University.

  Also, you may link directly to Creating a Rubric. This rubric was developed for evaluating WebQuests, but it can be applied to a variety of teaching situations.

• What a rubric looks like from San Diego Unified School District's Triton Project, a U.S. Department of Education Challenge Grant Awardee.

  This is a rubric from an interdisciplinary lesson for 7th and 8th grade French Language Arts students.

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