Adapting Existing Assessments

Step 1: Determine which questions fit into Costa's Levels of inquiry

Constructivist Assessments work best broken into 3 sections following Costa's Levels of Inquiry. Similarly to Blooms Taxonomy, Costa's Levels of Inquiry divides stages of thinking and inquiry into segments, although they are much more well defined and descriptive. This is a very well known idea used especially by AVID.

Constructivist assessments should be broken into three sections:

Gathering
Processing
Applying

If you already have a test made, the first step is to determine which of your questions already fit into the terminology and goals of the corresponding Levels of Thinking that Costa presents.

Ideally, there is a weighted split with about 25% of the questions in Level 1, 50% in Level 2, and the final 25% in the Level 3 category.

Costa's Level of Questioning, AVID, n.d.

step 2: determine the goal of the excluded questions

Don't be alarmed if not all of your existing questions don't fit into one of Costa's Levels, or if you have a dispoportionate weighting of the levels.

Once you've found which questions to keep, you start to mold the existing questions into new ideas.

For the remaining questions, try to boil them down to their conceptual goal (or crosscheck with a UBD if you have them available.) Try to make sure that the remaining goals that you create are between 4-5 points.

EXAMPLE 1

This is an extremely basic question, asking students merely to recall the information given to them earlier. This question even passed as a "short answer" question on the assessment. This question locks 5 points behind remembering the names of Features of Civilizations, but asks the student to do nothing with them.

We can take away from this the theme of the Features of Civilizations.

example 2

The above example boils down the difference between Neo and Paleolithic Eras. While it only has one correct answer (C) technically both C and D are a difference between the two eras. This question is vague and boils down an important concept to 1 question.

We can determine the themes of this question are Agrictulture and the Neolithic Revolution.

example 3

This question's formatting is very difficult to decipher. It's also entirely recall based with no application of the information.

What we can take away from it is that the Ancient River Valley Civilizations are important enough to be a focal point of this test.

Step 3: Replace them with appropriate constructivist questions

Using the list of concepts you've created, start crafting questions using the words from the above list. Give students multiple options for their answers, so they can prove mastery of content with whatever examples they are most confident in. Refer to the examples on the "Assessment Examples" if you're curious as to how.

Example 1: Features of Civ's

The focus of the second question we saw was the Features of Civilizations. Here we asked them not only to define them, but to also explain their relevance to the unit.

While this is still Level 1, it lets students Show Understandings of the material and asks more of them.

Example 2: Neolithic Revolution

The first example asked us one specific difference between the Neolithic and Paleolithic societies. This question has students respond using evidence and details to compare and contrast the two topics.

This moves them into the 2nd Level of Costa's Levels of Inquiry and gets them thinking a bit more.

Example 3: River Valley civilizations

This question now takes the focal points of the river valley civilizations but has the students interact with it.

They are asked to use their knowledge of the cultures, the features of civilizations and specific details to Justify their answers.

You'll notice that both of the previous questions are somewhat incorporated in this final question, helping students scaffold themselves through the process.

Step 4: Prepare students for the assessment

The last step to introducing this type of testing is making sure your students are prepared for it. Students should not be surprised by what shows up on a test. If they are, that means it must not have been covered or focused in the unit. Make sure that your activities build up the final assessment.

Before the first test, make sure that students are aware of testing style. Give them the opportunity to practice responses and answering questions in the same style. Let them prewrite answers and get feedback so they know exactly what to expect. This can easily be worked into preexisting review days or a new one could be added. As students become more familiar with this style, you can scale back the reviews. It's sole purpose is to scaffold the actual testing process for them.

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