Creating New Assessments

Step 1: Examine UBD's

Most districts have moved to a backwards design plan of their units, using styles like Understanding By Design. These incorporate Understandings, Essential Questions, Skills and Knowledge. All of these should be incorporated into your assessments. Below, an example of a UBD can show you what it can look like and point out the key ideas. This will be the example topic used as this continues forward.

If you don't use UBD's:

Determine the desired results of the unit

What does it look like when someone has mastery of this content area?
What skills, Knowledge, or Understandings should students have at the end?

Create a list of 3-5 Skills, Ideas, or Understandings that a student proficient in this content should be able to do. This will function as a "stand-in" UBD.

Pictured is a UBD for a Prehistory unit designed for a World History Course. Included are Established Goals (often established through standards), Understandings, Knowledge, Essential Quetsions, and Skills. All of these will play a part in our Constructivist Assessment.

Step 2: Create Sections

Constructivist Assessments work best broken into 3 sections following Costas Levels of Inquiry. Similarly to Blooms Taxonomy, Costas 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 subject used especially by AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination).

Constructivist assessments should be broken into three sections:

Gathering
Processing
Applying

Weighting should be proportional. 25% of the total point value should come from level 1, 50% from Llevel 2, and the last 25% from Level 3.

Costas Level of Questioning, AVID, n.d.

Step 3: Build Questions

Question types are variable, however each section lends itself extremely well to specific styles.

As you create a question, look back at your UBD and determine whether it fits your plan. Make sure that each question is meaningful and relevant to what you want the students to know. Follow along with the example below and refer back to the example UBD to see the connections.

Level one questions can be formats like multiple choice, matching or defining. While these are not always the most indicative of knowledge, they do a good job of letting students remember and show understanding.

This example asks students to define the terms and explain them in context to the unit. This is primarily recall, but lets students discuss content ideas in their own terms.

Level two starts to introduce more interactive and individualized question types. Using Understanding, Examining, and Creating works very well with Short Answer styles of questions. Actions like Describing Impact, Compare and Contrast, and Inferencing are all key to the second section.

All of these questions ask for comparisons or discussions of impact. While straightforward, they ask students to make connections with the material that otherwise might not be there.

Level Three is the final section and the most intensive. These questions should challenge students to engage with the material and provide their own perspectives and opinions. Justifying, Evaluating and Rating topics and ideas allows students to make decisions and use supportive evidence.

This example requires students to know what the features are and use them in a realistic situation of justification. This question could be taken to another level, asking students to justify their hometown as a civilization or a fictional civilization. This realistic situation creates an authentic experience for learners to construct understandings.

Step 4: Prepare Students

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 content is included 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 answer 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. Its sole purpose is to scaffold the actual testing process for them.

Report abuse