7. Assessment

The competent teacher understands and uses appropriate formative and summative assessments for determining student needs, monitoring student progress, measuring student growth, and evaluating student outcomes. The teacher makes decisions driven by data about curricular and instructional effectiveness and adjusts practices to meet the needs of each student.

Artifact 1: Arts Integration Project & Rubric

Rubric.pdf

Arts Integration in Education: Project Description and Rubric

Description of Artifact

In a course on Arts Integration in Education (AEDU202), I developed a project and rubric to assess students’ knowledge of the first three chapters of our course text Creating Meaning Through Literature and the Arts by Claudia Cornell. The assessment is designed to use the arts in order to assess students’ knowledge of this chapter, by having them complete a project using the visual arts, drama, dance, music or the literary arts. My project offers students a choice of 5 different prompts, one in each area of the arts. However, I created one comprehensive rubric to assess all of the projects (no matter the prompt) and ask students to self-evaluate their work in a column provided. The rubric has 8 criteria with clear descriptors of each along with a 1-3 scale with descriptors for evaluating students’ proficiency in each area. In addition, the project includes a timeline for working on the project as well as checklist to be completed before submitting the assignment. The overall goal of the project and rubric is to show how arts integrated classrooms can lead to assessments that are creative, innovative and unique.

Standards Connection

The IPTS performance indicator 7K states that “The competent teacher appropriately uses a variety of formal and informal assessments to evaluate the understanding, progress, and performance of an individual student and the class as a whole.” This assignment demonstrates that I am able to create formal assessments that evaluate not only student’s understanding of a topic but their ability to demonstrate their understanding using one of the areas of the arts. The project overview, prompts and rubric show how a simple reading assignment on a chapter can become an interesting, creative project for students by integrating the arts into the assessment design. The rubric section of the project works to demonstrate IPTS performance indicator 7L which states “The competent teacher involves students in self-assessment activities to help them become aware of their strengths and needs and encourages them to establish goals for learning.” The rubric I created has a section where students are asked to evaluate their project using the same criteria as the teacher. It is important that students take an active role in their learning. By taking ownership of their work by evaluating it themselves, they are asked to engage in critical self-reflection to determine things they did well and areas they need to improve. This rubric provides them with the ability to engage in that process and compare their evaluation with that of the teacher. Finally, while this project does assess students’ knowledge, it also works to evaluate their progress and determine areas where they may be struggling before moving forward with more challenging material.

Reflection

Through this assignment, I learned how to design an arts-integrated project to assess student progress and outcomes. Before this assignment, I had only considered how teachers could not only integrate the arts into their teaching, but never into their assessments. This project and rubric show that the arts are not only a tool for learning, but one in which students can demonstrate what they have learned. Our classrooms can foster creativity and innovation in many ways. Through this project I learned how our assessments can help foster these qualities in our students as well.

Artifact 2: Online Assessment & Analysis of Results

Test Analysis Chapter 5.pdf

Link to Assessment Analysis

Description of Artifact

I developed an assessment that tests students knowledge of Ch. 5 of the textbook Educational Psychology (12th ed., 2013) by Anita Woolfolk. The test is designed with Bloom’s Taxonomy Levels of thinking skills in mind. There are 8 multiple choice questions and 2 essay questions that are at the application level or higher. The test was made easily accessible for students by using Google Forms. After I created the assessment, I asked other students in my class to take it. I used the data to assess and grade their performance for trends, and to identify correlations. I compiled several charts using the data to map both individual student data as well as entire class results, including information like the mean, median, z-score, etc. I also included a detailed analysis of the assessment results, and details regarding how this data will affect my future teaching.

Standards Connection

The Illinois Professional Teaching Standard 7K states that “The competent teacher appropriately uses a variety of formal and informal assessments to evaluate the understanding, progress, and performance of an individual student and the class as a whole.” This test creation/analysis project demonstrates my ability to create formal assessments for use in the classroom. Moreover, this project provides an example of how I am able to create assessments that test my students’ higher-order thinking skills. The analysis section of this project works to demonstrate Illinois Professional Teaching Standard 7M which states that “The competent teacher maintains useful and accurate records of student work and performance.” In this assignment, I kept records using Google Spreadsheets and created tables to analyze student and class performance data. This project also demonstrates my ability to use technology to best conduct the assessment and display the results of the assessment, in accordance with the Illinois Professional Teaching Standard 7O which states that “The competent teacher effectively uses appropriate technologies to conduct assessments, monitor performance, and assess student progress.” Finally, the analysis of the results and overall trends in the results of this assessment demonstrate how I can use assessment data to tailor instruction towards individual students and the class as a whole.

Reflection

Through this assignment, I learned how to create questions that specifically address the upper levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. I had never looked at tests I had taken in this way in the past and will be able to use this knowledge to create more well-informed exams in the future. I also came to a better understanding of students preferred assessment styles. Many of my test-takers struggled with the multiple choice questions but were able to demonstrate in-depth understanding of concepts in the essay-style questions. This emphasized the importance of exams having a variety of question styles and how teachers must carefully consider the weight different types of questions hold for students overall scores. Finally, this assignment also gave me a deeper understanding of how to apply statistical principles to formal assessments.

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