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January 15, 2002
Accountability: Meeting The Challenge With Technology (con'td)
Alternative Assessment
One area of tension that arises as educators focus on accountability and high-stakes testing is the discrepancy between what we can test and what we want students to learn. It is widely believed that the academic "basics" that make up a significant portion of the content standards in subjects such as reading and mathematics can be, at least partially, measured by good multiple-choice tests. But what of the other, harder-to-measure performance skills that also appear on virtually every list of state standards?
In their 2001 report, Key Building Blocks for Student Achievement in the 21st Century, the CEO Forum (www.ceoforum.org) outlined some of these crucial skills. "In the rapidly changing economy," they wrote, "there is a corresponding shift in the skills and abilities that students will need to thrive in the future. These 21st-century skills include digital literacy, inventive thinking, effective communication, teamwork, and the ability to create high-quality products."
Lots of attempts have been made in recent years to develop alternative assessment tools-many of them technology-based-although we still have a long way to go in this arena. Writing is probably the subject that has received the most attention from designers of performance-based assessments. Many states now include open-ended writing assignments as part of their mandated tests, and others are considering adding a writing component in the future.
 I advocate a balance between traditional and progressive. Yes, I want kids to do well on tests, but that includes the most important test of all: lifeı.I donıt want an airplane pilot who just did well on the written test (the traditional measure). I want a pilot who also did well in applying what was learned to wind shear, electrical failure, or mechanical failure.
ıIan Jukes, director, InfoSavvy Group |
Groups such as The National Center on Education and the Economy, with its New Standards project, have been working on large-scale performance assessments in other areas as well. Currently, Harcourt Educational Measurement offers NCEE's New Standards Reference Examinations in mathematics and English language arts-and other subjects are in development. These assessments include a mix of traditional test items and more open-ended performance tasks. For example, to test reading comprehension, students are asked to read a passage, answer several questions about it, and then use what they've read to write a short essay. Harcourt has also added performance sections to its Stanford 9 standardized tests in several subject areas and offers an electronic version of its writing assessment tool that can be taken online.
Most of the performance-based exams have, until recently, been scored by teams of human experts hired by testing companies such as Harcourt or the Educational Testing Service. However, pilot studies point the way to a time when widespread scoring as well as administration of such tests may be computer based. During the 1999-2000 school year, the Pennsylvania Department of Education worked on pilots of Internet-delivered reading and writing tests, both of which were scored electronically using Vantage Learning's IntelliMetric artificial intelligence engine. According to Vantage, which has been involved in partnerships with other organizations including the College Board and Edison Schools, the scores were not only instantly available for students and educators to use, they also were comparable in reliability and accuracy to those produced by expert scorers. And at least one testing company, the pioneering Northwest Evaluation Association, has offered customizable online versions of its evaluation tool (Measures of Academic Progress; MAP) for the past couple of years and may very well be paving the way for the more traditional testing companies.
Long before we see computers completely taking over the task of student assessment, however, we can expect to find technology playing a larger and larger role in supporting educators at conducting such assessment themselves. In many districts, for example, digital portfolios are becoming a standard way to show student progress on performance standards.
In Mamaroneck, N.Y., one elementary school is using the portfolio approach to get a closer look at literacy skills that are measured more superficially by traditional tests. Working with consultant David Niguidula (www.ideasconsulting.com), K-3 teachers make digital voice recordings, at several points during the year, of children reading aloud. Each recording is saved into the child's portfolio, along with the text being read and the teacher's comments about the child's performance-offering a helpful tool for the teacher to measure progress and demonstrate it to parents.
One company has just announced a commercial product that uses handheld devices to conduct this sort of reading assessment. With Wireless Generation's early reading diagnostics tool, students read print passages aloud while a teacher follows along, making annotations on a handheld screen that displays the same passage along with easy-to-use, pull-down choices to indicate areas where a child is having difficulty. The results are then beamed to a desktop computer, which generates a wide range of reports for educators and parents.
Another important way in which technology is playing a big role in improving assessment is in the area of professional development. Lisa Holmes, principal at the Oakesdale School District in the state of Washington, explains that her district has had great success using scoring guides developed by Bernajean Porter Consulting in conjunction with NCREL. The scoring is done offline with the technology being used not only to track progress but to guide the collaborative evaluation process. Organizations ranging from the nonprofit Annenberg Institute for School Reform to such industry giants as NCS Pearson and the Educational Testing Service offer additional online resources and discussion groups to help educators who want to improve their ability to conduct performance-based assessments (see directory).
Online professional development and collaboration is likely to become even more widespread as Internet bandwidths increase. In the Grossmont Union High School District in California, for example, educators are exploring the benefits of an internal high-bandwidth network and an evolving statewide network. Assistant superintendent Warren Williams believes that one of the most exciting applications of the new technology is that it allows teachers at distributed sites to work together on performance assessment. In one project, teachers are learning how to evaluate public speaking-an important part of state language standards but rarely tested because these skills are so difficult to measure. Using digitized examples, teachers grade student speeches against a rubric, view how expert speech teachers rated the same example, and repeat the process with a number of speeches until they are proficient at the evaluation process.
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