Traditional Assessment

Vocabulary

• High-Stakes Testing
• ELL
• standardized testing
• norm-referenced testing
• institutionalized testing

Why is traditional assessment inappropriate for ELL students?

Write a 3 paragraph essay in response to this prompt:

If you were traveling west in a Conestoga wagon, what would your life be like?

Biased because:

• It does not evaluate student's writing ability.
• Advantage given to those who have American perspective of exploration.
• Assesses students' familiarity with mainstream culture and U.S. history
• Test questions like this one create obstacles to revealing ELL skills.

Teachers, pressured to make linguistically diverse students produce certain scores, spend much class time on preparing for exams.

Standardized Tests VS. Authentic Assessment

Educational Assessment = procedures used to gather information about what students or others know and are able to demonstrate.

Formative assessments

Summative evaluation

Students new to U.S. schools must be overtly taught school's expectations, and culture.

Standardized testing measures discrete items and fragmented components of language

Authentic Assessments

Examples of Authentic Assessments

• Drawings
• Audio or video recordings
• Checklists
• Timelines
• Learning Logs

Types of Authentic Assessment, p. 2

• Reflection journals
• Anecdotal records
• Observation records
• Venn diagrams
• Projects

Types of Authentic Assessment, p. 3

• Charts
• Informal assessments
• Self-evaluation
• Peer evaluation
• Teacher/student notes on progress

Types of Authentic Assessment, p. 4

• Portfolios
• Holistic Writing Rubrics
• KWL charts
• Concept maps depicting learning
• Any performance indicator demonstrating academic level of performance

Importance of Questioning

Guidelines for Questioning

• Ask one question at a time.
• Word the question to align with lesson vocabulary
• Allow ample response time; then, rephrase question
• Return to students later if they cannot answer
• Tolerate mistakes, model structures, repeat

Assessment Modifications for ELLs

If you adapted textbook content, then adapt available tests.

Design curriculum with objectives and essential learning goals, followed by assessments.
Plan activities last.

Testing Modifications

• Extended wait time for question processing
• Allow dictionaries, both English-English & home language-English
• Quiet environment option with bilingual or ESL teacher present
• Allow student to have test directions in native language

Use Rubrics to Assess Writing

• Do not compare to native English speakers
• Reflects skills of particular importance at given stage of learning 
• Correspond to quantifiable aspect of student's learning
• Demonstrate how a particular product meets or does not meet requirements
• Provide a model to set a certain high-quality standard

Discussion Q & A

• Describe differences between formative and summative evaluation
• Think of a learning objective, activity and assessment instrument to use
• How will you use this instrument to guide your teaching?

Discussion Q & A

• Design a summative assessment for learning objective and activities
• What determination could you make after giving students your summative eval
• How would your summative instrument be a true assessment of learning gains?
• After giving an assignment, you see one student has plagiarized another. 
• A student looks at another's paper during an exam.

Scenarios

• WHAT DO YOU DO?
• After giving an assignment, you see one student has plagiarized another.
• A student looks at another's paper during an exam.