- Find one example each of performance based, authentic, and portfolio assessments in your content area.
- List the examples with a title, the URL, and a brief explanation.
- Lastly, elaborate on how you could see yourself using this type of assessment in your own classroom.
- Read the posts from your peers to see if there is something you could learn from their discussion.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Alternative Assessments
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ReplyDeleteContent Area: Biology
ReplyDeleteAssessment Type: Performance
URL: http://web.mac.com/thompsonron/Site/Biology_Inquiry_Lab_Activities_files/AssesmentFish.pdf
Description: Students are given a fish that contracts. They must use the Scientific Method to figure out why the fish contracts.
My use: Performance Assessment is my 2nd favorite Alternative Assessment type because it is fun and EXCELLENT for science. Since I would like to teach biology, there are a number of ways I can use this. For instance, when teaching about common bacteria, I can ask students to conceive of and perform an experiment in which they find out how "dirty" their hands are.
Assessment Type: Authentic
URL: http://jonathan.mueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox/examples/tasks_highschool_biology.htm
Description: This is actually a website with a bunch of ideas for assignments. I read two of them and they are very entertaining. One is called "Immunity Skit" for which students are required to perform a skit that illustrates how the immune system works. Another is the "Bacteria Wanted" Poster for which students research an illness-causing bacteria and create a poster that depicts it as a "Most Wanted" character. The poster must include certain information like victims, description, and a "photo".
My Use: This is my favorite! I would do something very similar to what I found on this website. I would also have "real-life" problems for students to solve as well as questions that involve subject integration. For example, "If base incorporation into a strand of DNA is 100 bases/millisecond, how long would it take a DNA polymerase to complete a single strand of DNA composed of 3e6 bases?" (I plan on teaching high school biology).
Assessment Type: Portfolio
URL: Unavailable??
My Use: I would supplement some of the Performance and Authentic Assessments for Portfolio assessment. For example, if I have students make a model of a plant cell through a form of expression they are most comfortable with, I would want them to add this to their portfolio. Similarly, for the "Bacteria Wanted" Poster, I would have students add their poster.
The content area that I focused on was information literacy. The examples that I found in this brief time frame lead me to believe that, unfortunately, information literacy is rarely formally assessed before students reach college level.
ReplyDeletePERFORMANCE BASED
Rappahannock Community College Information Literacy Assessment
http://www.rcc.vccs.edu/public/library/assessment.html
Open-ended questions for self-assessment of a research project.
As a school librarian, I could use this type of assessment to help students evaluate how their research skills developed over the course of a project and what strategies resulted in successful research. It would also help me determine what part of my instruction is working and what can be improved.
AUTHENTIC
CSU Assessment Tasks
http://www.csupomona.edu/~kkdunn/Icassess/phase2tasks.htm
Examples of information literacy tasks accompanied by open-ended questions related to how students approach the tasks.
I could use these kinds of examples to see how think about the process of research before beginning a project. (Research is usually more successful if you have a plan!)
PORTFOLIO
Information Literacy Research Portfolio
http://www.minneapolis.edu/library/courses/infs1000/files/Research%20Portfolio.pdf
Research portfolio including documentation of how students searched for resources, how the resources support their research focus, and an evaluation of the resources’ credibility.
I could use a research portfolio to assess students’ research skills as well as help students develop search strategies and recognize pertinent and trustworthy resources.
Authentic Assessment-Acid Rain
ReplyDeleteThis lesson is designed to give students a firsthand view of the effects of acid rain on plants. They will work in groups and have a plant, it can be the one from the seed lesson. Then they will pour a mix of vinegar/water into the water supply of the plants. Students will monitor for a few weeks and be evaluated on following the process, following the scientific method for this experiment, recording data (can be a picture of what is happening to the plant, and a good conclusion/observation.
http://jonathan.mueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox/examples/tasks_elementary_science.htm
After clicking on the link, click on acid rain and plants to open up the word document.
This is also a neat way to actually show students what the effects of acid rain are. I would use this.
Portfolio Assessment-Systems of the Body
For this particular example the teacher is a 5th grade teacher who is covering the systems of the body including the muscular system and the skeletal. The students will be doing a working portfolio throughout the course of the unit. The teacher works with the students to determine what type of work will go in there. The teacher has the portfolio set up to be like a working "book report" that they will hand in at the end of the unit.
http://education.shu.edu/portfolios/AGarcia/portfolioassessment.html
I would use this in my class. Seems like it would make the topic more interesting to the students.
Performance Assessment-Plant Growth
Plant Growth Experiment
This assessment is a science experiment for 3-6th grade. The students hypothesized that planting more seeds in a cup would cause the plants to grow less when compared to a cup with only one seed. They planted the 2 cups and placed them by the window, watering them daily. For 2 weeks they would take a few minutes to draw a picture of the plant.
I think this experiment would allow students to observe plant growth and could lead into a lesson on photosynthesis. This would also teach them about the scientific method since they produced a hypothesis and have tested it. Overall this is a neat experiment and I would use it.
http://my.goenc.com/classroom/documents/?doc_type=doc&doc_id=4419&file_name=index.asp
Content Area - Middle School Science
ReplyDeletePerformance Assessment - Classify Acids and Bases with common household indicator
Students use cabbage indicator to identify the 'mystery' acidity of solutions
www.miamisci.org/ph/lpexamine2.html
While I will provide students with expectations and instructions, their ability to identify the unknown identity of the solutions will indicate their comprehension and application of the lesson on acids and bases. It will be a direct way of measuring whether or not they understand pH.
Authentic Assessment - Acid Precipitation
Students determine the acidity level of 4 bodies of water collected in 3/1995 and incer causes of acid rain.
http://pals.sri.com/tasks/5-8/AcidPrec/
Although I wonder if I would go on vacation to collect lake water for my classroom, I think this assessment is extremely effective in communicating with the students the causes and effects of acid rain. I can assess if they can explain how acid rain affects organisms in a lake.
Portfolio Assessment - Showcase portfolio on designing vehicles (mousetrap car, CO2 car, electrically powered vehicle, etc)
scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JOTS/v30/v30n1/pdf/beven.pdf
The creation of each vehicle is sure to excite the students, and this portfolio is definitely something that the students will be proud of. I am not sure if I can be as extensive as creating 3 different types of vehicles, but I like this portfolio in making the students practice what they learn through models.
Moniquetta - I particularly liked the immunity skit. I also had trouble finding portfolio assessments for science.
ReplyDeleteFrank - I think the plant growth experiment sounds intense, since it requires the students to track the progress of the plant.
Content Area: Reading
ReplyDeletePerformance-based Assessment
Performance Assessment for Reading by Adele Fiderer
Scholastic.com
http://teacher.scholastic.com/professional/assessment/readingassess.htm
This performance assessment involves selecting a text that students have not read. Then after the text has been read, instructors can implement a variety of writing assignments to have students expressed what they learned and understood from reading the text. These writing assignments vary based upon grade levels. For example, primary students will have to think about how they would retell the story by creating an outline. The outline can then be transferred into a “real” story written by the student (Fiderer). The rubric used to assess this writing activity is based out of 3, with the possibility of +/-. A 3 would be a complete response that satisfies all the relevant information. A 0 would require little or no response, and would be incomplete and irrelevant (Fiderer).
This would be useful to my instruction in an elementary setting, because reading and literacy can be expressed more in the library. Students need to see the library as a place to read, and this is the perfect place to "perform" such tasks, be it actual writing or performance.
Authentic Assessment
Alberta Assessment Consortium
http://www.aac.ab.ca/blog/2007/04/authentic-literacy-authentic-assessment.html
This authentic assessment tool uses blogs to promote reading and literacy. The teacher-librarian would propose a certain question ascertaining information regarding a specific event or theme that would occur in a story. The students can then post responses that they can defend and put into the context of the information that they just read. For example, “As you read each chapter in The Catcher in the Rye, look for answers to the question: What is wrong with Holden Caulfield? (adapted by Schmoker from Wiggins and McTighe)” (AAC, 2007).
This is a good example that I would use in my library, because it creates an on-going discussion especially for students at a primary level. It allows them to take one book, read each chapter carefully, and answer a question effectively. In the end, the student will have a full character analysis, in the context of the above example.
Portfolio Assessment
http://englishseven.com/readingportfolio/
This is site is someone’s personal reading portfolio headquarters, including instructions and faq’s. This is a “free form” place to create reading portfolios allowing students to use the Internet and whatever text they choose to read. It also allows them to create projects that fit their personal needs.
This would be useful for my instruction since I will have multiple students at different grade levels. It allows a little more freedom, and also allows students to work at their own pace. It’s an on-going event where students can see their own progress by submitting writings and other works relevant to literacy, but not always quantitative and strict.
Vivian- I like the acid/base experiment. Now that you brought it up it is one of the experiments I remember from being a kid.
ReplyDeleteMoniquetta- I like your personal idea about the bacteria test. Maybe that would make kids wash their hands more!
Content Area: Reading
ReplyDeleteAssessment Type: Performance Based
URL:http://teams.lacoe.edu/reading/assessments/assessments.html
Description: This site teaches word recognition through modeling to enhance reading skills such as fluency and reading rate. The more words a student recognizes the less breaks they have between words and will read faster.
Assessment Type: Authentic
URL:http://boeming.k12.wv.us/teachers/di/di_rubrics/authentic
This site gives you a lot of ideas of activities you could use to satisfy this assessment type.
I would use this site to help me generate some ideas and activities for my students. This would be helpful to me to learn this assessment type.
As an elementary teacher who will have the responsibily to teach reading the suggestions here could be very helpful.
Assessment Type: Portfolio
URL:http://www.carolhurst.com/profsubjects/portfolioassess.html
This site explains how you can use a porfolio to create/showcase different types of literature that students work on during the school year. For example, poetry, letters, stories, and journals.
Would use this to challenge students to become better writers and result in stronger readers.