Activity 3.7


Chickens and Pigs:
Language and Assessment

Purposes:

1. To increase awareness of how language and experience can influence assessment results

2. To gain expertise about equity issues and considerations when designing, using, and interpreting assessments

Uses:

This is an awareness level activity that can be used in Chapter 1 to illustrate potential sources of bias and distortion, or in Chapter 3 as an opener for a much deeper examination of the interaction of culture, language, and assessment.

Rationale:

This awareness activity emphasizes the critical role that language and culture play in effective and equitable assessments. It calls attention to a sometimes hidden dimension of equity in assessment-different meanings for the same term when interpreted in English and another language. Participants consider a common mathematics assessment task and generate their own ideas about language issues that arise when an assessment is used across languages and cultures. It is intended to prompt individual and small group reflection of this and similar issues.

Materials:

Overheads A3.7,O1-Chickens and Pigs Purposes, A3.7,O2-Chickens and Pigs: Language and Assessment(this can also be used as a handout), and A3.7,O3-Discussion Questions

Time Required:

10-20 minutes

Facilitator's Notes:

1. (2 minutes) Use Overhead A3.7,O1-Chickens and Pigs Purposes to introduce the purpose of the activity.

2. (5-10 minutes) Tell a story from your own experience (or use one of the stories below) regarding an equity issue that was hidden or difficult to recognize. Ask participants to consider a possible problem in the task that might prevent teachers from getting an accurate picture of students' learning, or which limits children's ability to portray their learning well. Here are three possible stories to get things started:

a. Briefly introduce the Chickens and Pigs; task (A3.7,O2-Chickens and Pigs: Language and Assessment) and identify it as a sample from early NCTM work designed to help teachers use a standards-based rubric to score student problem-solving responses.

Show the task and call attention to the specific language problem that exists for some children and teachers. The following story from professional development work with teachers in Ulithi Atoll in the state of Yap, Federated States of Micronesia, can be used:

Hoping to help teachers clarify what they value about student problem solving, and then build criteria from the key qualities of fine work identified in their small group discussions, the Chickens and Pigs task was given to all. Teachers began examining the task and some sample student responses. Discussing the task in their own language, puzzled faces turned to the facilitator and a senior member of the group asked if she realized that the word for legs in their language included both the legs and wings of a chicken! A lively discussion ensued about possible hidden factors that can mask student capabilities and understanding.

b. A similar story comes from the city of Chicago. This time it's not language that blocks quality assessment, but the context and experience of the learners:

On a statewide assessment, children were asked to identify the number of legs on a chicken. Children from rural communities had no trouble providing the expected answer-two. City children, whose experience of chickens rested solely on those found in frozen packages in the grocery store, responded four. When questioned, the children said that all the chickens they'd seen had four legs showing in the package.

c. Another example is a test item about birds sitting on a fence. Once again, context and experience blocked quality assessment, and in fact, the answer expected by the test developers was incorrect when examining the realities of rural life:

Four birds were sitting on a fence. A farmer threw a stone that hit one of the birds. How many birds were left on the fence?

(Every farm child knew that if there was a stone thrown toward the fence, no matter how many birds were hit, all would fly away and none would remain.)

3. (5-10 minutes) Ask participants to think of a time when they encountered a similar problem. Have participants examine the task (individually or in small groups) and discuss potential problems for students whose language and culture are not the same as that of the task developers. Use all or a few of the questions that follow (or create your own) to prompt individual reflection and then discussion (see Overhead A3.7,O3)