Publications Look at Assessment, Standards

Assessment, one of the most powerful tools to improve teaching, is often overlooked, ignored, or neglected in classrooms from Bangor to Berkeley, note the authors of Assessment Strategies to Inform Science and Mathematics Instruction.

Teachers routinely use assessments for a variety of reasons, most often to assign grades and to report students’ progress to their parents. However, assessment’s real power—its ability to shape and direct classroom instruction—is frequently untapped.

"Using assessment to inform and improve instruction provides teachers with a powerful tool as they explore the alternative assessment arena," notes Kit Peixotto, Director of NWREL’s Mathematics and Science Education Center. "Embedded in instruction, assessment for this purpose requires a simultaneous focus on what students are doing and learning, and how teachers are guiding them and facilitating learning."

Assessment Strategies is intended for use by K-12 teachers. It is the latest in the It’s Just Good Teaching series produced by NWREL’s Mathematics and Science Education Center. Each of the publications includes a summary of research and current literature on the topic, a discussion of effective strategies, and an annotated listing of organizations and resources.

Research for Assessment Strategies included interviews with Northwest teachers. Their comments illustrate the ways in which they are thinking about and using assessment strategies to strengthen teaching and improve student learning.

The 34-page booklet provides information on using assessment to inform instruction, assessment strategies, and standardized testing. It notes that the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics identifies several key purposes for using assessment, including:

Monitoring students’ progress toward learning goals
Making instructional decisions based on student progress
Evaluating student achievement
Evaluating programs

"When assessment is used to guide instruction, it becomes another opportunity for learning, rather than an interruption," conclude the publication’s researchers and authors Denise Jarrett and Jennifer Stepanek. "Drawing on information from a variety of appropriate sources, teachers make decisions about instruction as learning proceeds. This complex process calls for advanced planning and an approach that includes inquiry and reflection."

It’s been nearly a decade since the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics published the Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics, initiating a new era in the quest for quality mathematics and science education for all students.

The publication was followed by Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics in 1991, and the Assessment Standards for School Mathematics in 1995. Then in 1996, the National Research Council published National Science Education Standards.

Each of these publications provided guidelines for what students should know and be able to do in mathematics and science. But if the standards are to have any value or make any impact, educators must put them into practice. "There is initial evidence that standards-based teaching can have a positive impact on student achievement," notes Jennifer Stepanek in Science and Mathematics Standards in the Classroom, another in NWREL’s It’s Just Good Teaching series. "The teaching strategies called for in the standards are closely tied to those of authentic pedagogy: instructional activities that involve active learning."

Such strategies place students in learning situations where they are solving complex problems and constructing meaning that is grounded in real-world experiences.

Yet standards-based teaching is far from universal in Pacific Northwest classrooms. Science and Mathematics Standards in the Classroom revisits the vision and rationale presented in the national standards documents and current literature on the topic. However, the report’s primary focus is on providing strategies and resources for implementing a standards-based teaching approach in the classroom.

The 30-page booklet includes a list of resources and bibliography that provide teachers with additional tools to implement standards-based strategies. It reviews and summarizes the standards and provides strategies for implementing them, including the new roles of students and teachers in the classroom, getting started, planning, selecting and designing tasks and units, facilitating discourse, and creating positive learning environments. The publication also discusses the need for professional development, peer support, assessment, and self-evaluation and reflective practice.

"The changes outlined in the mathematics and science standards are necessary if schools are to promote high expectations for all students," Stepanek concludes. "However, schools and classrooms cannot be transformed overnight. Standards-based teaching requires many changes and presents many challenges. Above all, teachers must have time and support to make these new practices their own."

For a copy of Science and Mathematics Standards in the Classroom or Assessment Strategies to Inform Science and Mathematics Instruction, visit the Mathematics and Science Education Center's Publications and Videos Web Page or the NWREL Products Catalog Online.