May 1998 Assessment Toolkit Grows in Size, Content
T he new toolkit on classroom assessment is out, and it’s bigger and better than ever. The new edition of this popular resource is loaded with ideas, insights, information, and instruments to help teachers understand and use cutting-edge assessment strategies. Aimed at trainers who lead or coordinate professional development and inservice sessions for classroom practitioners, the two-volume compendium is a 1,200-page trove of the most current findings and approaches to blending assessment with instruction to improve student outcomes.
First published in 1995 by the national network of regional educational laboratories, Improving Classroom Assessment: A Toolkit for Professional Developers has been employed by state education departments, school districts, and labs around the country in a variety of training formats. For example:
- A struggling district in Wyoming used the toolkit for large-scale staff development as part of an effort to upgrade instruction districtwide
- The state of Florida repackaged major portions to use for training throughout the state
- The Maryland Assessment Consortium held a training of trainers last year to encourage use of the toolkit in staff-development activities
- Teacher Karen Arter in San Diego used the toolkit as the centerpiece for several teacher trainings within her district cluster
The 1998 edition, substantially revised, reorganized, and updated, differs from the original version in several ways, says NWREL’s Judy Arter, who led the interlaboratory team that developed the toolkit. Unlike the first edition, which focused on math and science, Toolkit98 embraces all content areas, including reading, writing, speaking, and social studies. Two dozen new sample assessments have been added in these and other areas, such as critical thinking and group skills. Many new training activities (complete with overheads, handouts, and presenter’s outlines) have been put in, several have been revised, and a few have been tossed out, for a total of nearly 40 activities. Samples of student work in various grade levels and subjects are another addition.
Navigation of the huge compendium has been simplified, too, according to Arter.
"We’ve added features such as sidebars, extra tabs, and new footers to help folks find what they want more quickly and easily," she says. "And we’ve worked on the writing style—the "voice" —to make it even friendlier and more inviting than the previous edition."
Volume One of Toolkit98 contains text and professional development activities organized into four chapters:
Chapter 1: Standards-Based Assessment—Nurturing Learning. This chapter begins with current thinking about standards-based instruction and the role of ongoing assessment of student skills and knowledge to inform practice. It then offers a quick survey of what it means to assess well, examining high quality for all kinds of assessment, from the classroom to the boardroom, from multiple choice to portfolios. It explores the reasons that changes in assessment are taking place, discusses purposes of assessment, looks at the need for clear student learning targets, and provides help with deciding when alternative assessment should be used.
Chapter 2: Integrating Assessment with Instruction. The goal of this chapter is to assist the reader in understanding the various ways that development and use of assessment can affect and enhance instruction. It helps readers build a vision of how performance assessments can be useful instructional tools if properly designed.
Chapter 3: Designing High-Quality Assessments. What’s out there and how good is it? This chapter provides a summary and analysis of current alternative assessment efforts and a discussion of when to use various designs. It presents guidelines for developing or choosing high-quality alternative assessments, illustrating the points with samples from real assessment instruments.
Chapter 4: Grading and Reporting—A Closer Look. This chapter discusses the issues of why, whether, and how teachers should grade students, and looks at ways other than grades |to report student progress.
Each chapter includes a collection of readings and related professional-development activities.
Volume Two contains supplemental resource material needed for various training activities arranged in five appendices. The materials include a sampler of alternative assessments from nearly 50 projects at all grade levels; samples of student responses to various performance tasks; papers and articles about grading and reporting; sample training agendas that illustrate how various activities in the toolkit could be sequenced; and a glossary of assessment-related terms.
"The materials in the toolkit are like hammers, saws, and screwdrivers," says Arter. "They are mix and match; the user must choose the parts that will accomplish what is needed. When used creatively and with other necessary elements, the tools can build a useful and successful professional development experience."
To order Toolkit98, please print and return this issue's Order Form.
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