October 1998 Two New Bibliographies Added to Assessment Series
T he assessment of oral communication skills—speaking and listening—has traditionally lagged behind that of other subject areas. Effective oral communication is interactive, so it is difficult to assess the quality of a speaker out of the context of the listeners. Collecting information can also be challenging, and performances don’t result in tangible, written products that can be taken away and assessed later.
The most recent addition to NWREL’s Innovative Assessment series, the Bibliography of Assessment Alternatives: Oral Communication, offers help to educators searching for tools to assess communication competence. The entries include descriptions of assessment instruments and related articles, and are intended to provide suggestions and spark ideas.
Among the bibliography’s 42 entries are:
- Oral Communication Evaluation—English 30/33, Activities and Scoring Guides. Alberta Education. (AL#400.3ALBORC2). This document assesses oral communication competence at the high school level with a number of performance-based tasks such as voice interpretation of a poem, small-group discussion, prepared speech, and seminar. Students are assessed on three traits (interaction, comprehension strategies, and vocabulary and language use) on a scale of one to five.
- Speaking—Assessment and Instruction, Training Materials Grades 3 and 5 and Grades 8 and 10. Oregon Department of Education. (AL#450.3SPEASI). This set of materials provides an explanation of state speaking standards and includes a timeline for the Oregon State Speaking Assessment, the Official Speaking Scoring Guide that was adopted by the state board of education in 1996, speaking benchmarks by grade level, score sheets for taped student speeches, questions and answers related to speaking assessment, and student language-scoring guides. "Student-friendly" versions of the scoring guides are also provided.
- Leading Class Discussions Which Evaluate Students’ Oral Performance. Steven A. Rollman. (AL#460.6LEACLD). This practical paper offers guidelines for effectively using peer evaluations and discussion of presentations. It is not an assessment in itself, but it discusses conditions that must be in place for successful peer assessment to take place.
- English Profiles Handbook: Assessing and Reporting Students’ Progress in English. Ministry of Education and Training, Victoria, Australia. (AL#400.3ENGPRH). Designed for informal classroom use, this handbook describes student proficiency in speaking, reading, and writing in terms of developmental continua. Nine "bands" are used to describe clusters of behavior from the least sophisticated to the most sophisticated. The booklet also provides tips on how to make and record observations, suggests classroom tasks in which teachers might make their assessments, and discusses ways to promote consistency in judgments between teachers.
The updated and expanded Bibliography of Assessment Alternatives: Science contains 146 articles and assessment tools, including performance assessments at the classroom, state, national, and international levels; portfolios; technical innovations; research about assessments; and current thinking about what should be assessed. Electronic resources such as discussion groups and Internet "bulletin boards" are also provided. Entries include:
- The Collaborative Development of Science Assessments: The SCASS Experience. Council of Chief State School Officers. (AL#600.3COLDES). A consortium of 14 states convened to develop assessments in science, and this product is the result. For middle school students, it contains modules (including a scenario with six follow-up questions, a short-answer question, and an extended-response question), performance events (kit-based activities), and performance tasks (individual projects that occur outside the classroom with some class time used in support). Portfolios designed for grades four, eight, and 10 contain four types of entries (experimental research, nonexperimental research, creative, and written).
- Performance Assessment Workshops in Mathematics and Science. Robert Everett. (AL#600.6PERASW2). These training materials were developed to help K-8 teachers use performance assessments in math and science. Science process skills are assessed using a holistic, five-point, generic rubric that covers problem solving, reasoning, process skills, communication, connections, and content knowledge.
- Standards & Assessment Resource Bank, Version 2.0. Colorado Department of Education. (AL#000.3STAASR). This CD-ROM includes more than 40 teacher-developed classroom units and assessments aligned to the Colorado State Model Content Standards. Designed to support the implementation of standards-based education, it also contains information about the Colorado Student Assessment Program, standards developed by two Colorado school districts, and details of district assessments.
- EXEMPLARS—A Teacher’s Solution: Science Preview Kit, Science Volume 1, Number 2, March 1997. EXEMPLARS. (AL#600.3EXETES). This bank of constructed-response science tasks for grades K-8 is keyed to several national sets of content standards to help teachers implement standards-based assessment. Tasks require the use of manipulatives, and most responses are written or pictorial. A general, four-trait rubric is provided to score student work, and each trait is scored using a four-point scale: novice, apprentice, practitioner, and expert. The material makes rich connections and contains scored samples of student work, task-specific renderings of the general criteria, and instructional tips for students at each level.
Educators in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington can borrow the articles and instruments described in the bibliographies free for three weeks from the NWREL Assessment Resource Library. Users in other states will be charged a handling fee. For more information, contact Matthew Whitaker by phone at (503) 275-9582 or 1-800-547-6339, ext. 582, or by e-mail at arl@nwrel.org. When inquiring about specific entries, please be sure to refer to the call number (AL#) following the description.
The bibliographies are available online as PDFs at http://www.nwrel.org/assessment/library.asp?library=1&al=2#tip. To order copies of either bibliography, please go to the Document Order Form.
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