Summative Assessment
The one true purpose of educational assessment is to correctly determine student understanding of the standards in focus and then to use those assessment results to inform, modify, adjust, enrich, and differentiate instruction to meet the learning needs of all students.
(Ainsworth, 2010, p. 137)
What is summative assessment?
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Thoughts to ponder about summative assessment |
6 Fundamental Steps to Using Assessment Results to Inform Instructional Decision-making:
1. Know your purpose: What exactly do you want to find out? What do you want the assessment to do? Why are you administering the assessment in the first place?
2. Determine the appropriate assessment that will accomplish your goals: What is the appropriate assessment format that will most likely provide the results you need.
3. Select or create an assessment: quality assessment items are constructed in a way to provide the teacher with information which allows for an accurate inference of a student's understanding.
4. Administer, score, and analyze the assessment and its results: while analyzing the results maintain your focus on the initial goals of the assessment.
5. Make an accurate inference.
6. Adjust instructional decision in a timely manner: what steps will you take for students as a result of the inferences you made.
(Ainsworth, 2010, p. 137-138)
By creating the end-of-unit assessment before designing the learning experiences, the instructional team can insure that the learning experiences are aligned to the student outcome goals based on the standards to be taught.
( Ainsworth, 2010, p. 147)
3 Major Assessment Formats
1. Selected response (multiple choice, true/false)
- Use distracters that are plausible and/or reflect common student mistakes/misconceptions.
- Use of such distracters increases the rigor of the questions.
2. Constructed response
- Use a scoring rubric that allows for scoring answers as advanced (shows understanding beyond standard), goal (shows understanding of the standard), progressing (meets 2 to 3 of the criteria required for the goal), and beginning (meets less than 2 of the criteria for achieving the goal).
3. Performance-based assessment (some type of performance or project)
- Use a scoring rubric similar to the one designed for constructed response items.
(Ainsworth, 2010, p. 147)
Suggested number of items or assessment questions
Grades K-1: five to six
Grades 2-3: eight to ten
Grades 4-5: ten to twelve
(Ainsworth, 2010, p. 150)
Summative Assessment Follow-up Task
Task 1: Take time to reflect on the information in this module. What questions do you still have regarding summative assessment? How do the summative assessments you use align with this information? Record your thoughts and be prepared to share with your PLC.
Task 2: Choose a summative assessment. In your next grade level PLC, discuss this assessment. How does it fit with the information in this portion of the learning module? How can you improve upon this assessment to better meet the purpose for which it was designed?
Discussion Guide
(TLMS 1e,2a, 3a, 3b, 3d, 7b)