Assessment lit presentation
October 29, 2007 at 8:57 pm | In Uncategorized | 8 CommentsSince Lifang’s and Demet’s presentation go together like PB & J, let’s comment on a single thread here. I’ll kick it off with links to that school I mentioned, Eagle Rock….
And to review the materials from the presentations, they are:
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As I mentioned in class, (a) K-12 assessments are behaviorist, (b) undergrad and grad assessments get much more constructivist, but (c) there’s an interesting high school in Estes Park, CO that’s worth keeping an eye on: Eagle Rock. Check out their page on assessment at Eagle Rock, for example.
Comment by tchammond — October 29, 2007 #
In your presentation you mentioned essays as a behaviorist assessment, I am not sure how this can be behaviorist? As I understand it, bevahiorists seem to settle for the one route where multiple answers aren’t an option. Essays tend to do that. Can someone enlighten me on this issue as a behaviorist perspective? I think it would be more of a constructivist approach.
Comment by Alex Rolón — October 31, 2007 #
Good question. The key concepts of the behaviorist assessment include that student can individually demonstrate his/her content mastery to an acceptable standard. Behaviorist believes student perform under standardized conditions of performance. Therefore, behaviorist assessment generally emphasizes traditional measurement such as items, quizzes, tests and exams etc…
On the other hand, constructivist assessment addresses application and is often team-based. More importantly, the constructivist assessment is generally complying with context learning process.
Essays measurement can be used by both behaviorist and constructivist. With behaviorist principles, a better essay items design should focus on measuring on intended cognitive level. As we all know, cognitive levels include knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. For example, a behaviorist assay item designed for knowledge level would be “In a brief essay, describe the five types of collateral damage that occur in battles.” (The ideas and this example come from Dr. Cates’ instruction materials).
Comment by Lifang Chang — October 31, 2007 #
I checked out the Eagle Rock page, and I would love to see an actual example(s). It seems like it could be a good mix of behaviorist and constructivist methods.
As far as the general discussion goes… I think that to really benefit the students (of all ages) there needs to be a combination of behaviorist and constructivist assessment. There are just some things that need to be learned and learned well over time, especially at the younger grades, and are best assessed through standard MC, TF, etc., especially since this type of assessment is a quick guage of student understanding. Then as the student matures, challenge them with a more constructivist approach of application. I’m not saying it works that way every time, but I think a good mix of both approaches is very valuable.
Comment by Trish — November 3, 2007 #
Trish is right – a combination of both types of assessment are needed. In elementary math classes, there is a strong emphasis on memorizing math facts. This is important because in order to begin solving complex math equations and problems later on the math facts have to be memorized. Imagine trying to do something as relatively easy as long division if you have to stop and figure out the answers to every math fact along the way! Students are also learning lots of other “memorized” stuff like what sound does the letter “a” make, common spelling patterns, parts of speech, etc. These things lend themselves to behaviorist assessments. They then become the foundation on which higher level concepts can be discussed, written about, read about, and hopefully understood. At that time constructivist assessments become more useful to gauge real understanding of concepts/content and its application to real world situations/problems. Depending on the content area this can begin in the primary grades or may not happen until the later elementary years – at least on a small scale. From my own experience it wasn’t until college (and then grad school) that constructivist assessments became the “norm.”
Comment by Terri Miquel — November 4, 2007 #
I agree with Terri that during earlier grade level, memorization, practice are the first criteria in the learning process. Behaviorist assessment tools include in elementary level like true/false questions, multiple choice questions for social studies and practice test for language and math based on memorization. From middle school level to high school or college level, constructivist assessment tools are practically suited to social studies, language art class, science class, but mathematics class is not so constructivist assessment oriented, particularly in middle school level.
Comment by Jhumur — November 5, 2007 #
To provide a concrete example to respond to Alex’s question: I just read an article on GIS in a high school history class, and came across the following: “In the past, I had the students generate 10 or so questions about the topic that could only be answered using the GIS product. With the 1860 project, I challenged the students to prove or disprove the hypothesis that the South had little or no chance of successfully breaking free and establishing an independent nation.” So: We just saw a quick description of two modes of summative assessment. In one, the students wrote the questions (sounds pretty constructivist to me), and in the other the teacher presented the question and students had to answer it–more closed-ended, and hence more behaviorist. And to engage the comments from Trish and Terri, I think I like the closed-ended question better–I think it’s a better fit with the content and the tool than the first option. The first option tells you more about students’ understanding of the tool, but in a history class what I really care about is students’ understanding of the content. And to underscore what Jhumur said, this is pretty good for a social studies class: a pretty poor assessment of students’ comprehension of this topic would be some mult choice or T/F questions about it; this essay is far superior to that.
Comment by tchammond — November 5, 2007 #
I think it is interesting to think that it seems like younger learners are evaluated using more behaviorist methods and as students get older teachers evaluate with the constructivist assessment methods to reach the higher levels of questioning from blooms taxonomy. I agree with others comments. I definitely feel that it is important for students of all ages to be tested using both methods to stretch learning for all types of students including the “behaviorist” good test takers and the creative cats. If students are better with one assessment (behaviorist or constructivist) then it is good for the teacher to test them to other way to challenge students.
Comment by Becky Doersam — November 5, 2007 #