Summative classroom assessments will not only measure students' learning, they will also affect students' learning. In three short paragraphs, describe three different ways in which they might do so.
What will be an ideal response?
Ques. 2Imagine that, as a teacher, you are administering a high-stakes achievement test to your students. You have three English language learners in your class,
none of whom knew English before immigrating to this country: Franois (who immigrated 9 months ago and is now getting individual tutoring in English); Mei-Li (who immigrated 3 years ago and spent the first 2 years in a bilingual education program); and Maria (who immigrated 7 years ago and is now doing well in her English-only classes). Given what you've learned about the amount of time it typically takes for children to master English as a second language, which of these students has/have probably acquired sufficient knowledge of English to earn valid scores on the high-stakes test?
a. None of them
b. Only Maria
c. Both Mei-Li and Maria
d. All three of them
Ques. 3. Given what you have learned about the strengths and weaknesses of various forms of classroom assessment, which one of the following is probably the most appropriate course of action for teachers to take?
a. Use assessment instruments with either high or low validity as long as they have high reliability.
b. Use assessment instruments with either high or low reliability as long as they have high validity.
c. Interpret assessment results within the context of other information that teachers have about students.
d. Engage in as little formal assessment as possible; teachers are better off making subjective judgments about students' achievement.
Ques. 4When teachers feel strong pressure to increase their students' scores on particular standardized tests, they often focus instruction on knowledge and skills they know the test covers. In other words, they teach to the test.
Teaching to the test is typically in students' long-term best interests only if the test
a. Measures scholastic aptitude in particular subject domains rather than general intelligence
b. Includes both paper-pencil and performance items
c. Measures things that are important for students' ultimate success in the world
d. Is both reliable and practical
Ques. 5Which one of the following is an example of accountability as educators most often use the term?
a. Asking test publishers to justify the specific items they include on their standardized achievement tests
b. Reporting standardized test results only within the context of information about the confidence interval for each test score
c. Making teachers' pay raises contingent on their students' standardized test scores
d. Making sure that a standardized achievement test is a good reflection of the local school curriculum
Ques. 6. In the United States the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 mandates three of the following. Which one does it not mandate?
a. States must determine knowledge and skills that students should reasonably acquire at various grade levels.
b. By high school, students must demonstrate knowledge of the structure and general policies of the U.S. government.
c. States must regularly assess students' academic progress during the upper elementary and middle school grades.
d. Schools that do not demonstrate progress are subject to certain sanctions (e.g., administrative restructuring, dismissal of faculty members).
Ques. 7The mathematics teachers at a large high school want to use a test that will help them select students who could benefit from an accelerated math class that will include advanced algebra and calculus.
Which kind of test is probably most suitable for this purpose?
a. A mathematics aptitude test
b. A school readiness test
c. A general intelligence test
d. A standardized test that assesses students' automaticity for basic arithmetic facts
Ques. 8Which one of the following is most likely to be what educators refer to as a standardized test?
a. Ms. Argon's students are taking a test asking them to find the diameter, circumference, and area of a circle with a radius of 5 centimeters; Ms. Argon wants to find out if her students know this material well enough to proceed on to spheres.
b. Mr. Basili's students are taking a multiple-choice test, developed by a testing company, that assesses students' knowledge of language, mathematics, and logic; scores on the test have been shown to predict college success with some degree of accuracy.
c. Mr. Conway's fifth graders are taking a test of mathematical word problems requiring addition and subtraction. Mr. Conway has instructed his students to work as quickly as they can so he can get an idea of whether they have developed automaticity in their ability to solve such problems.
d. Mr. Delano's eighth graders are taking an objective test over what they have learned in their geography unit on Asia. Students are marking their answers on a bubble sheet with a number two pencil so that Mr. Delano can have the school district's computer center score the tests for him.
Ques. 9Three of the following statements are accurate with regard to the advantages of portfolios. Which statement is false?
a. Portfolios are useful for promoting self-evaluation skills.
b. Portfolios can reflect the complex nature of students' achievement.
c. Portfolios provide a means through which instruction and assessment can be easily integrated.
d. As a means of summarizing students' achievement, portfolios have greater practicality than final grades.
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