Assessment Literacy Shirley Gilfether, Easthampton Public Schools

Director of Curriculum and Grants ManagementDESE Educator Evaluation Spring Convening

May 28 and 29, 2014Marlborough Conference Center

By PresenterMedia.com

1. Understanding growth vs. achievement teachers wanting to use final score on an assessment or final level on Benchmark Assessment System, BAS

Growth measures change in an individual student’s performance over time

Achievement can be thought of as a score/performance on a single assessment at a given time

Challenges with DDM Assessments – Growth vs. Achievement

Benchmark Assessment System, BAS

Achievement: Grade 1 students are expected to be reading at level H or I by the end of the year. Teachers wanted to set a growth scale as follows:

Growth: Establishes a baseline, then assesses the same skills again to measure growth over time. Teachers established a growth scale of steps gained on the BAS…..

Growth vs. Achievement - Example

Low Moderate High

Level G or below Levels H or I Level J or higher

Low Moderate High

3 or less levels 4-6 levels 7 or more levels

2. Establishing enough “variability” to measure growth elementary P.E. teachers wanting to use a scale for skill performance that only included 0, 1, 2 rating of the skill

Variability means having enough range in scores to establish a scale for growth

Challenges with DDM Assessments- Variability

Elementary Physical Education Teachers wanted to track growth in a single skill of skipping, which they said would be scored a 0 if they could not do, a 1 if they could do it but not consistently, and a 2 if they could do it consistently. But then for growth scale they hit a roadblock…..not enough variance.

First they needed more than one skill (movement) and they needed more of a range of scores. They went to hopping, skipping, and jumping and a score of up to 11 points.

Variability - Example

Low Moderate High

0 growth/no change Change of 1 Change of 2

Low Moderate High

< 4 point increase 4-6 point increase > 6 point increase

3. Determining the growth scale many teachers had difficulty establishing a growth scale and knowing what would be a fair “moderate growth” rating

Many teachers felt that someone else should be setting this for them

Some teachers felt that if the scale was set so most students earned moderate that it seemed like they were cheating

Challenges with DDM Assessments – Growth Scale

English Language Arts teachers that were using a rubric to score writing prompts had a maximum score of 20 points. In discussing possible scores on a baseline assessment they felt students might score from 0 to 16 on average. For growth they thought students might make 4-8 points improvement on average. So they set this scale….

Even after setting the scale, some teachers felt the rubric did not allow enough for growth (perhaps getting a 20 might not be all that unique). They wondered if the task allowed enough room for growth at the high end??

Growth Scale - Example

Low Moderate High

< 4 points improvement

4-8 points improvement

> 8 points improvement