An Important Reminder…

1. An Important Reminder… • Assessment drives Instruction • It is vital to remember that instructional decisions are made to accommodate the student’s level of performance • Teachers must have data to determine what strengths and needs students have in order to plan for effective instruction

2. Assessment and Literacy • Purposes for Assessment • To establish a baseline for measuring future progress • To determine the effect of a particular intervention on student learning • To diagnose/identify a particular area of need to that appropriate special services may be provided • To establish the existence of specific areas of delayed or advanced performance • Placement of a student in a particular program

3. Assessment and Literacy • How is reading assessed? • Standardized • Norm-referenced test (NRT) • Criterion-referenced test (CRT) • Portfolio • Running records • Formal • Informal • High Stakes

4. Assessment and Literacy • How is writing assessed? narrative (sentence…paragraph…essay) cause/effect (statements…essays) comparison/contrast (statements…essays) definition statements description (statements…essays) persuasive statements…essays) process analysis statements letters forms technology forms

5. Assessment and Literacy • How is speaking & listening assessed? • essential vocabulary – labeling environment & people correctly • giving and receiving messages • describing experiences • articulating needs, opinions • acting on oral directions of others • giving oral directions to others • using social modulation in oral statements • testimony

6. Informal Reading Inventories • assessment of word recognition ability – flashed and un-timed • assessment of student comprehension for differing types of comprehension • Literal - general understanding of content • Inferential – reading between the lines • Critical – making a judgment or evaluation • Creative – extending text

7. Types of comprehension questions • Literal – answer is a restatement of text • Inferential – “reading between the lines” • Critical – reader must make a judgment • Creative – an extension of the text message

8. Levels of Comprehension • INDEPENDENT • reader understands 99% of vocabulary and 90% of comprehension questions • INSTRUCTIONAL • reader understands 90% of vocabulary and 75% of comprehension questions • FRUSTRATION • reader understands less than 90% of vocabulary and less than 75% of comprehension questions • CAPACITY • reader understands at least 75% of comprehension questions

9. What is the value of getting regular assessment data? • provides a way to target instruction to be compatible with comprehension levels • provides a way to target instruction for varying issues of vocabulary and word recognition • guides grouping of students • guides assignments sent home or to be done independently

10. What is “authentic” assessment? • Criteria • Real life tasks • Student control of task • Leads to student ownership and responsibility for thinking

11. Important Components of Assessment • Validity • Does the test assess what it says it assesses? • Reliability • Do test results prove useful and correct over time?

12. Types of Errors • Miscues • Omissions • Substitutions • Insertions • Pronunciation (including repetitions) • Self-corrections • DO NOT ALTER OR DISTORT MEANING • I HAD DINNER AT JOHN’S HOUSE • “I had dinner at John’s home”

13. Types of Errors • Actual Errors • Distortions of meaning that prevent the reader from accurately or fluently gaining an understanding of the message of the text. • I HAD DINNER AT JOHN’ HOUSE • “I had dinner at John’s horse”

14. PORTFOLIO ASSESSMENT • Variety of work samples • Written and artistic examples of work related to reading • Varied genres • Teacher and student generated examples • Reflective materials • Collaborative prep

15. High Stakes Assessment • With the mandates of federal law and the implementation procedures implemented by states, all students must demonstrate their mastery of skills in periodic assessment. • These standardized assessments often directly correlate with curriculum and approved reading programs.

16. High Stakes Assessment • These standardized tests sometimes provide needless anxiety in teachers and students. • The criticism of these assessments is in the fact that they are limited in the picture of achievement they provide. • Student products are often not creative or original.

17. ISSUES RELATED TO ASSESSMENT • Use and sharing of results • Decision making • Funding • Accuracy

18. Literacy and Technology • Change increasingly defines the nature of literacy in an information age.  Literacy is rapidly and continuously changing as new technologies for information and communication repeatedly appear and new visions for exploiting these technologies are continuously crafted by users. • Moreover, these new technologies for information and communication permit the immediate exchange of even newer technologies and visions for their use. • This speeds up the already rapid pace of change in the forms and functions of literacy, increasing the complexity of the challenges we face as we consider how best to prepare students for their literacy futures. • Today, continuous, rapid change regularly redefines the nature of literacy.  This simple observation has profound implications for literacy education. • D.L.Leu, • Literacy & Technology: Deictic Consequences for Literacy Education in an Information Age

19. Relationships of Literacy to Technology • Transformative – use of words to make changes • Transactional – use of words to impact actions or achieve goals • Deictic – meaning of words depends on the context

20. Demands of Technologies • Navigation of information sources (almost unlimited sources of information) • Demand for critical thinking (lack of control for sources of information) • Multiple media forms demand knowledge and judgment (webpages, video clips, email, product promotion, messages to persuade rather than inform) • Becoming literate vs Being literate – new technologies demand continuous change of status

21. Impact of Technologies • Teacher education • Continuing professional development to maintain skills for the cyberworld • Scope of curriculum • A larger world of information provides opportunities to learn more, but where are the limits? How independently should we expect students to learn? • Skills • Does learning new technology replace other skills? Keyboarding and texting vs handwriting, for example • Funding • How much will it cost to continually upgrade and provide needed technologies? • Public policy • How much does or should public opinion impact the use of technologies in learning?

22. How does technology touch on assessment? • How do we set standards for the uses of technologies • How to we determine when to use technologies for assessment? • What are the advantages and disadvantages of this?

23. What cognitive and neurological functions are needed for this use of technology? • Memory • Linguistic production and retention • Neuromotor skills • Executive functions of organization, strategizing and evaluation • Self regulation

24. TBQ#4 • Review the technology standards and computer literacy standards for one grade level. • Identify at least one challenge you see in assessing the progress of students in the use of technology when it is applied to the existing assessment demands in place in schools. • What potential conflicts do you see in giving an accurate determination of where skill or deficit lies in mastery of content vs mastery of technology?

25. Maryland’s Literacy standards • Maryland Technology Literacy Standards for Students – http://mdk12.org/instruction/curriculum/technology_literacy/vsc_technology_literacy_standards.pdf • Computer Literacy Skills: A Companion to the Maryland Technology Literacy Standards for Students - http://mdk12.org/instruction/curriculum/technology_literacy/ComputerLiteracySkills.pdf