ASSESSMENT STANDARDS

INTRODUCTION

Assessment is the process of collecting, synthesizing, interpreting and communicating information about individuals or groups of learners to acquire an understanding of their learning and help them continue to grow. Assessment helps educators answer questions about students' learning. For example: What do my students know about the science within Pacific navigation? Do my students appreciate that mathematics is found all around us? Are they able to make connections between science and mathematics? Do my students have effective problem-solving capabilities? How skillful and accurate are their observations? Do my students' work show the persistence, curiosity, open-mindedness, and ability to pose questions that are critical to both mathematical and scientific literacy? Do my students' attitudes and actions demonstrate care and respect for others, our culture and our island environments? Each time educators seek to answer questions concerning the components of mathematics and science literacy, they are assessing learning. Quality assessment provides a variety of ways for students to show their understanding of mathematics and science by answering questions as part of the instructional process in the classroom.

Assessing the complex outcomes defined in the Pacific Standards for Excellence in Mathematics and in Science involves clear purposes, well-defined learning targets, and criteria that describe the key qualities of fine work and can be used to evaluate the current level of student performance. Gathering useful information about student work also involves the use of multiple forms of assessment that match the learning targets. Before valid inferences can be made about learning, there must be multiple samples of student work related to major outcomes. Assessments should also be free from biases that can mask learning.

Quality assessment is intended to inform teaching and learning. Assessment provides opportunities for students to communicate their learning with teachers, parents, and others. Assessment also provides teachers and other educators with the information and opportunity to communicate with students, parents, and the community about student learning. This communication gives all concerned parties a deeper insight and provides feed forward for progress toward the vision that all Pacific children become scientifically and mathematically literate: knowledgeable, capable, and caring.

The story, A Glimpse into Ioanis's Classroom, presents a composite picture of a classroom where quality assessment has come to life. It provides a context for the assessment standards that follow. In Ioanis's classroom, activities are built around the big ideas in the Pacific standards; the teaching engages students in constructing understanding; and tasks and activities help students gather information, expand and apply their knowledge, and create records of their learning. The classroom activities portrayed provide students with opportunities to learn and to display that learning in a variety of ways, using criteria developed collaboratively by the teacher and students. Following completion of the projects, the students and the teacher have an opportunity to reflect and provide feed forward to enhance current work and future learning experiences.

It is October and Ioanis, an eighth grade teacher, is about to begin a unit of study on electrical energy. He plans to build much of the unit around a visit to the power plant. The field trip will provide a context for the conceptual understandings the students are developing, and will also serve as a starting point for investigating the impact of electricity on the daily lives of the community.

To help them identify and build on their existing knowledge, Ioanis encourages his students to create concept webs around two questions:

1) What do we already know about electrical power? and

2) How has life changed since electrical power became readily available?

In collaborative groups, students use the webs as the starting point to brainstorm questions and to develop strategies for answering them. In addition to helping the students focus their thinking, the webs provide Ioanis with valuable insights about students' thinking that he can use in planning his instruction. Similar webs created at the end of the unit will show how knowledge and understanding have grown, and will provide Ioanis and his students with valuable assessment information.

Ioanis decides to have the students write wall stories­displays created and hung on the classroom wall­as a way of organizing ideas and presenting them to others. Ioanis had developed wall stories during an intensive workshop the previous summer, but had never actually used them as a teaching and assessment tool in the classroom before. He talks with his class about wall stories and they all agree that the displays would work well as a way of reporting about the visit to the power plant. Since this was everyone's first experience with wall stories, Ioanis sets aside time to work with the class to identify criteria that describe effective wall stories. After a little uncertainty, and with a few examples and probing questions from Ioanis, students begin to list ideas for what makes a good wall story. The class quickly agrees that "content" and "organization"are important. After further discussion the students agree that it is also important for the parts of the display to work together to tell a story and "communication" is added to the list of criteria. When the discussion ends, three criteria are agreed upon. Ioanis and the students all think that if the criteria work well this time, they can be used for other wall stories in the future.

A group of students agree to make the following criteria chart for the classroom wall:

It is now a few weeks later and the students have examined the information they collected during their visit to the power plants. They have the findings of the investigations carried out to answer the questions identified during the brainstorming at the beginning of the unit. Their wall stories can be seen around the room. On the walls are student-created graphs showing changes in power use in the community over the last five years, decreases in the average cost of electrical power as the plant's capacity increased, and reports that tell the story of changes in family and community life due to the availability of electrical power. Students presented their draft projects to each other and to a few visitors who were also present. It is now time to look at all the stories around the room, compliment each group on the work they have done, and make suggestions about how to make it even better.

This is called "feed forward"­helping each other to improve. To do this, students are using the criteria established earlier, their own knowledge of electrical power, and their communication skills. To honor their culture and avoid the difficulty of directly telling other students of weaknesses in their work, students have chosen to write their compliments and suggestions in project journals rather than do an oral review. They are making positive comments about parts of the work that meet the criteria, such as:

• "Your drawings really show the details of how things work. When I see them, they make me remember important ideas that we learned at the power plant."

• (example of feed forward on how to make the wall story better) "I like the clear and interesting drawings, but sometimes the story doesn't match what's in the drawing. It would help to have the words directly connected to the drawing."

Each group will consider its own reflections and the comments others have written in the journal in order to finish the wall stories and prepare for the formal evaluation. As the review ends, the classroom becomes very quiet, and each student is amazed at the work the class has accomplished and the individual contribution each of them has made. The students are proud of their learning.

Ioanis steps aside as the groups make final improvements on their work and prepare to present them to their parents that evening. Several students are placing arrows on a chart showing connections between their recent work and the major concepts and expectations of the 8th grade curriculum. Others are rehearsing opening remarks to the parents which will highlight their achievements. As the students wrap up their work, Ioanis reflects on how much teaching and assessment have changed these last few years. No longer the "knower of all things," he has encouraged students to take the lead in their own learning and be responsible for producing evidence of the progress they have made. He is grateful for the professional development opportunities which enabled him to make the changes. The partnership has expanded more this year to include family and community and both Ioanis and the students proudly wait for this evening's event. He feels good about his classroom, the students in it and their families. He smiles as he anticipates the bright future of his students and Pacific education in general.