|
West Morris Regional High School |
|
SUMMARY
A District Goal:
Focusing on assessment practices is a two year district goal. This goal is based on a fundamental belief that refining our assessment practices will improve student learning. Additionally, we believe that collaborating on assessment practices will clarify our understanding of student learning at the various levels within each discipline. Improving assessment is a time consuming task, therefore it is important to devote considerable professional development time to this practice.
Actions/Timeline:
· Assessment issues were framed at the October 9th professional development day. · One-third of the PGP’s are devoted to investigating a wide variety of assessment issues. · A break-out collaborative session was designed to introduce the many nuances surrounding assessment issues on October 9th. · A department meeting, faculty meeting, and half of the March 9th professional development day were devoted to the topic of final exams. · Half of the October 2007 professional development day will be devoted to using the final exams as a vehicle for collaboration on expectations, instructional practices, and assessment.
FINAL EXAMS: Goals
· Measure, in the most accurate manner, what we value most—student learning. · Use that measurement to improve our understanding of curriculum and instruction.
Period Schedule: Reason
Previous final exam testing formats were confining to teachers and limited their ability to use a variety of methodologies. A period schedule gives the teacher much greater control of the final exam process. A period schedule gives the teacher much more time to grade final exams. A period schedule is better for students, especially students with accommodations and special needs.
Final Exam: Beliefs
¨ Learning is dynamic, fluid, and complex. Therefore, a variety of assessment methods is necessary to accurately measure student knowledge and skills. ¨ An encyclopedia approach (recall, memorization, formulaic responses) plays a role in most assessments, however, it should not the predominant force in a final exam. ¨ Conversely, the driving force of the final exam should be formats that assess student understanding—core tasks, big ideas, essential skills and enduring themes that go to the heart of a discipline.
Final Exams are due May 1st to administrators. |
|
Healthier Testing Made Easy: Test don’t just measure absorption of facts. http://www.edutopia.org/magazine/ed1article.php?id=Art_1498&issue=apr_06
Measuring what counts http://www.edutopia.org/php/article.php?id=Art_940&key=005
|
