Education Commons^™

Formative Assessment To Help Students Decode, Process, And Evaluate Social Studies Information, Cory Callahan

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

Here the author explores formative assessment within a context of research-based social studies instructional approaches. While the notions of inquiry, alternative assessment, disciplinary thinking and interpretation, and using visual documents as powerful resources each provide an important element of conceptual structure, this article purposefully concentrates on the process of constructive evaluation. The author posits a wise-practice routine for developing formative assessment practices that cohere with criteria-based assessment and its tendency to describe what students did well, what they could have done differently to improve their recent academic performance, and, importantly, how they can improve subsequent academic performance. The article also …

The Relationship Of Formative Assessment To The Professional Development And Perspective Transformation Of Teachers, Kimberly K. Snyder

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study uses practitioner research to explore teacher perspectives about formative assessment. The researcher engaged in a four-month-long series of professional development sessions with one middle school and two high school English-Language Arts teachers from the Capital View School District. Understanding formative assessment as a process to monitor student learning and then customizing instruction based on the data gathered from the formative assessment is a complex skill in which teachers need practice and even coaching to become adroit. The sessions were intended to help early-career teachers better understand formative assessment and incorporate it as a strategy in their teaching praxis. …

Improving The Accuracy Of Middle School Students' Self-Assessment, Peer Assessment, And Mathematics Achievement., Elizabeth Popelka

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Despite the documented advantages of formative assessment (FA) strategies in elevating student achievement, much of the relevant research is dated and undermined by questionable design and inattention to K-12 settings. In order to fill these voids, this quantitative study tested the effect of a self- and peer-assessment-training instructional sequence, developed with recommendations from past research and employing explicitly described assessment measures and criteria, on middle school students’ assessment accuracy and subsequent mathematics achievement. The researcher hypothesized a correlation between measurable growth in assessment accuracy and gains in achievement, as well as a reciprocal effect of self- and peer-assessment ability. The …

Technology-Assisted Formative Assessment And Its Impact On Instructional Decision Making: A Mixed Methods Collective Case Study Of Study Island In The Middle Grades, Kelly Cameron Taylor

Education Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this mixed methods collective case study was to determine the use of formative assessment data generated by the web-based program Study Island in the planning and implementation of instruction. The study utilized quantitative data collected through teacher surveys then triangulated qualitative teacher focus group and individual teacher interview data in order to establish statistical themes for narrative analysis. The research focused on data generated by the Study Island program at three rural middle schools, Grades 6 through 8, located in the western region of North Carolina.

The need for data to help teachers determine the next steps …

An Analysis Of Individual Teachers' Development Of Instruction Based On Classscape Program Data, Jason L. Parker

Education Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation was designed to examine and assess the effectiveness of the ClassScape formative assessment tool on the planning, implementation, and evaluation of instruction at a rural middle school in western North Carolina. The teachers had the ClassScape program for 3 years, but were not using the program to plan future instruction. The tools used for data collection revealed the strengths and weaknesses of the implementation of the program. It is essential that schools have ongoing formative assessment practices in order for students to be successful in the 21st Century.

This case study utilized the mixed methods approach in order …

Research Summary: Assessment, Robert Michael Capraro, Mary F. Roe, Micki M. Caskey, David Strahan, Penny A. Bishop, Christopher C. Weiss

Curriculum and Instruction Faculty Publications and Presentations

Assessment is important for middle level teachers and their students. In fact, the National Middle School Association (NMSA) highlighted curriculum, instruction, and assessment in This We Believe: Keys to Educating Young Adolescents (NMSA, 2010). The intention of this summary is to establish assessment’s rightful position as one priority for middle grade teachers and their students. When used wisely and well, teachers obtain information about their students’ strengths and needs, and their students remain informed about their achievements. To begin, educators need an operational definition of assessment. Based on the work of many scholars (e.g., Delclos, Vye, Burns, Bransford, & Hasselbring, …