Chapter 7: Assessing Learning
Case Study
Mr. Moller paused after grading his students’ exams to think about the results. He was surprised that several of his 6th grade students did not do well on the exam – including a few who generally did very well on assessments.
The exam assessed their knowledge of a social studies unit they had just completed about early river valley civilizations in the eastern hemisphere. The students had seemed engaged in the activities he designed for the unit. He had assigned groups of students to research each of the civilizations and used a jigsaw activity to have them share the information they found. He also had the students build dioramas to represent the civilizations they studied and even found an app they could use to video record their progress as they designed and built the scenes. The unit had taken more time than he had originally planned, but the students seemed to enjoy the activities.
While grading the exams, Mr. Moller found that most students did well on the multiple-choice questions. However, they seemed to struggle with the short essays, and only a few of them did even adequate work on the long essay. Errors in the mechanics of their writing — such as spelling, sentence structure, and the logical flow of the sentences – made the grading more difficult. What he was able to decipher in their answers showed that the students were confused about some of the concepts they learned in the unit. Ultimately, he was not sure if they did not yet have the skills to compare and contrast the civilizations, an abstract task required for the long essay, or if they simply did not correctly recall the characteristics of each of the civilizations they studied.
This was Mr. Moller’s first year with his own classroom, so he was eager to learn from this situation as he moved forward in his career. He jotted down some questions he wanted to consider as he thought through the best way to remedy the situation. He also planned to network with some of the more experienced teachers in his building to get their input.
These Are His Notes:
- Why did the students do poorly on the exam?
- Did the learning activities fail to help them learn the concepts?
- Did the students know how to study for the exam, and did they make enough effort to do that?
- Did the students have the test-taking skills necessary to complete the types of items on the exam successfully?
- What could be done now to remedy the situation?
- Are there sections of the unit that should be taught again? If so, how can the sections be identified and how can the instruction be improved?
- Should students be given another assessment to provide them with an opportunity to show whether they have mastered the material?
- What should be done in future years to better prepare students for this end of unit exam?
- What changes are needed to the learning activities to ensure the students understand the concepts before they take the assessment?
- Are there study and/or test-taking skills students need to learn to prepare them for the types of items on the exam?
- Are changes to the exam needed so it will better assess student understanding of the unit concepts?
Think About It
- What initial ideas do you have for strategies Mr. Moller can use to improve his instruction and/or the assessment? List a few ideas.
We will revisit this case study and Mr. Moller’s concerns as we talk about best practices in classroom assessment in this chapter. We will discuss types of assessments and the characteristics of good assessments. We will also describe strategies for writing assessments and for evaluating students’ work on them.
