Chapter 12 – Instructionally Oriented Assessment

Educational Assessment - Review By Brenda Roof
Classroom Assessment – What Teachers Need to Know - By W. James Popham

Chapter 12 discusses how classroom instruction can be guided by assessment. Two strategies are discussed for making instructional decisions before the assessment results and planning instruction to achieve the curricular aim(s) represented by an assessment.
The first strategy of applying instructional decisions as a result of assessment results is typically known by most teachers, it is just not widely used. Since teachers are typically in the practice of using assessments to assign grades, they don’t always see them as tools to make instructional decisions. Teachers use tests to find out a level of knowledge learned. Curricular aims tested for could be cognitive affect, or psychomotor abilities, each of these areas being quite substantial in scope. A sampling of these curricular aims through assessment can provide inferences of the student status. This inference can then be used to make instructional decisions. Other types of tests can be used to help determine grades, but assessments written to determine levels of knowledge should be used to inform instruction only.
Assessments that are used to inform instruction should use the following three categories as decision bases. The first what to teach? This can be as a pre-assessment given before instruction, for a specific objective that is necessary. The second decision category is, how long to keep teaching toward a particular objective. This can be assessed during the time of instruction. The decision from this type of formative assessment can be used to determine whether to continue, or cease instruction for an objective, for a student, or the whole class. The third decision category is, how effective an instructional lesson or unit was. This can be assessed by comparing students’ pre and post tests results. The decision to retain, discard or modify a given instructional lesson or unit can be determined by this decision.
The second assessment based strategy for improving classroom instruction is planning instruction to achieve curricular aim(s) represented by an assessment. This strategy is a rethink of educational assessments. For testing to influence teaching, tests should be constructed prior to instructional planning. This would allow planned instructional units to better coincide with the content of the test and can then inform instructional planning. In this model the teacher starts with the instructional objectives set forth in the curriculum, then moves to create an assessments based on these goals and then after, the pre-assessment helps plan instructional activities intended to promote student mastery of knowledge, skills and/or attitudes to be post-assessed. Curriculum, should always be the starting point. The assessment then acts as clarity to the instructional aims, and whether the skills intended are mastered, teachers should therefore never teach toward the test themselves.
There are three benefits to this strategy. The first is more accurate task analysis. Since you will have a clearer idea of the results you are after, you can better enable the knowledge and skills students need to achieve before mastering what is taught. Second more on-target practice activities can be used. You will have a better sense of your end-of-unit instruction outcomes so you can choose guided-practice and independent-practice activities more aligned with targeted outcomes. The third benefit would be more lucid expositions. As a result of understanding more clearly what needs to be assessed at the conclusion of instruction you can provide clearer explorations to students about content and where instruction is heading.
The idea of assessments for learning has also evolved over time. In the past teachers used assessments to assess mostly what students know and don’t know. This is known as assessments of learning. While assessments of learning are important and should be utilized assessments for learning should also be utilized and more than assessments of learning. It has been shown that students who are given assessments for learning were able to achieve in six to seven months what it took others a full year to achieve. There are five strategies suggested to implement strategies for learning sequence. The first strategy is to clarify and share learning intentions and criteria for success. The second strategy is to engineer effective classroom discussions, questions and learning tasks. Thirdly, to provide feedback that moves learners forward. Fourth, activate students as owners of their learning and fifth, to activate students as instructional resources for one another. Again this is a huge shift for many teachers but the benefits of learning for students are tremendous. Formative assessments can also be used to help achieve higher scores especially on summative assessments.
The ideas of this chapter were really based on improving instructional decisions and instruction based on information gained from assessments. There were two strategies described, making instructional decisions in light of assessment results and planning instruction to achieve the curricular aim(s) represented by an assessment.