Assessment

Here are a few resources for more information about the assessment concepts we covered in class.

 * Designing Rubrics**
 * [|Five part series for creating analytic and holistic rubrics] from Teachervision
 * [|Rubrics for Assessment] (from NCATE): get started by viewing many examples of rubrics to measure learning in categories including research, writing, content-area learning, teamwork, multimedia, Powerpoint slides, use of Web 2.0 tools, and many more.


 * Other Assessment Resources**
 * A range of sample alternative assessment tasks - especially for assessing reading, writing, and communication (language arts skills) as part of your content area curriculum
 * **Regents Exam Prep Center:** [|Oswego Public Schools]
 * **//[|Put Thinking to the Test]//** (Conrad, Matthews, Zimmerman, and Allen, 2008) from Stenhouse Publishers
 * A new book with explicit models and examples of instruction that help teachers use comprehension strategy instruction to help students become better test-takers. Chapters on asking questions, creating mental images, drawing inferences, synthesizing, activating & building prior knowledge, determining the main idea, and monitoring for meaning.
 * **Standardized Assessment**: [|Standardized Testing Primer] (a helpful overview of assessment in the age of NCLB accountability, although it's a bit biased toward the value of standardized assessments)
 * [|Assessment for Learning: What a difference a word makes!] by Rick Stiggins and Jan Chappuis (Winter, 2006)
 * **Document Based Questions** (DBQs) - In the simplest terms, a DBQ is an essay question based on a series of "documents"; but it is really much more than that. The document based question (DBQ) is designed to enable students to work like historians, analyzing and synthesizing evidence from a variety of sources and media. Students are evaluated on their ability to interpret such factors as purpose, source, bias, date and place of origin, tone, etc. In order to receive a satisfactory score, students must establish and prove a thesis through accurate and sophisticated utilization of the available documents.
 * [|Definition and Grade Level of Document Based Questions and Activities]Developed by Peter Pappas
 * [|Hotlist of Document Based Questions Resources]
 * [|New York State Historical Association Curriculum Examples]
 * [|Upstate History Alliance] Overview
 * [|Short Summary of Effectiveness of DBQ curriculum]
 * [|Student Created Document Based Questions] for a Telecollaborative Project by Susan Silverman