Goal Driven Assessment

Assessment is the broad term for obtaining information about something in order to evaluate it (Nitko 2011). The teacher derives a number of tests and non-tests from the learning targets presented to the students. The student's job is to understand the learning goals and strive to master them and display mastery through the tests and non-tests. Tests are systematic observations of a students' knowledge usually obtained using short-answer recollection or multiple-choice selection of facts, concepts, and procedures. Non-tests can be described as projects, essay papers, oral presentations, etc. The results of the tests are classified and numerically assessed or measured for grading and to represent the degree to which the student mastered the concept. These measurements combined with the teacher's experience of the student's performance is used to judge the evaluate the mastery of knowledge in the curriculum (Nitko 2011). 

Any and all information that a teacher gathers about a student can be considered an assessment used to inform various decisions, though not all of the information will be assessed for the student's educational evaluation. A teacher may assess, through observation of a particular student struggling with a lesson, that the student could reduce their struggle through a different study habit. The teacher may assess, through observation of the the entire class, that foundational material needed for the current lesson was not completely understood. 

Learning objectives should clarify the purpose and intent of the block of instruction for both the student and the instructor. By stating the objectives with behavioural criteria, such as particular verbs to universally mean particular actions, a teacher can succinctly state learning objectives to mean what they were intended to mean (Kizlik 2012). An example of an unclear objective is asking a student to “understand” something, as in “understand global climate change”. The student may not know where to start and probably will not study whatever learning objective the teacher had in mind. By using behavioral criteria and stating “identify causes of global climate change” the student has a concise goal. Having these concise goals helps the teacher communicate the lessons more fully as the students understand their part more easily. Within a lesson plan these specific learning targets written in behavioral language the teacher's curriculum and objectives can be communicated more efficiently to all parties and thereby helps organize teaching. 

A broad, heterogeneous domain tends to represent a developmental learning target that will require various mastery learning target to cover the whole domain. Each of the skills required will develop at different rates throughout the learning process. Reaching one mastery learning target does not represent mastery of all the learning targets within the broad domain, thus the two contraindicate each other. An example of such a broad, heterogeneous domain is “interpret statistical data found in material from a variety of disciplines” (Nitko 2011). The name of the task itself belies its broad and nonspecific nature. A narrow domain would be “construct a scatter plot of the statistical data presented in the paper Physiological Effects of Generational Organochlorine Contamination on Arctic Seabirds by J.A. Kepley”. In this narrower domain the task will show mastery of one of the skills contained within “interpret statistical data found in material” while concentrating the task on a single objective. However this domain is too narrow as the head and beak length of the Arctic penguin is not the real target of learning. A better learning target would be “construct a scatter plat from statistical data”. To determine if a learning goal is too broad, attempt to find several mastery objectives within it; if multiple objectives can be identified the learning goal is not suitable as a “mastery learning target”.

References

Angeli, E., Wagner, J., Lawrick, E., Moore, K., Anderson, M., Soderlund, L., & Brizee, A. (2010, May 5). General format. Retrieved from http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/

Kizlik, Bob (2012). A rationale for learning objectives that meet demanding behavioral criteria. Retrieved from http://www.adprima.com/objectives2.htm

Nitko, Anthony J. (2011). Educational Assessment of Students. Boston, MA: Pearson.

(Image Credit) Developers are not good testers. What you say? Software Testing Help (2012). Retrieved from http://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/developers-are-not-good-testers/

Bloom's Taxonomy

The original Bloom's Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain (Bloom, Englehart, Furst, Hill, & Krathwohl,1956) contained six hierarchical levels of learning comprised of knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, and synthesis. Each level was defined by what the student could achieve once mastering the level and the website gives sample verbs that would appear in learning objectives pertaining to that level and a sample behavior.

In 2001 the taxonomy was revised to “fit the more outcome-focused modern education objectives “ (Huitt 2011). Some of the hierarchies were reordered, renamed, and titled “Cognitive process dimension” but the real revision was in adding the “Knowledge dimension”. In this second dimension each of the original “Knowledge” dimensions now had an inner hierarchy. The Cognitive dimension includes Factual Knowledge, Conceptual, Procedural, and Meta-Cognitive Knowledge. The intersection of these two dimensions shows how a student can “know” the cognitive process after learning the material. For example, using the Bloom's taxonomy, to “apply” “conceptual knowledge” of Bloom's Taxonomy a student should be able to “write objectives using taxonomy” (Huitt 2011).

Personally, as an aspiring teacher, this new taxonomy does not change my opinion about what assessment, evaluation and test are based on my reading of Chapter 1 in Nitko's fifth edition of Educational Assessment of Students. What this revised taxonomy will do is increase the effectiveness of evaluation,testing, and overall assessment by allowing me to refine my learning targets using the two-dimensional taxonomy as a sort of map. I will be able to ensure that throughout the course of instruction in a concept or unit I cover learning objectives from nearly all of the two-dimensional intersections presented in the revised taxonomy, thereby giving my students better scaffolding for their study.

References:

Huitt, W. (2011). Bloom et al.'s taxonomy of the cognitive domain. Educational Psychology Interactive.Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University. Retrieved from http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/cognition/bloom.html

(Image Credit) Heer, Rex (2011) A Model of Learning Objectives–based on A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, Iowa State University. Retrieved from http://www.celt.iastate.edu/teaching/RevisedBlooms1.html

Learning Targets

Learning targets are statements about the information or skills students need to learn. There is a hierarchy of learning targets: State Standards are learning targets written by the local government mandating what students should know or master by a certain grade. These can be broken down into “content standards” written within a discipline to mandate what the student should know after instruction, or as “performance standards” which state what the student should be able to do after the content is learned. With these two types of standards the teacher shapes the curriculum. The teacher takes the content and performance standards and breaks them down into specific learning targets which define, in concise language, what the student will do or learn and be assessed on. These specific learning targets may be either “mastery learning targets” that can be assessed by knowledge recall such as a multiple choice test, or “developmental learning targets” which require several modes of assessment to accommodate the lifelong nature of the learning goal.

There are four major ways that learning targets contribute to improved classroom assessment. The instructor is able to align assessments with mastery learning targets and ensure that the assessment is really evaluating what the student is supposed to be learning from that unit. Secondly, learning targets allows the instructor to evaluate a student's progress in developmental domains by giving them concrete skills and processes that can be assessed in part and contribute to an overall assessment of the degree to which a student is mastering the developmental learning target at that level. Third, learning targets allow instructors to align assessments with state standards. This is especially true when the learning targets are derived directly from the state standards (which are really just learning targets) (Nitko 2011)! Fourthly, since learning targets specify what student should achieve by the end of instruction (Nitko 2011) the student, and their parents, will have scaffolding around what to be assessed on and thus study accordingly.

Nitko, Anthony J. (2011). Educational Assessment of Students. Boston, MA: Pearson.

(Image credit) Townsend, Matt (2012) Target's City Ambitions. Retrieved from

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-05-31/targets-city-ambitions