This Week's Assignment Is To Bring Us Back To Your Own Summa

This Weeks Assignment Is To Bring Us Back To Your Own Summative Assig

This week’s assignment is to bring us back to your own summative assignment for the course: the design of a summative assessment. You will analyze the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium website to inform your response. Before constructing your assignment, view the "Introduction to smarter balanced item and performance task development" PowerPoint and review the comments. Read the FAQ section on the Smarter Balance Assessment Consortium website.

Peruse sample items and rubrics by selecting “View More Sample Items” at the top of the consortium screen. Conduct a guided analysis of the Grandma Ruth 6th-grade writing performance task and its rubric by viewing the “About this item” tab. Note the “Claim” aligning with the standard and the "Target" objectives aligned with Depth of Knowledge (DOK).

Use the provided template to analyze your learnings from Smarter Balanced, focusing on how these observations relate to our course learning outcomes for 21st-century learning and assessment. Your analysis must include: the Course Learning Outcome (CLO) number and description, evidence of alignment with the CLO, and a personal reflection on your learning and its potential application. An example template is provided but should not be reproduced verbatim.

Complete the template including a table that demonstrates your critical reading and thinking based on the recommended links. Your commentary should be succinct yet descriptive, highlighting connections between standards, objectives, instructional strategies, assessment methods, and rigor. Following the template, write a two-page paper that overviews your analysis, the connections made, and the implications for your assessment practices. Include references formatted in APA style, reflecting credible scholarly sources.

Paper For Above instruction

The process of designing effective summative assessments is integral to ensuring educational excellence and alignment with curricular standards. By examining resources such as the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) website and its sample tasks, educators can refine their understanding of how assessments function within a 21st-century learning framework. This paper discusses how analyzing the Grandma Ruth 6th-grade writing task, its rubric, and the associated elements enhance assessment design capabilities aligned with course learning outcomes (CLOs). Additionally, reflections on personal learning and application potential are included.

The first step involved familiarizing oneself with SBAC's resources, notably the sample items and rubrics. These materials illustrate how assessments are constructed with clear claims, targets, and depth of knowledge (DOK) levels. For example, the Grandma Ruth writing performance task emphasizes analyzing student responses based on explicit criteria aligned with literacy standards and cognitive rigor. This aligns with CLO 1: "Assess individual and group performance through use of established criteria for student mastery to inform instruction across developmental domains."

Analyzing the rubric linked to this task revealed the incorporation of both cognitive and content components, exemplifying how explicit criteria can increase assessment rigor and clarity. The rubric's structure demonstrates an effective way to articulate expectations, foster transparency, and support differentiated instruction. Such insights are invaluable when developing one's own rubrics, ensuring they effectively measure higher-order thinking and content mastery (Stiggins, 2017).

Moreover, observing the claims and targets associated with the sample task offers insights into aligning assessment items with curricular standards and DOK levels. Understanding how questions are crafted to target specific cognitive processes enables educators to develop assessments that accurately reflect student understanding and skills, preparing learners for complex real-world challenges (Pellegrino, Chudowsky, & Glaser, 2001).

In reflecting on these observations, I recognize the importance of integrating standards, objectives, and rubric criteria during assessment development. This process ensures that assessments are comprehensive, rigorous, and aligned with learning goals. Personally, this analysis enhances my capacity to design summative assessments that not only measure student achievement effectively but also promote critical thinking and higher-order skills—key attributes of 21st-century learners.

In applying these insights, I plan to incorporate authentic, standards-aligned tasks with explicit criteria and varied DOK levels into my future assessment practices. This strategic approach will enable me to gather meaningful evidence of student learning, differentiate instruction effectively, and improve overall instructional effectiveness (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). Critically, it emphasizes the value of thorough analysis and intentional design in developing assessments that truly reflect student mastery and foster lifelong learning skills.

References

• Pellegrino, J. W., Chudowsky, N., & Glaser, R. (2001). Knowing what students know: The science and design of educational assessment. National Academies Press.
• Stiggins, R. (2017). Student-centered assessment. Assessment Update, 29(5), 10-11.
• Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (2nd ed.). ASCD.
• Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. (n.d.). Sample items and rubrics. Retrieved from https://www.smarterbalanced.org/
• Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. (n.d.). Introduction to item and performance task development. Retrieved from https://www.smarterbalanced.org/
• Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2010). English Language Arts Standards. Internet source.
• Heritage, M. (2007). Formative assessment: What do effective teachers do? Firstly, Educational Leadership, 65(6), 8-14.
• Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (1998). Inside the black box: Raising standards through classroom assessment. Phi Delta Kappan, 80(2), 139-148.
• Andrade, H., & Cizek, G. J. (Eds.). (2010). Handbook of formative assessment. Routledge.
• National Research Council. (2001). Knowing what students know: The science and design of educational assessment. The National Academies Press.