Resource Guide for the Standards and Rubric for School Improvement

Home



Give Us Your Feedback



Standard One:
School and District Leadership



Standard Two:
Curriculum, Instruction, And Professional Development



Standard Three:
Classroom And School Assessments

3.1 Design and Implement Assessment System
3.2 Multiple Assessments
3.3 Assessment According to Standards
3.4 Assessments Aligned to Standards
3.5 Students Know What is Required
3.6 Test Scores Used to Inform Instruction
3.7 Monitoring and Reporting Student Progress
3.8 State Accountability Program



Standard Four:
School Culture, Climate, And Communication



ADE Calendar of Events



Best Practices Academies

3.2 Multiple Assessments

Multiple and varied assessments and evaluation strategies are used appropriately and effectively.

We are not alluding only to end-or-teaching tests or culminating performance tasks. Rather, the collected evidence we seek may well include observations and dialogues, traditional quizzes and tests, and performance tasks and projects, as well as students’ self-assessments gathered over time. In fact, a central premise of our argument is that understanding can be developed and evoked only through multiple methods of assessment.

Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe,
Understanding by Design

Suggested Evidence
  • Classroom formative and summative assessments
Level of Performance: Exceeds Standards
  • Evaluation of student performance is based on multiple sources of summative assessment data (e.g., local criterion-referenced tests, performance assessment, classroom summative assessments, final projects, AIMS, Stanford Achievement Test) and includes self-evaluation and/or self-reflection.
  • A combination of formative and summative classroom assessments is used systematically to inform instruction.
  • Teachers routinely collaborate to design formative and summative assessments that are aligned to performance objectives and retain a consistent depth of knowledge.

Related Resources

Tools
Authentic Assessment Toolbox   
This webpage provides information on authentic assessments, as well as provides examples of what they look like.
Author: Jon Mueller
Publication Date: 2003
Publisher: North Central College

Hot Potatoes Activities and Quiz Maker   
The Hot Potatoes suite includes six applications, enabling you to create interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering and gap-fill exercises for the World Wide Web. Hot Potatoes is not freeware, but it is free of charge for those working for publicly-funded non-profit-making educational institutions, who make their pages available on the web. Other users must pay for a licence. Check out the Hot Potatoes licensing terms and pricing on the Half-Baked Software Website.
Publisher: Half-Baked Software Inc.

Implementing Performance Assessment in the Classroom   
This article outlines basic steps for planning and implementing effective performance-based assessments in the classroom. The article addresses topics such as defining the purpose and criteria of the assessment, choosing the activity, creating performance rubrics, and providing feedback to students.
Author: Amy Brualdi
Publication Date: 1998

Improving Classroom Assessment: A Toolkit for Professional Developers   
This guide is intended primarily for educators providing professional development on how to conduct teacher assessment. The toolkit presents rationales for various aspects of the assessment process and provides training activities for each section. Sample district assessment tools are also included.
Publisher: Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory

Learning Disabilities Resource Kit: Specific Learning Disabilities Determination Procedures and Responsiveness to Intervention [K-12]   
This kit, developed by the National Research Center on Learning Disabilities, is a tool to help educators navigate changes related to specific learning disability determination and responsiveness to intervention.
Publication Date: 2007
Publisher: National Research Center on Learning Disabilities

Questions to Ask When Evaluating Tests   
This article presents standards to consider when evaluating tests. Issues addressed include test use, validity (criterion, content, and construct), norming, reliability, bias, administration, and reporting.
Author: Lawrence Rudner
Publication Date: 1994


Articles
A Summary of Nine Key Studies: Multi-Tier Intervention and Response to Intervention for Students Struggling in Mathematics   
This report summarizes nine studies regarding evidence-based practices for Tier 2 interventions, as well as explains how to use RTI to help students struggling to learn mathematics.
Author: Benjamin Clarke, Russell Gersten, and Rebecca Newman-Gonchar
Publication Date: 2009
Publisher: Center on Instruction

Assessing Student Progress with a Rubric   
In this article, the authors discuss the benefits of using rubrics in the classroom, and how these rubrics can be used as formative assessment instruments.
Author: Harry and Rosemary Wong
Publication Date: 2006, October
Publisher: Teacher.Net Gazette

Benchmark Assessments for Improved Learning   
This article discusses the role of benchmark assessment in a balanced assessment system.
Author: Joan L. Herman, Ellen Osmundson, & Ronald Dietel
Publication Date: 2010
Publisher: Assessment and Accountability Comprehensive Center

Contexts for Engagement and Motivation in Reading   
This article discusses engaged reading and instructional contexts that foster reading engagement and motivation.
Author: John T. Guthrie
Publication Date: 2001
Publisher: Reading Online

Enhancing Student Learning   
This article explains how profound achievement gains can be created using formative assessments.
Author: Rick Stiggins and Jan Chappuis
Publication Date: 2008
Publisher: District Administration

Extensive Reading Interventions in Grades K-3: From Research to Practice   
This report summarizes available data on the effects of extensive reading interventions (comprising at least 100 instructional sessions) and related implications for practice.
Author: Nancy Scammacca, Sharon Vaughn, Greg Roberts, Jeanne Wanzek and Joseph K. Torgesen
Publication Date: 2007
Publisher: Center on Instruction

Finding Balance: Assessment in the Middle School Classroom   
This article mentions how a balanced assessment program can help teachers better assess student learning.
Author: Stephen Chappuis and Rick Stiggins
Publication Date: 2008
Publisher: National Middle School Association

Formative and Summative Assessments in the Classroom   
This article discusses how a balance of formative and summative assessments can provide a clear picture of achievement.
Author: Catherine Garrison & Michael Ehringhaus
Publication Date: 2007
Publisher: National Middle School Association

Formative and Summative Assessments in the Classroom   
This article discusses how to to balance both summative and formative classroom assessment practices and information gathering about student learning.
Author: Catherine Garrison & Michael Ehringhaus
Publication Date: 2007
Publisher: National Middle School Association

Formative Assessment and Next-Generation Assessment Systems: Are We Losing an Opportunity?   
This article discusses the common misconceptions of formative assessment, and then provides descriptions and the distinctions of effective formative assessment instruction.
Author: Margaret Heritage
Publication Date: 2010
Publisher: Council of Chief State School Officers

How Classroom Assessments Improve Learning   (to edit this resource, contact WestEd)
"The assessments best suited to guide improvements in student learning are the quizzes, tests, writing assignments, and other assessments that teachers administer on a regular basis in their classrooms," says Guskey. "To use classroom assessments to make improvements...[teachers] need to see their assessments as an integral part of the instruction process and as crucial for helping students learn."
Author: Guskey, T.R.
Publication Date: 2003, February
Publisher: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD)

Interventions for Adolescent Struggling Readers: A Meta-Analysis with Implications for Practice   
This report focuses on interventions designed to improve students' use of reading comprehension strategies. It also considers the impact of interventions that target improved reading vocabulary, accurate decoding of unfamiliar words in text, and increased reading fluency.
Author: Nancy Scammacca, Greg Roberts, Sharon Vaughn, Meaghan Edmonds, Jade Wexler
Publication Date: 2007
Publisher: Center on Instruction

Making Assessment Work for Everyone: How To Build on Student Strengths   (to edit this resource, contact WestEd)
Author: Patricia Kusimo, et al.
Publication Date: 2000
Publisher: WestEd

Screening for Mathematics Difficulties in K-3 Students [K-3]   
This report looks at the key features needed to screen kindergarten through third grade students for difficulties in mathematics.
Author: Benjamin S. Clarke, Russell Gersten, Nancy C. Jordan
Publication Date: 2007
Publisher: Center on Instruction

The Best Value in Formative Assessment   
This article describes the usefulness and differences of summative and formative assessments.
Author: Stephen Chappuis and Jan Chappuis
Publication Date: January 2008
Publisher: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD)

The Concept of Formative Assessment   
The author discusses the importance of the "many opportunities" to assess how students are learning and then use this information to make beneficial changes in instruction during the course of a year. Resources for teachers interested in formative assessment are included.
Author: Carol Boston
Publication Date: 2002

Use of Education Data at the Local Level: From Accountability to Instructional Improvement   
This report discusses local practices in implementing data-driven decision making.
Publication Date: 2010
Publisher: U.S. Department of Education

Writing Next: Effective Strategies to Improve Writing of Adolescents in Middle and High Schools   
Writing Next: Effective Strategies to Improve Writing of Adolescents in Middle and High Schools, commissioned by Carnegie Corporation of New York and published by the Alliance for Excellent Education, discusses eleven specific teaching techniques that research suggests will help improve the writing abilities of the country’s 4th- to 12th-grade students.
Author: Steve Graham and Dolores Perin
Publication Date: 2007
Publisher: Alliance for Excellent Education


Useful Links
AZ Response to Intervention (RTI)   
The Response to Intervention (RTI) process is a multi-tiered approach to providing services and interventions to all learners at increasing levels of intensity. This page offers resources to Arizona educators regarding the academic and behavioral system of support.
Publisher: Arizona Department of Education

Connecting Formative Assessment Research to Practice: An Introductory Guide for Educators   
This publication provides an introductory overview of effective formative assessment.
Author: Christopher Brandt and Nick Pinchok
Publication Date: 2009
Publisher: Learning Point Associates

Criteria for Selecting Diagnostic Assessments   
This webpage offers a series of questions that should be asked when evaluating the quality of data tools.
Publisher: Data Use for Improving Learning/CRESST

Federal Resources for Educational Excellence   
This site, created in 1997 by over 30 agencies, lists hundreds of federally supported teaching and learning resources in an easy to find format.
Publisher: U.S. Department of Education


Other Resources
Arizona Department of Education's Assessment Section   
This link leads to the Assessment Section of the Arizona Department of Education. The Assessment Section provides for the development of Arizona academic content standards that describe what students need to know and be able to do, articulated by grade level. S&A also provides for the procurement and administration of a nationally standardized, norm-referenced achievement test and the development and administration of standards-based test (AIMS) to measure student achievement of the Arizona academic content standards.

Using Student Achievement Data to Support Instructional Decision Making   
This guide offers five recommendations to help educators effectively use data to monitor students’ academic progress and evaluate instructional practices.
Publication Date: 2009
Publisher: U.S. Department of Education




©2005 WestEd. All rights reserved.




Arizona Department of Education SchoolsMovingUp