Assessment-Related Course

Please include information on what you think a assessment-related “killer” course should look like or contain.

3 Responses to “Assessment-Related Course”

  1. tony truog Says:

    Content:
    Audience? Typical graduate student does not have a background in assessment. Therefore, the content would not be too dissimilar from that of the Measurement and Eval. course presently taught.
    Topics:
    1. validity/reliability
    2, NCLB and the standards movment
    3. Anatomy of assesment items
    a. objective/performance
    b. observations/interviews/oral quesions
    c. peer/self assessments

    4. Evaluation
    a. grading issues
    1) referencing
    2) interpreting data
    3) data array
    b. personal grading plan(s)
    c. accommodation issues
    d. error in measurement
    e.

    5. Standardized testing
    a. array
    b. use
    c. abuse
    d. interpretation
    e. sharing

    I am sure there are other topics, but the ones suggested above are sufficiently broad to cover most topics germane to the graduate student who needs knowledge, skills and dispositions regarding assessment, both formal and informal.

    Tony

  2. Katy Says:

    One of the things we talked about is whether we wanted to utilize or retool existing courses or create new courses. The group’s consensus was to broaden what we are already doing and (at the very least) retool existing courses to make them more appealing to constituent requests.

    “ASSESSMENT” came in as one of the highest ranked areas by our constituent surveys. But, it is very broad. The areas requested include: current and legal issues surrounding assessment, Best practices approaches to teaching, NCLB requirements and impact, strategies for understanding assessment projects and results, and curriculum issues surrounding assessment in the classroom (this comes from alumni and employer survey data on our grad programs). While the existing course might work, it would probably need some re-tooling to include more topics. And, we would want to have a “sexier” title to entice people!

  3. Pam Says:

    This may be implicit in Tony’s list of topics, but it seems to me that we need to address directly “how to understand the WKCE,” “how NCLB affects assessment for WI teachers” and “how to assess in your classroom for student mastery of the WI student academic standards.” Most of our usual assessment topics could be illustrated with issues that have daily impact on teachers.

Leave a Reply