National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center (http://www.nflrc.iastate.edu)

Alumni Connection Newsletter - December, 2004 - Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Document Source: http://www.educ.iastate.edu/nflrc/news/200412/

Improving Student Learning Through Reflective Assessment

Welcome to the electronic newsletter of the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center!

The close of each year brings with it a natural opportunity to reflect on where we have been, where we are at the present moment, and where we hope to go in the future. Have you ever wondered, however, why our resolve to accomplish the goals we set for ourselves at the beginning of the year seems to fade as the year continues? One possible answer is that as the year progresses, perhaps we set aside less time to ponder the things we value. Purposeful reflection allows us to live more consciously, and, in so doing, motivates us to live more deliberately. As we act with deeper intention, we are better able to prioritize our time and our actions—investing more of ourselves in making the changes that are necessary to align our lives more fully with what matters most to us. 

Taking time to engage in this sort of reflection is equally critical in an educational context. Unfortunately, one of our most important tools for reflection—assessment—has been so frequently misused and, in some cases, even abused as a tool for ensuring accountability, that many of us have difficulty recognizing its potential for improving the quality of life within our classrooms. It must have been a wise farmer from Iowa who said, "You can't fatten a pig by weighing it!" 

As you read this issue of the newsletter, we encourage you to think about that statement's implications regarding the functions and characteristics of effective assessment, but also invite you to consider assessment through the lens of a slightly different metaphor: "Assessment is like an ear of corn . . ." (Hint: What do pigs eat?! When they eat, what happens to them?)

Cherice Montgomery, Newsletter Editor
Marcia Rosenbusch, Director, National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center

Using Reflective Assessment to Inform Program Design

How can reflective self-assessment be used to strengthen world language programs?

"Institutional assessment efforts shouldnot be concerned about valuing what can be measured but, instead, about measuring that which is valued"
T.W. Banta, J.P. Lund, K.E. Black, & F.W. Oblander, p. 5.

Have you talked about the need to make changes in your program, but aren't quite sure where to begin?  This Languages Education Self-assessment Tool [1] may give you some ideas that will help you to develop your own tool for program assessment.  Those of you teaching at the university level will probably find the Checklist for Self-Study for Departments of Foreign Languages and Literatures [2] more helpful.  It offers an extensive list of questions that is particularly well-suited to helping university FL departments reflect on the content and design of their programs. 

Using Reflective Assessment to Strengthen Instruction

How can I use reflective self-assessment to evaluate my effectiveness as a teacher?

"A shift in one's mental model of evaluation is also a shift in what it means to teach"
Elliot Eisner, p. 194.

It is difficult to evaluate one's effectiveness as a teacher until one has come to some tentative conclusions about the kind of a teacher one wishes to be.  If you decide to take on the task of reinventing yourself as a teacher during the upcoming year, this short, thoughtful, and enjoyable little essay [3] may provide you with just the encouragement, inspiration, and insight you need to get started!   Once you have had a chance to consider what matters to you, you'll be ready to use this inventory [4] to help you think about the strengths and weaknesses of your current approach to assessing students. 

How can I expand the variety of strategies I am using to assess students?

"Assessment and evaluation should not be confused with measurement, testing, or grading.  One can measure without evaluating, evaluate without testing, and assess without grading"
Elliot Eisner, p. 189.

The first step to expanding your repertoire of strategies is knowing which ones you are currently using!  Pages 2-4 of The New Jersey Curriculum Framework [5] provide a concise summary of key components of effective assessment, delineate (in chart format) some of the major differences between traditional and alternative assessments, and outline many alternatives to traditional assessments.  Evaluate how well you really understand assessment with this handy matching quiz:  Which Assessment Works Best, A Matching Tool for Educators [6].

Are you interested in determining whether the assessment tasks you have designed will actually accomplish what you intended?  Then Valid and Reliable-Test Your Own Task[7] is the link to click!  If your task failed the test, taking a look at these sample world language assessment instruments [8] may give you some ideas that will help!  If you've been there, done that, then you may want to think about these tips for using graphic organizers as evaluative tools [9], or try one of the standards-based, innovative learning scenarios [10] for Arabic, French, German, Japanese, Latin, & Spanish, authored by Pamela Young (1997 Performance Assessment Institute) in collaboration with other teachers from Texas.  They include activity descriptions, ideas for extension activities, and lists of links and resources.

How can I use assessment to address the Connections, Communities, and Comparisons Goals of the National Standards?

". . . to abandon assessment and evaluation in education, regardless of the field, is to relinquish professional responsibility for one's work"
Elliot Eisner, p. 179.

Evaluating People in a Global Organization [11] emphasizes the importance of the Communities and Comparisons standards in the real-world context of the global business environment, illustrating the manner in which cultural differences in evaluation criteria can lead to incorrect evaluations of employee performance. 

Using Reflective Assessment to Develop Students as Learners

How can I develop critical observation and evaluation skills in my students?

". . . when the questions become the student's own, so do the answers"
Theodore Sizer & Nancy Sizer, p. 32.

Self-assessment [12] empowers students to take more responsibility for their own progress by helping them to develop critical observation and evaluation skills, and the close of a semester is a great time to experiment with it!  Using Self-Assessment in the Language Classroom [13] offers a brief, research-based explanation of some of the benefits of self-assessment, along with practical techniques and examples for doing so.  This model from Greenfield Community College encourages learners to evaluate their own progress toward functional language goals, while the Blueprint for a Self-assessment Tool for Intercultural Awareness [14] offers a neat template for helping learners to self-assess their intercultural skills. 

How can I use portfolios to improve students' learning?

". . . we are not likely to achieve our target of understanding unless we are explicit about what counts as evidence of understanding . . . .  Knowing the facts and doing well on tests of knowledge do not mean that we understand"
Grant Wiggins & Jay McTighe, p. 39.

Portfolios are another useful tool for giving students opportunities to learn to critically reflect on, and to evaluate, the quality of their own work.  The Portfolio Assessment in the Language Classroom [15] website contains a wealth of information on portfolio assessment, along with sample templates and rubrics to help you get started.  The California Foreign Language Teachers Project has developed a set of guidelines for using student portfolios in FL classrooms [16] that will keep you moving in the right direction.  If you find that you still have questions, you may want to check out FLTeach's Student Portfolios in the FL Class [17]-a compilation of questions and responses on this topic from foreign language teachers around the world.

What tools can I use to encourage my students to be more reflective?

"It is an understanding of the student's experience that provides the most promising information for improving teaching and learning"
Elliot Eisner, p. 190.

This short essay on Motivating Students To Do Quality Work [18] suggests an alternative to portfolio assessment that can even be used with elementary students.  There are many other tools that teachers can use to prompt reflection as well, including audio clips [19], songs [20], images [21], video clips [22], short essays, quotes, and even children's books. 

Using Reflective Assessment to Educate Parents and Community Members

How can I help parents and community members to become more reflective about the role that assessment plays in schools?

". . . we show our understanding of something by using it, adapting it, and customizing it."
Grant Wiggins & Jay McTighe, p. 39.

The children's book, Testing Miss Malarkey [23], provides thought-provoking commentary on the demands that standardized testing places on schools, administrators, teachers, students, and even parents in a humorous way that is sure to relieve some stress in the process!  The book has been adapted to a Reader's Theater format [24] and customized for use at staff and parent meetings.  If you click on the link that was posted in this message to a listserv, it will take you to an example of how one faculty adapted it to their own purposes.  This would also make a great model for having students comment on social issues by writing children's books in the target language! 

Using Reflective Assessment to Develop Ourselves as Professionals

How can collaborative reflection improve my teaching?

"It's easier to see the mistake on someone else's paper."
Cynthia Copeland Lewis.

Many districts are turning to collaborative forms of reflective assessment in order to help teachers adopt a more student-centered focus on assessment.  Looking Collaboratively at Student Work [25] is a site that contains practical tips and information for teachers and departments that are interested in experimenting with such a process.

Where can I learn more about critical reflection? 

"A teacher is a person who knows all the answers, but only when she asks the questions"
Unknown

Critical reflection is a skill that must be taught!  Teaching Critical Reflection [26] provides a brief summary of the research on how adults learn to be critically reflective and discusses tools for teaching critical reflection in the classroom.

Using Technology to Support Reflective Assessment

"The art of our era is not art, but technology. Today Rembrandt is painting automobiles; Shakespeare is writing research reports; Michelangelo is designing more efficient bank lobbies"
Howard Sparks

How can I use technology to support my assessment efforts?

Are you and your students tired of "eating" plain old corn day after day?  (Remember the pigs and corn at the beginning of this newsletter?!)  This "yummy," thoughtful, research-based site will give you a step-by-step recipe [27] for using technology to heat up assessment (think popcorn!)-electronic portfolios [28]!  Be sure to click around-there are wonderful links to rubrics for evaluating multimedia portfolios [29], a series of portfolio development frameworks [30] that would be helpful in structuring professional development on this topic, and a wealth of other practical information.

QUOTES TO PONDER

"Life is not a multiple choice test, it's an open-book essay exam"
Alan Blinder

"In a very real sense, tests have invented all of us.  They play an important role in determining that opportunities are offered to or withheld from us, they mold the expectations and evaluations that others form of us (and we form of them), and they heavily influence our assessments of our own abilities and worth. Therefore, although testing is usually considered to be a means of appraising qualities that are already present in a person, in actuality the individual in contemporary society is not so much measured by tests as constructed by them" (F. Allan Hanson).

"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards"
Vernon Law

"If you torture data sufficiently, it will confess to almost anything"
Fred Menger

"The implications for assessment are straightforward-use assessments (e.g., performance tasks, projects, prompts, and tests) that ask students to explain, not simply recall; to link specific facts with larger ideas and justify the connections; to show their work, not just give an answer; and to support their conclusions."
Grant Wiggins & Jay McTighe, p. 47.

MEMORIES OF IOWA

So when's the last time you thought about the many resources, materials, and yes, even ears of corn that you took home from Iowa?  If it's been awhile, this cartoon [31] will give you a chuckle!

REFERENCES

Banta, T.W., Lund, J.P., Black, K.E., & Oblander, F.W.  (1996).  Assessment in practice:  Putting principles to work on College campuses.  San Francisco:  Jossey-Bass.

Eisner, Elliot W.  (2002).  The arts and the creation of the mind.  New Haven:  Yale University Press, pp. 178-195. ISBN  0-300-09523-6.

Faculty Center for Excellence in Teaching.  (2000).  The following are the quotes on assessment.  Bowling Green, KY: Western Kentucky University.  Retrieved online December 14, 2004 from http://www.wku.edu/Dept/Support/AcadAffairs/CTL/db/quotes/byassess.php

Finchler, Judy.  (2000).  Testing Miss Malarkey.  New York:  Walker & Company. ISBN  0-8027-8737-1.

Hanson, F. Allan.  The invention of intelligence.  Education Week.

Lewis, Cynthia Copeland.  (1994).  Really important stuff my kids have taught me.  NY:  Workman Publishing. ISBN 1-56305-700-X.

Sizer, Theodore R. & Nancy Faust Sizer.  (1999).  The students are watching:  Schools and the moral contract.  Boston, MA: Beacon Press.  http://www.beacon.org  ISBN  0-8070-3121-6.

Wiggins, Grant & Jay McTighe.  (2001).  Understanding by design.  Columbus, OH:  Merrill Prentice Hall. ISBN  0-13-093058-X.

LINKS IN THIS DOCUMENT

This Newsletter was pepared with funding from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education under Title VI grant #P229A020023. The publication of products and website URLs in this newsletter is provided for informational purposes only and does not imply an endorsement by the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center, Iowa State University, or the positions or policies of the U. S. Department of Education.

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