Session 4: Considering Alternative Assessments in Relationship to ELs

AVG 4.1 (35 min) Developing knowledge of WIDA Interpretive Rubrics Have teachers download the rubrics before they begin. They will watch two videos. The first focuses on the WIDA writing rubric (here is the link if you want to preview it). The next video is on the WIDA Speaking Rubric (Preview it here).

LA 4.1 (30 min.) Sharing My Student Teachers will teach each other what they learned about the EL student they are considering in terms of their assessment plan (The major course project). Encourage group members to take notes about what they notice in terms of promoting and assessing their content knowledge and their reading, writing, listening and speaking skills. 

AVG 4.2 (30 MIN) TYPES OF ASSESSMENT Begin by having students download the viewing guide which provides the slides with note taking space next to each slide. You can watch this together which allows you to set the pace--but keep it to no more than 10 min.

This powerpoint is mostly review for the teachers. Because of their earlier learning they should be able to preview this powerpoint quickly (Remember:  Earlier today, they have watched a video that taught about using WIDA interpretive rubrics. Earlier in this course,  they have watched the video segment on the alternative assessment movement, worked on an activity that introduced them to  Formal/Informal and Formative/Summative assessments and asked them to fill out a matrix that teaches them about the inter-relationships. They have considered various types of assessment.)

After the powerpoint, the students will consider one at a time each student profiled in their group. They will provide information about the profiled student and what strategies for assessment or adjustment to assessments would be most helpful. 

LA 4.2 (20 min) Exploring Informal and Content Area Assessment Teachers will read about and compile information about Portfolio and Content Area Assessment. They skim read information from ColorinColorado. Portfolio assessment can be used as a content area assessment remind teachers of that. Then they are asked to explore another content area assessment. 

LA 4.3 (30 minutes) Assessment Tool Marketplace.  This activity has three parts: 1. study a set of strategies and take notes. 2. Share the one or two most promising for the final project. 3. Confer and select from all those reviewed the one or two for each person's final project.

There are 24 strategies. Teachers should quickly identify who will take the first 6, who the second and so on (or you could number them off). Have them begin by downloading the worksheet to take notes on. They will have 15 minutes to skim the 6 one page descriptions of their assigned assessment strategies. Prompt them to star their description summaries of the ones they think work best for their final project. At the end they reconvene, share the most promising strategies that they starred. Confer and select one of two to use in their final project.

Note that they can try out one of these strategies and reflect on it for 4.1 

LA 4.4 (20 minutes) Planning Assessment for My Unit The purpose of this activity is for teachers to review the final project and raise questions about what it entails. Be prepared to answer the questions they raise. 

Save time to Review Homework.

HW 4.1. Actons Taken and Learning. They review the assessment market place (LA 4.3). Encourage them to enact one of the strategies and reflect and report on it or something they learn and want to try in HW 4.3--reading Chapter 4 from Gottlieb. 

HW 4.2 Analyzing Student Writing  They have completed the student profile, but we want them to look more closely at the writing of the student. They use the writing of the student they are adjusting their final project for. They have engaged in an activity like this in the Second Language Acquisition Course and will do it again in the Literacy Course. They can use the same student they focused on in the Second Language Acquisition Course, but you should encourage them to collect a new sample of writing and analyze it for this course to see if the student is making progress--even though it has probably only been about a month when they did this before. 

HW 4.3 Conceptions of Oral Language Assessment. Teachers read Chapter 4 from Gottlieb in HW 1.2. The questions you responded to in HW 1.2 are different from the questions guiding their reading here. 

HW 4.4 Examining Authentic Assessments. At the end of class, make sure within the groups each person is assigned an Authentic Assessment Study from the Assessment Literacy Video Ethnography. Give them the id and password to access the case (ID tellcases PW: video).  They have two worksheets to fill out and bring to class. Please show them how to access the videoethnography and how to select the case, view the video, and listen to or read the perspectives.

***For LA 5.1 they engage in a JigSaw where they meet with others who watched the videoethnography they watched and then in the teaching group they shared what they learned. They can fill in the details of all four studies from the Assessment Literacy case and they can take notes on the worksheet on their computers--but if they want to take notes in hard copy they need to print out the Comparing Alternative Assessment Worksheet linked at LA 5.1. 

***Next week in class they will have time to create a rubric or scoring guide for a formal alternative assessment they will use in their final project. You might want to give them a heads up so that they can bring something to guide them in creating the rubric. Since this is practice, they could also create a rubric for an alternative assessment they use elsewhere in the unit they are working on or in another unit they teach. 

This content is provided to you freely by EdTech Books.

Access it online or download it at https://edtechbooks.org/tell_facilitator_guide/session_4r.