ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION
Assessment of student achievement is changing, largely because today's students face a world that will demand new knowledge and abilities. In the global economy of the 21st century, students will need to understand the basics, but also to think critically, to analyze, and to make inferences. Helping students develop these skills will require changes in assessment at the school and classroom level, as well as new approaches to large-scale, high-stakes assessment.
Summative assessment - evaluation at the "summation" of a lesson or at an end-point in a process.
Formative assessment - assessment that occurs "along the way" in a lesson, etc. to assess learning prior to the end-point.
External assessment, such as state or district assessment, communicates to students, teachers, parents, and the public what the state or district considers important to teach and learn in school (Bond & Cohen, 1991).
Classroom assessment, the day-to-day assessment of students by teachers in the classroom, communicates to students and parents what the school and teacher value in student performance.
Alternative assessment - any form of assessment that requires students to produce a response rather than select from a list of possible responses—measures the more complex learning goals that we now hold for students and supports the instruction needed to help students achieve these goals; because of these strengths, alternative assessments are becoming more common.
RESOURCES
Data Director - Log in to DataDirector to build an exam with over 5,000 aligned items
Michigan's Michigan Merit Exam Website - Source of multiple documents and tools related to all four types of assessment
Mid-Michigan Consortium Assessment Resources -Test items, Power Points and other tools
