Assessment

SCOLT Assessment Project

This project undertaking grew out of SCOLT’s participation under, Dr. Sue Barry—the 2006 SCOLT President—in the New Visions in Action Assessment Summit: A National Discussion on Assessing World Languages April 4-5, 2005.  SCOLT decided to pursue best practices in assessment approach, and in order to make the greatest impact possible, SCOLT instituted a training grant for the entire world language instructional staff of a single school system.

Timeline for Assessment Project:

Applications received:  October 6, 2006—notification by November 1, 2006

• Session One: July 23-27, 2007
• Session Two: February 15-16, 2008
• Session Three: May 1-2, 2008

In the summer of 2007 nearly all of the Richmond County (Augusta, GA) world languages teaching staff began a long journey through understanding performance-based language assessment and discovered powerful teaching insights as well.  Over the course of the school year and working with SCOLT facilitator, Greg Duncan of InterPrep, these teachers went on to develop a cadre of performance-based assessments which they vetted, student tested, and shared with fellow teachers at a February 2008 follow-up session.  In May a smaller group of teachers along with coordinator, Penny Johnson, and facilitator, Greg Duncan, met to reflect on the project and discuss how they might continue the momentum begun via the project and also plan for the project presentation at the March 2009 SCOLT/FLAG/SEALLT Conference in Atlanta.  As a result of the work of this group of teachers, the Georgia Department of Education tapped them under the direction of Greg Duncan in July 2008 to provide examples of standards-based assessments and rubrics for the Georgia Standards website (http://www.georgiastandards.org/language.aspx).

The following represent some of the teacher comments about this project:

• It was helpful in freeing up the process for the students and me.  I would teach using PBAs.
• I believe that any activity that can enhance teaching is well worth it.  It was helpful in adding to my repertoire of teaching tools and activities.
• This session was one of the most, if not the single most productive professional development seminars I have taken.  Don’t change anything.
• I enjoyed hearing the other teachers’ presentations and being able to interact with questions and project results.  It helped me better understand the project and where I needed to go.  It also triggered new ideas for me.
• The February follow-up session helped me see the mistakes that I made with my PBAs and how to adapt them to units of teaching.
• I believe we are continuing to improve language instruction and better serve the needs of our students.
• Performance-based Assessment (PBA)

Performance assessment is a measure of assessment based on authentic tasks such as activities, exercises, or problems that require students to show what they can do.  Each task pertains to one of the three communicative modes found in national and state foreign language standards: Interpersonal, Interpretive, or Presentational. Performance tasks often have more than one acceptable solution; they may call for a student to create a response to a problem and then explain or defend it. The process involves the use of higher-order thinking skills (e.g., cause and effect analysis, deductive or inductive reasoning, experimentation, and problem solving). Rubrics are created to evaluate student performance on these tasks and are shared with the students prior to the assessment process.  Thus, the student performs the given task knowing how he or she has to perform in order to obtain the desired measurement.

For further information on performance-based assessment, please see Greg Duncan’s link at: https://www.t2tweb.us/Workshops/Sessions.asp?SessionID=310. Also see the PBAs developed by the Richmond County world languages teachers for the SCOLT Assessment Project at: http://www.georgiastandards.org/language.aspx.

 

Summer 2007 SCOLT Assessment Workshop

Richmond County Schools: World Language Staff

 

Summer 2007 Work Session with Greg Duncan, Project Facilitator

 

2008 Assessment Leadership Team, Richmond County Schools (GA)
Left to Right: Robert Walker, Penny Johnson (Coordinator), Melissa McAllister, Candida Thompson, Peggy Grant, Debra Welch and Greg Duncan (Project Facilitator)

 

2008 Project Follow-up Discussions