Designing STAAR Quality Assessments

Designing STAAR Quality AssessmentsPresenters: Academic Facilitators (Don Moody, TJ Florie)

Learning objectivesParticipants will review items and understand the procedural and cognitive demand of each item and ensure they are aligned with the rigor of STAAR.

TodaysMeethttp://todaysmeet.com/cic

Core Belief Activity

Table TalkAt your tables discuss, what actions do you observe that run counter to the Core Beliefs of Dallas ISD.

AssessmentWe assess students not merely to evaluate them, but to improve the entire process of teaching and learning.

- Douglas B. Reeves, Making Standards Work6Begin by reading quote from Reeves and emphasize that assessment is not solely for the purpose of determining a grade, that it is a tool to help us improve the process of teaching and learning.Assessment should drive our instruction because it tells us what students are getting and what they arent gettingRemind participants that the whole point of teaching is for students to LEARN not get a certain grade!TerminologyCommon Assessment = ACPInterim Assessment = formerly common assessments (ie three weeks, six weeks, unit tests)State Assessment = (STAAR, EOC, TAKS, etc)

Six Steps to Creating Quality AssessmentsDATA: Identify and assess high priority TEKS?CONTENT: Identify what students need to Know and Do PROCESSES: Identify Processes and Skills and Dual code items to show application REVIEW EXAMPLES: Identify generalizations about STAAR items and their implications for item and test design.Item and Test Leveling: Ensure items are at the appropriate cognitive and procedural level based on the TEKS?DEVELOP QUALITY TEST ITEMS: Ensure that items well constructed.

Have participants discuss the steps that they have just taken and why they are important to developing a quality assessment.

8Step 5:Determining Cognitive and Procedural Difficulty LevelsAligning Item and Test Difficulty to STAARThis section is tied directly and indirectly to Step 3 (Dual Coding). All items need to be leveled for both cognitive and procedural rigor. This objective is to create a test that has an appropriate balance of content and process rigor and where appropriate is aligned to the rigor of STAAR. On a larger scale it is this skill, application of knowledge, that we are after for our students.9Determining Difficulty LevelHow Difficult is this Item?

How many mental processing steps does the student have to go through to answer the question?The greater the number of processing steps the higher the difficulty level

10DiscussionAt your table discuss the difference between cognitive and procedural difficulty.

Determining Difficulty LevelCognitive DifficultyThis is basically: How hard is question based on Blooms Taxonomy?No question on a test should be above the level of the learning objective (TEKS SE)**It is OK to have questions that are lower**Unless you have a stated learning objective that has been clearly expressed to the students and taught.Determining Difficulty LevelProcedural DifficultyThis is basically: How many mental processing steps does the student have to go through to answer the question?The greater the number of processing steps the higher the difficulty level

ThinkPair-Share

Why is determining difficulty an essential part of test design? Your Turn: Determining DifficultyItem DifficultyLook at the following itemsIdentify the cognitive difficulty of the itemIdentify the procedural difficulty of the item

Item 1

Item 2

Item 3STAAR Quality Items Determine if the following Items meet the rigor of STAAR.If the items are not STAAR Quality, how can they be rewritten to meet the rigor of STAAR.

Dual Coded ItemsProcess skills will now be:assessed in context, not in isolation, which will allow for a more integrated and authentic assessment of these content areasincorporated into test questions and reported along with content skills under the content reporting categoriesessential for use during instruction

Know and Do?This is about more than testing. It is the ability of the student to apply knowledge in real life that we are after.See resource provided, State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAARTM) Assessing Process Skills. Also available at http://www.tea.state.tx.us/student.assessment/staar/

22Brain Research and Dual CodingApplication of Knowledge and Building SchemaThe brain learns new knowledge (content) by attaching that knowledge to existing schemaThe brain builds schema by applying conceptual and content knowledge in a variety of novel waysYou can most effectively test conceptual knowledge through application questions

How the Brain Learns, SousaBrain-based Learning, Jensen

Real life application!!!!23Create an itemUsing your chart paper create an assessment item. The item can have any combination of difficulty ( high-high, medium-high, low-medium, etc.)

In Closing: 3-2-1What are 3 things you will change on your assessments

What are 2 things you are still pondering

What is 1 thing you want to know more about