Compiled & Presented byMichele Walden-Pinnock

Reflecting on Curriculum Implementation

• How was your first semester in 2011/2012?• How was Course Delivery?• How was Course Evaluation ?• How did your students’ perform ? Why?• What/ Who do your colleagues attribute this

to?

Inter-relatedness of Curriculum Elements

CURRICULUM

DEVELOP MENT

OBJECTIVES

CONTENT

EVALUATION

METHODOLGY

Who were the Curriculum Designers ?

Understanding the Numbers Game

Coursework • Project - 25%• Group Work – Research and Presentation 30%• Essay – 20%• Class Test - 15%How do we find the coursework grade?

Getting Ahead of Our Game

• We were responsible for writing the courses• We designed the evaluation – type & weighting

• Coursework• Final Examination• And how the two were to be combined

• We identified– essential vs non-essential content

Let’s take Control of Our Game!!!

Retracing Our Steps

We must ALL take responsibility ! & Right the Wrong

Without a Table of Specification assessment will produce scores that are of limited use and interpretation.

TOS will help all our stakeholdersStudents - study guideLecturers – teaching guide; reporting;

accountabilityMinistry – accountability; accreditation

What can we do, at this point?

• We MUST develop our Table of Specifications and stand committed to using it as our blueprint.

• It is against this matrix that our courses will be evaluated.

YES WE CAN COMPLETE IT ! AND NO ITS NOT A TEDIOUS PROCESS

Establish Undergirding Principles

• Our Philosophy on Teaching and Learning by students – [bell curve phenomenon?]

• Criterion Referenced Testing• Mastery Learning• Item Difficulty• Validity

Item DifficultyThe difficulty of the test depends on its purpose. • To monitor performance of all students the

distribution of difficulty should match the distribution of achievement of the target population.

• NOTE: The exclusion of important areas of the curriculum simply because students perform very poorly or very well on them.

2/3 of test 30-70 % answer correctly1/3 of test More than 70% answer correctly

Items that 30% are likely to answer

NRT vs CRT

• "Norm-Referenced Assessment: Assessment designed to provide a measure of performance that is interpretable in terms of an individual's relative standing in some known group.

Criterion-Referenced Assessment: Assessment designed to provide a measure of performance that is interpretable in terms of a clearly defined and delimited domain of learning tasks." (p. 42)

Linn and Gronlund (2000)

Understanding how CRT relate to Mastery Learning

• "... include items that are directly relevant to the learning outcomes to be measured, without regard to whether the items can be used to discriminate among students. No attempt is made to eliminate easy items or alter their difficulty.

• The goal of the criterion-referenced test is to obtain a description of the specific knowledge and skills each student can demonstrate. " (p. 43)

Power Tests vs Speed Test POWER TEST • On a Power Test all students are given enough time

to attempt and answer all items.

• Items are arranged in a hierarchy from knowledge level (easy) to increasing difficulty.

• A power test should be administered so that a very large percentage (90% is an acceptable minimum) of the pupils for whom it is designed will have ample time to attempt all of the items.

Power Tests vs Speed Test SPEED TEST• A speed test is one in which a student must, in a limited

amount of time, answer a series of questions or perform a series of tasks of a uniformly low level of difficulty.

• The intent of a speed test is to measure the rapidity with which a pupil can do what is asked of him or her.

• Speed of performance frequently becomes important after students have mastered task basics as in using a keyboard, manipulatives, or phonics.

• Tests are often a mixture of speed and power even when achievement level is the test's purpose. Such tests are called partially speeded tests.

Considering TIME vs WeightingTeachers must check time limits carefully to be sure that all students will have the

opportunity to address each test item adequately before the allotted time is up.• The amount of time for the test is determined before test construction and is

facilitated by using a Table of Specifications.

• Testing time is determined by : – the number of objective to be tested; – Coverage and complexity of objectives; – levels of acceptable performance– Demographics of students - age and ability levels, – class time available, – types of test items, – length and complexity of test items.

• Teachers must check time limits carefully to be sure that all students will have the opportunity to address each test item adequately before the allotted time is up.

Exploring Content

Content can be classified in many ways• Cognitive– Declarative; Procedural; Strategic (problem solving)

– Using Blooms Taxonomy • Psychomotor• AffectiveClassifying Content is important because different

types of knowledge; skills and attitudes are best assessed using specific strategies

Declarative Knowledge

• Factual information stored in memory and known to be static.

• Knowledge about something; describes how things are. Things/events/processes, their attributes, and the relations between these things/events/processes and their attributes.

Procedural Knowledge

• Knowledge of how to perform, or how to operate. [Know-how]. It involves making discriminations, understanding concepts, and applying rules that govern relationships and often includes motor skills and cognitive strategies.

Strategic Knowledge

• Information that is the basis of problem solving, - action plans to meet specific goals; knowledge of the context in which procedures should be implemented; actions to be taken if a proposed solution fails; and how to respond if necessary information is absent.

Content-Process Validity

• TOS ensures that items are representative of materials taught –adequate sampling

• The intellectual reasoning level [process] used during instruction and intended by the curriculum designers is mirrored in the assessment.

Facts about Knowledge

• All knowledge starts out as declarative information and procedural knowledge is acquired through inferences from already existing knowledge.

• It is said that one becomes more skilled in problem solving when he relies more on procedural knowledge than declarative knowledge.

Table of Specifications

A Table of Specifications classifies each test item according to what topic or concept it tests AND what objective it addresses.

SAMPLE

Purpose of TOS

• To ensure that there exists correspondence between the learning objectives for the students and the content of the course.

• To ensure proper organization of assessment procedures that best represent the material covered in the teaching/learning process.

Benefits of a TOS• Ensures that an assessment has content validity— ie the tests

what it was suppose to test; a match between what was taught and what is tested.

• Ensures that the same emphasis on content during instruction is mirrored on assessment (e.g., more items about topic X and fewer about topic Y because you consider X to be more important and you spent more time on X)

• Ensures alignment of test items with objectives (e.g., important topics might include items that test interpretation, application, prediction, and unimportant topics might be tested only with simpler recognition items

• Ensures that content is not overlooked or underemphasized

Framework of TOS• A Table of Specifications consists of a two-way chart or grid (Kubiszyn &

Borich, 2003; Linn & Gronlund, 2000; Mehrens & Lehman, 1973; Ooster, 2003) relating instructional objectives to the instructional content.

• The column of the chart lists the objectives or "levels of skills" (Gredler, 1999, p.268) to be addressed;

• The rows list the key concepts or content the test is to measure.

• "We have found it useful to represent the relation of content and behaviors in the form of a two dimensional table with the objectives on one axis, the content on the other. The cells in the table then represent the specific content in relation to a particular objective or behavior" (Bloom, et al. (1971),

Going Forward

• Examine the Units according to proposed Duration and the identify weightings

• Classify the objectives according to its emphasis on knowledge/ skills/ attitudes for each units

COGNITION PSYCHOMOTOR AFFECTIVE TOTAL

UNIT 1 : Understanding Self

UNIT 2: Diversity in the Classroom

UNIT 3: Professional Ethics and Teacher Relationships

SUBTOTAL

TOTAL

COGNITION

PSYCHOMOTOR AFFECTIVE TOTAL

KNOWLEDGE

COMPREHENSION

APPLICATION

ANALYSIS

EVALUATION

SYNTHESIS

UNIT 1 : Understanding Self

UNIT 2: Diversity in the Classroom

UNIT 3: Professional Ethics and Teacher Relationships

SUBTOTAL

TOTAL

Factors that can Influence the Design of the TOS

• Persons understanding about the content being measured

• Person’s understanding of the purpose of Assessment

• Time and resources will not permit the testing of every objective/content on a syllabus

Therefore the CORE SKILLS/ ESSENTIAL TOPICS ought to be agreed upon by the experts.

Let’s Not Invent the Wheel

Assessment instruments are available online• Checklists• Rubrics• Rating scales

Next Step

Complete a TOS for all courses being examined this semester

Ensure that our colleagues when submitting draft questions for final exams indicate the objective/ objectives being assessed If lecturers teaching a course in your board agree

on the TOS. Then there will be no need for vetting.

Let’s remain CONFIDENT and COMMITTED

©Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find you have crossed the mountain.

~Author Unknown

Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there. ~Josh Billings

Let’s commit ourselves to our MissionLet’s vow to sticking to each small task

Ensure the TEAM remains Motivated

Together Everyone Achieves More,I Thank You

Reference

• Anderson, P & G. Morgan (2008)Developing Tests and Questionnaires for a National Assessment of Educational http://www.uis.unesco.org/Education/Documents/National_assessment_Vol2.pdf

Gredler, M. E. (1999). Classroom Assessment and Learning. New York: Longman, an imprint of Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.

Linn, R. L., & Gronlund, N. E. (2000). Measurement and assessment in teaching (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.