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Keystone Colloquium, November 16,
2000 "Connecting Assessment with Instruction," featuring Bud Alder. "How can we use assessment to help students improve their learning?" KSN teachers who joined in the second year of the program explored this question with consultant Bud Alder in a lively session highlighting the importance of clear performance targets and evaluation criteria. Bud has many years of experience in education and assessment, most recently with the ASSET regional initiative in southwestern Pennsylvania. (Take a look at some of of ASSET's assessment rubrics aligned to STC modules on the KSN site.) |
| Before the formal session begins, many people take the opportunity to swap ideas and catch up on classroom experiences since the Summer Institute. | |
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Bud chats with participants, getting a sense of their ideas and questions. |
| Bud explains ASSET's work with the STC modules. With the help of collaborating teachers, ASSET developed rubrics based on samples of student work and the significant "enduring learnings" supported by each kit. |  |
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Using a Peanuts comic as an example, Bud draws out the key point about assessment—students can perform better when they understand the criteria by which they're being evaluated. |
| Bud asks the group to brainstorm reasons for teaching elementary science, and folks come up with reasons like "to encourage curiosity," "to develop skills," and to help kids "learn how to learn." But he points out that most teachers actually test for facts, and "you get what you test for!" |  |
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Bud introduces his "Cracker Barrel rubric"—the decision-making aid he devised for times when he and his wife shop at Cracker Barrel restaurant stores. The higher the product's score, the more likely a purchase will be made. |
| Bud follows-up his Cracker Barrel rubric example with the educational application of rubrics. They're a set of scoring guidelines for evaluating student work, and a tool for clarifying what one really wants the students to learn. Typical rubrics have a scale of possible points, and provide clear descriptors for each level of performance. |  |
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An assignment for the teachers: classify these creatures into four different groups based on their observable physical characteristics. |
| Physical features such as legs, claws, and wings provide ideas for classifying and then naming the resulting groups. |  |
There's more! Continue on to the rest of the colloquium.
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| The Franklin Institute gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the National Science Foundation and Unisys Corporation. | |||
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The Franklin Institute is the Demonstration Site for the
Eisenhower
Mid-Atlantic Consortium, providing science and math
resources for teachers.
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 9819641. © 2003. All rights reserved.
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