Collaborative Research: Modeling Assessment to Enhance Teaching and Learning

Vanderbilt University, Nashville TN

Investigators

Abstract

Although many in education advocate for evidence-based teaching, implementation of such practices is often quite difficult for teachers. Assessment and accountability data are commonly used for system-level reforms, but are seldom designed to help teachers guide day-to-day instructional decision-making. More useful assessment systems should deliver actionable information to assist in guiding instructional decisions, communicate the development of student knowledge, and integrate various forms of data to assist teachers. Such systems must be logistically feasible to implement, provide suitable grounds for interpreting information about achievement, and exist in a teacher community interested in ongoing feedback about student learning. This project will modify an existing assessment system (BEAR Assessment System) to provide ongoing, instructionally productive evidence to teachers about student learning and to link student work products and formative assessments with summative assessments in models that generate useful estimates of student growth. To design and test the assessment system, researchers will study teacher integration of assessment tools with instruction via classroom observations, video records, and interviews. Feedback from teachers and observations of their assessment practices will inform revisions to the assessment system. Multiple iterations will focus on how best to represent and display assessment results for tracking individual and group learning. Researchers will investigate new psychometric models that link information from student classroom work, responses to formative assessments, and summative evaluations to provide more reliable estimates of student learning. The Discovery Research PreK-12 program (DRK-12) seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models and tools (RMTs). Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects.