Social discussion of CS in K-12

[Charles Schultz <sacrophyte AT gmail.com>]

Good morning,

I am looking at the Sept 12 BOE Agenda on BoardDocs, and I see in the Recongitions section some really good things. Among them is a very interesting study recently released:

Assessment Story Project: What We Learned from Teachers Sharing Their Experiences with Literacy Assessment

I don't want to overquote their findings, but the 5 main ideas that emerged from their analysis stands on its own and, in my opinion, speaks volumes:

Five main themes about writing and reading assessments emerged from the survey responses:

1. Teachers are knowledgeable about assessment practices. They reported using many different methods and approaches to evaluate students’ work for both summative and formative purposes.
2. Teachers value meaningful reading and writing assessment, which they define as assessment that supports teaching and learning.
3. Teachers find that standardized, mandated reading and writing assessments are often not meaningful. A minority of respondents acknowledged the potential benefits that some standardized assessments could offer.
4. Teachers and students experience high-stakes assessments as detrimental, in part because of their impact on student learning and in part because of the resources they divert from more useful activities.
5. Teachers offered valuable insights about alternative approaches to assessment, both in the classroom and system-wide. From the responses, several principles emerged about what meaningful assessment should do, including engaging students in real-world tasks; employing tasks calling for students to be creative problem solvers; tapping classroom work that students are already engaged in, using “embedded” assessment; including students in presenting to others: administrators, parents, and community members; and providing for feedback that can be used during the school year by both teacher and students to support learning.

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Charles Schultz