Handouts are available below

Big Idea

I’ve been doing standards based assessment – also known as standards based grading – with my classes for the past 4 years. Today, I want to share a few things I’ve learned in doing Standards Based Assessment (or SBA, for short). Long story short, SBA has changed my practice for the better and it’s because it’s made what I do in my practice more intentional and more explicit and it’s given students more opportunities to practice science skills.

Things I Learned Doing Standards-Based Assessment

Number 1: I need to be more intentional with how I assess students. For example, how do my tests assess science standards? And, how many test questions do I need to ask before I can say a student is developing or proficient or extending? One thing I started doing was reformatting my tests so that I categorized questions by the standard or skill I was assessing. Looking back on my tests forced me to review the questions I asked, to take out the ones that didn’t assess standards, and to create some new questions that did.

As a result, my tests are now shorter and more efficient. Before SBA, my tests generally had 20 to 30 multiple choice, true/false and short answer questions. Now, I have roughly 7 to 9 questions per test.

Number 2: I need to be more explicit with my rubrics. I use a lot of rubrics to assess extended response questions and assignments, and I need to constantly make clear to myself and students what students should be able to demonstrate at an emerging, developing, proficient, or extending proficiency level. For example, the BC ministry of education says that a student who is proficient can provide a complete response to a questions while a student who is extending can provide a sophisticated response. But, what’s the difference between a complete, proficient answer and a sophisticated, extending one? What does that look like? When I started doing SBA with my classes, I had to invest time into defining and redefining my rubrics and then communicating these to my students. But, once I ironed it all out, students had a better understanding of how to get from proficient to extending because the differences were now made clearer.

Number #3: I need to set up more opportunities for students to practice using the rubrics. This means that if I’m going to have a question on a test that has students write a prediction, then I’m going to need to give students an opportunity to write a prediction and evaluate it against the rubric I’m using. 

An awesome benefit to this practice is that it makes it easier for me to mark test questions because both my students and I know what to look for in a developing, proficient or extending response.

Thanks for reading, and we’ll talk science again soon.

Resources

Handout(s): Starting Your Standards Based Assessment Journey

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