Assessment in BCSD
What is the purpose of assessment?
The purpose of assessment is to give students opportunities to demonstrate their understanding of content, concepts and skills. Assessments also provide students with feedback to improve their learning and feedback to teachers in order to guide instruction. Teachers use a range of assessments to accomplish this, from something as simple as asking a question during a discussion, observing a student complete a math problem, to an end-of-unit test. Both formal and informal assessments provide students, teachers, parents, schools, and the District with valuable information about student progress. New York State Education Department (NYSED) also measures how well students meet state learning standards. Students participate in NYSED assessments that measure progress towards NYS standards, including the grades 3-8 ELA and Math tests, grades 5 & 8 Science tests, Regents, SATs, ACTs, and AP exams. Each form of assessment differs in purpose, frequency, duration, and content.
How do we inform parents of assessments?
The home-school partnership is critically important to each child's success. Ongoing communication, both formal and informal, lead to a successful parent-teacher partnership. Throughout the school year, formal communication on your child's progress is reported through report cards, parent-teacher conferences, and NYS testing reports via ParentVue. Beginning during the 2023-24 school year, parents will have access to their child's STAR screening assessment results.
What are the Different Types of Assessments?
There are different types of assessments used for different purposes in education.
Universal Screening Assessment: Universal screening assessment tools are used BEFORE learning in order to determine if a student is performing within grade level norms or might need additional supports. A universal screener is a short, quick assessment that provides us with an initial understanding of a child's preliminary skills.
Diagnostic Assessment: While not diagnostic like in the medical field, a diagnostic assessment in education provides us with more granular information about specific areas of strengths and weaknesses that help inform targeted instruction for each child's learning profile.
Formative Assessments: Formative assessments are given to students DURING learning in order to understand how well a student is acquiring the content and skills being taught. Formative assessments are administered during the instructional process in order to provide feedback loops between teacher and student. Formative assessments might include daily classwork, quizzes, projects, and presentations.
Summative Assessments: Summative assessments are given to students AFTER learning has taken place. These assessments provide a teacher with cumulative information about how well a student has retained information or achieved mastery of content and skills taught throughout a unit or course of study. Summative assessments might include an end-of-unit assessment, course final exam, portfolio, or final project.
Assessment Terminology
Criterion vs. Norm-Referenced
Tests are either criterion-referenced or norm-referenced. Criterion-referenced tests measure the degree to which an individual has mastered the expected content in comparison to an objective or performance standard, not compared to other students. The NYS grades 3-8 ELA, Math and Science tests are examples of criterion-referenced tests, as they are measuring student performance in comparison to state learning standards.
Norm-referenced tests compare individuals to other peers who took the same test. Standardized tests that are designed to compare the scores of students to the scores achieved by students of the same age are norm-referenced tests. The Renaissance STAR tests are examples of norm-referenced tests.
Curriculum Based Measurement (CBM)
A method of measuring student progress in academic areas in response to the curriculum taught is considered a curriculum based measurement. Curriculum based measures might include pre- and post-assessments, as well as assessments during learning, to determine students' expected performance on the content for that point in the year. Curriculum based measurements allow the teacher and parents to see how the child’s performance compares to expectations across the school year.