Archive for the ‘News’ Category

An Alternative to Destructive Testing Practices in Educational Programs

Presenter: Paul Zachos

Alternative Education Resource Organization’s 5th annual AERO conference. Troy, New York, June 26-29th.

Description of Workshop:

It is possible to collect information about student learning in a way that is non-threatening, and even motivating and educational. The information derived can then be devoted exclusively to improving teaching and learning. This will increasingly be the character of educational assessment in the future. Examples of this new generation of assessment practices already exist and are employed today by innovative educators who use them to obtain deep knowledge of their students.

This workshop demonstrates such an assessment and shows how it provides a rigorous and practical alternative to the harmful testing practices which now dominate educational settings. Workshop participants will have the opportunity to experience (from the student perspective) such an innovative assessment. The experience will take about 30 minutes. It will be followed by a 15 minute explanation of this new paradigm. Remaining time (as much as can be made available within the structure of the conference) will be devoted to questions and answers and participant generated discussion on alternatives to destructive testing practices.

The 2nd Annual EduCamp Saratoga was held on February 23rd, 2008. Teachers, educational researchers, scientists, permaculturists, engineers, and interested people came from around the region to discuss issues in education and come up with creative solutions. Check out the website in a few weeks for a full report, http://EduCampSaratogaNY.pbwiki.com/

If you missed it this year, keep posted for future EduCamp and ACASE events.

Many thanks to NSTA for their recognition of ACASE in the GrabBag of the November 2007 newsletter.

Version 2 of the ACASE Assessment Information System (AIS), developed through generous funding by the Nordlys Foundation, is up and running. AISv2 is the first educational information system that is designed to analyze data to help teachers easily import and export classroom data, aggregate and disaggregate information, and build customized assessments.

AIS Version 2 features
– the ability to compare performance of students by any desired characteristic (e.g. grade level, socio economic status, competence in mathematics)
– the ability to meaningfully aggregate information numerically and graphically from different levels of an educational system (class, school, school district, state etc.)
– The ability to simultaneously look at performance of groups and individual members of the groups
– The ability to easily import existing classes and student characteristics into the system (this saves teachers the trouble of entering the information manually)
– Easy export of assessment information into statistical packages for further analysis
– Teachers can use the system to build their own learning goals and assessment activities thus customizing the system for local relevance

AIS Version 2 can be examined at: http://scientificinquiry.org.

Why these new features were needed

Existing ‘educational data’ used in federal, state and local planning is almost exclusively comparative test scores. Ranking and grading of this type does not provide the information needed to support or enhance teaching and learning. Moreover this information is misleading when it is used for purposes of accountability. The true and best unit of educational information is information concerning the extent to which students have attained goals for learning. This information can assist decision making when looking at individuals, classes, schools and school districts and when making comparisons between different groups of students. Indeed this information is meaningful and useful even when aggregated at state and national levels.

Version 2 of the ACASE Assessment Information System (AIS), developed through generous funding by the Nordlys Foundation, is the first educational information system that is designed exclusively to work with information of this kind. We believe that the move to educational research, evaluation and planning based on information about the extent to which learning goals are being achieved will bring positive changes into educational programs that are more powerful than other proposed or existing methods of educational reform. This is because other methods of reform base their decisions on information that inherently does not have educational relevance; test scores are the center of these reforms rather than attainment of learning goals.

Starting in July of 2007, Version 2 of the ACASE Assessment Information System (AIS) will be operational

*Version 2* will be bringing a number of new features, including:

Reports can now aggregate and disaggregate data using categories
that you select. For example, you can graphically compare performance
of girls to boys in a particular grade on a series of learning goals.

You can now add and modify these grouping categories and make those
changes at the district, school or individual teacher level. So if
your district wants to compare students who are bus riders vs. those
who walk to school, you can. If a teacher wants to compare performance
of students who’ve received particular instructional methods, you can
do that too.

Individual settings for districts and schools – for example, class
types and terms can now all be individualized for the district or
school, instead of shared by all system users.

District and school staff can now create teacher accounts with no
need to contact ACASE for help in this routine task.

Teachers can now label assessments by type, such as “pretest” or
“post test”, making cross classroom comparisons much easier.

School staff can reduce teachers’ workload by creating classes, and
generating assessments for teachers.

*Version 2.5*, due out this Fall, will also add the ability for
teachers to create their own learning goals and assessment activities.

Please contact Paul Zachos if you would like a tour of the new system.

On the evening of May 7, William Doane led an exploration and discussion on the subject of wikis – web sites where visitors can contribute and edit content.

The session was held in the Gallery at 110 Spring Street, Saratoga Springs.

We built a wiki site together, saw some exemplary sites in use, and explored a variety of issues that surround the use of wikis from education-related legal issues to site management and archival concerns.

Some attendees with laptops that had wireless capability were able contribute to the wiki we created in real-time!

Wil is a founding member of ACASE. He teaches courses in information and computer science for the University at Albany, Skidmore College and the Center for Talented Youth.

If you want to know more, please contact Wil Doane

Envisioning Education, a free-of-charge event sponsored by ACASE. 112 Spring Street, Saratoga Springs NY brought together educators from New England and New York state to share their visions about positive possibilities in education.

On Saturday, February 3, 2007, participants met at 112 Spring Street, Saratoga Springs, NY. Beginning at 9 am, attendees will self-organize the day’s schedule. Concurrent sessions began at 9:30am.

This “unconference” follows a format developed by the grassroots technology community to foster sharing and the rapid exchange of ideas. There was no pre-set agenda. Instead, once on-site, participants posted a short description (5-20 words) of the presentation they would give. The descriptions were posted on a board divided into times and rooms. The agenda emerged as participants discussed their interests and re-arranged the schedule as they saw fit.

ACASE provided the online organization space, the meeting place, and worked with local organizations and businesses to provide food and drink. This year Educamp coincided with the annual local Chowder-Fest.

Check Envisioning Education to give you a sense of the day, to order souvenirs and see what you missed!

For more information about the “unconference” format, visit http://barcamp.org/TheRulesOfBarCamp

Move Your Data! Spring Conference in Saratoga Springs NY

Paul Zachos presented two sessions: From Standards to Valued Outcomes: Overview and Methods and a breakfast roundtable presentation Equity and Assessment. Rebekah Rice presented From Standards to Valued Outcomes: A Case Study.

From Standards to Valued Outcomes: Overview and Methods

This presentation highlights some of the necessary requirements for putting standards based reform efforts (such as No Child Left Behind) on a practical footing. A number of neglected features, such as practical learning goals, are identified which need to be in place in order to successfully bridge the gap between state policies and classroom efforts. The presentation shows how one can successfully use information generated by formative assessment of students to unify instructional decisions at the classroom level with accountability and resource allocation decisions at the district and state levels.

From Standards to Valued Outcomes: A Case Study

How can a teacher move from the State’s standards and their school’s curriculum guides to build practical learning goals that will serve as a basis for crafting assessments to improve teaching and learning?

Sun & Shadows – an innovative assessment that measures higher order thinking skills in math, science, and technology – will serve as a case study.

Participants in the sessions will directly experience a number of Sun & Shadows assessment and instructional activities. It will include of longitudinal and comparative results of student performance on the assessment. We will review how Sun and Shadows was built from an integration of state standards, local school district standards and AAAS benchmarks and show how assessment results have led to changes in curriculum and instruction.

For more information, visit www.wswheboces.org/data.

Check out the April issue of NSTA magazine The Science Teacher. Knowing When You Don’t Know: Supporting teaching and learning using a new generation of tests is the latest publication from the ACASE community. William E. J. Doane, Paul Zachos, and Rebekah R. Rice teamed up for this snapshot view of the work we do. To obtain a printed copy of the article please contact Paul Zachos.

The Lexington Education Foundation (www.lexedfoundation.org) interviewed teacher Jennifer Burgin recently for an article in their annual newsletter. Jennifer told them:

“When students become directly involved with natural phenomena, they each discover an entry point at their own level of development and knowledge.” Jennifer has been piloting ACASE Sun and Shadows since her 2004 summer fellowship with ACASE.

Read The Article.