Course Description
Components of evaluation, appropriate evaluation techniques, procedures, collection, and utilization of research data for improving elementary schools.
Athena Title
Evaluation Elementary School
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
Identify the major functions, strengths, limitations, and errors in measurement and evaluation. Define and illustrate the essential characteristics of good assessment procedures, including relevance, representativeness, reliability, validity, normative samples, and usability. Compare, contrast, and illustrate technical concepts and practical concerns of measurement, including correlation, reliability, validity, and measurement error. Identify, write, and classify educational objectives according to specific criteria and given classification schemes. Identify the basic types of test items and compare and contrast these types. Critique examples of various types of test items and compare and contrast these types. Employ rules for item writing in constructing tasks designed to measure specific educational objectives. Plan and construct a classroom test designed to measure the objectives of a particular unit of instruction. Identify major issues on the administration and scoring of various assessment procedures. Evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of test items. Demonstrate understanding and application of basic test statistics. Describe, compare, and interpret various types of test scores: relative scores, standard scores, and norms. Analyze and interpret various types of test data. Differentiate between absolute and relative standards of performance. Identify methods of marking and grading and applying various systems to given test results. Integrate, evaluate, and report data concerning student achievement. Differentiate between maximum and typical performance measures and illustrate each type. Identify the strengths, weaknesses, and uses of observation and nontest assessment techniques. Assess strategies used to communicate evaluation to parents. Demonstrate understanding of school-wide evaluation, improvement, accreditation procedures. Describe positive and negative outcomes of teacher evaluation. Describe appropriate forms of self-evaluation. Describe strengths and weaknesses of student-led evaluation.
Topical Outline
History of evaluation, why teachers need to know about assessment, achievement assessment and instruction, discussing evaluation with parents, classification of scales and measurement, absence of bias, improving teacher-developed assessments, characteristics of measurement instruments, reliability of assessment, validity, the nature of assessment, criterion v. norm-references measures, deciding what to assess and how to assess it, behavioral objectives, planning the test, instructionally-oriented assessment, translating scores, the normal distribution, different types of tests (multiple choice, true/false, matching, short answer, essay), assembling, administering, and evaluating the test, difficulty and discrimination, item-response theory, performance assessment, portfolio assessment, authentic assessment, digital portfolios, evaluating teaching and grading students, student-led evaluation, interpreting standardized tests, school-wide evaluation, teacher evaluation, accreditation, self-evaluation, school improvement.