Explain the different reasons we should evaluate students.

Choose the most appropriate tool for formative and summative evaluation.

Examine the use of evaluation tools for accountability purposes.

Differentiate between reliability and validity measurements of test scores and items.

Write questions at the level of behavior stated by an objective in a curriculum framework (blueprint).

Explore the test item development process used by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction to create test item banks.

Curriculum developers often create tools to be used to evaluate a student's mastery of the curriculum objectives. Often these are used in curriculum resources such as text, workbooks or as accountability tools. Teachers can use these evaluation tools for formative or summative purposes. Formative evaluations (often called interim assessments) give teachers the information they need to know in order to adjust their instruction. Summative evaluations are given to assign students grades or to assess their final mastery of an objective. End of course tests are summative evaluations.

In North Carolina, Workforce Development has created and adopted the VOCATS Instructional Management System. This system includes a blueprint, a curriculum guide, and test item banks that can be used for classroom assessment (formative) and accountability assessment (summative). The classroom assessment items are called unsecured item banks and the accountability assessments are called secured item banks. Teachers have access to the unsecured banks but do not have access to the secured banks. At the end of the school year, students in Workforce Development Education classes are given an end of course multiple choice test by a proctor. The test items come from the secured banks. Their test scores are reported to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. Many school systems count the student's test score as part of their final grade. The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction reports the scores to meet standards from the federal government.

Regardless of the reporting system, it is important that evaluation tools measure what they are supposed to measure. The test item should be written to match the domain of learning and level of the objective. In this lesson we will review good test writing techniques to help the curriculum developer write well-designed questions. We will also briefly define reliability of test scores and validity measurements of test items.We will explore item statistics which can help you as a teacher determine whether to keep, revise, or throw out a question.

There is no reading from the textbook this week.

Download or View this week's powerpoint here.

Examine the North Carolina VOCATS system test item development process and practice evaluating questions in a PowerPoint prepared by NCDPI to work with validation teams.

Review the NCDPI standards for secured banks, classroom banks, test questions, and multiple choice questions

Weekly Assignment: none

E-mail bwilson@ncsu.edu to let me know if you will mailing VCR/DVD presentation by Dec.4 or participating in Elluminate Nov.26 (practice) and presenting Dec.4

There is no assignment this week- you should be working on your final project. However on our open book final exam, you will be given a sample objective and asked to write an appropriate test item to measure the student mastery of the objective. You will have to follow the North Carolina Department Of Public Instruction standards and hints for writing good questions in this week's lesson. Your test questions should match the domain of learning (cognitive, affective or performance) and the level of performance (ex. C1 and etc.). So if you would like to practice writing a few test items that would measure student success in mastery of objectives from your blueprint, I will be glad to look at them and provide feedback this week. E-mail them to bwilson@ncsu.edu

The final project for this class will be due by Dec.4. The final product consists of a PowerPoint and presentation that includes the four phases of your project completed in earlier classes. The rubric for the content requirements and the rubric for the presentation of the final project should be used as your development guide for this presentation. When developing this presentation keep in mind that your targeted audience is a county school board or county extension advisory board that is voting on whether or not to allow you to offer the course. (See the rubric for more detail.)

You will be required to turn in the powerpoint and either a DVD/VCR recording of your presentation postmarked by Dec.4 or participate in an Eluminate session on Nov. 27 ( practice) and Dec.4 (presentation). Please e-mail me and let me know this week which one you prefer to do. There is no minimum time for the presentation but the it should not exceed 30 minutes.

The final exam will be open book/ short answer/ vista webct mutiple choice and will be e-mailed on Nov.30. It will be due Dec. 11 and will cover the second half of the course.