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Teaching Agriculture In Secondary Schools
AEE 535
Class 15:
Assessing Student Learning
Learning Objectives:
After completing this lesson, students will be able to:
    red bullet Explain the purpose(s) of formative and summative evaluation
    red bullet Differentiate between objective and subjective evaluation.
    red bullet Explain the difference between norm-referenced and criterion-referenced assessments.
    red bullet Explain what is meant by authentic assessment.
    red bullet Develop a plan for determining student grades for a course.
    red bullet Explain how grades are used by various groups of people.
    red bullet Use approved practices in developing test items.
    red bullet Develop tests that have content validity.
Instructional
Activities:

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red bullet Take the pretest on Assessing Student Learning.
red bullet The PowerPoint presentation on Evaluation will provide an overview of student assessment. Download the PowerPoint Presentation on Evaluation.
red bullet The National Center for Research in Vocational Education developed a module on Assessing Student Cognitive Performance that provides some good information on developing tests. While the module was developed a number of years ago, the principles are still valid today.
red bullet Specific information on developing and evaluating various types of test items have been developed by universities. A Comparison of Four Types of Test Items was prepared by the Department of Agricultural Education at South Dakota State University, and How To Rate Your Tests was developed by Dr. Leon Boucher at the Ohio State University. Both are good checklists to review in developing test items.
red bullet One response to the national wave of standardized multiple-choice tests for students is a model called authentic assessment. Read the article from the Agricultural Education Magazine by Mel Weber and Bob Stewart titled "Authentic Assessment: Good or Bad."
red bullet Evaluation is an important topic in agricultural education. Two articles from a recent Agricultural Education Magazine issue focused on evaluation topics. Read "Don’t Fear the E-Word: Techniques for Evaluation," by Ed Franklin and "Evaluation of Student Learning in the 21st Century," by Carol Conroy for some tips on evaluation of students.
Assignments:

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This week you have two assignments:
red bullet Develop a plan for assigning grades, explaining what you would use to determine a student’s grade for a specific grading period of a course. Justify the use and the percentage of credit assigned to each component of the grade as if you were explaining to a parent how you developed your grading system. This can be a simple list of criteria and the % (or weight) assigned to each component.
    red bullet Develop a unit test for the major lesson plan that you submitted earlier in the semester. (Remember, when you submitted the lesson plan, the evaluation section only contained how you would evaluate the students.) The test should contain at least three different types of test items. It is best if you can address all levels of the cognitive domain. See if you can develop items that test application, analysis, synthesis, or evaluation—in addition to knowledge and comprehension. If you would prefer to develop a test for a different unit of instruction, that is permissible—just note that you changed topics.

This lesson was developed by Jim Flowers at North Carolina State University. Dr. Flowers is Department Head of Agricultural & Extension Education at North Carolina State.

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