RECOMMENDED ASSESSMENT STRATEGIES

R.S.U. No. 67 has been working for more than a decade to help teachers, PK-12, understand the importance of using quality assessments to inform and guide decisions about teaching and learning. From 1999 to 2009, the district had an Assessment Committee whose job it was to develop a comprehensive philosophy of assessment and policies consistent with that philosophy. From 2004 through 2007, the district developed K-12 local assessments in English language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, health, and physical education; implemented them; and maintained a database of results. The Local Assessment System (LAS) was discontinued in 2007-08, however, when the state published the 2007 Maine Learning Results: Parameters for Essential Instruction since assessments were aligned to 1997 standards, not the 2007 standards.

Because of dwindling financial resources and the need to devote time to developing and implementing school-based Response to Intervention Plans by August 2012, the R.S.U. No. 67 Assessment Committee was replaced by a district Response to Intervention Planning Team in 2009-10. Recent efforts to rebuild the LAS have been focused exclusively at the high school where teachers are working with the Director of Curriculum and Academic Achievement to develop common assessments aligned to 2007 MLRs for core classes. Common assessments, K-8, will be developed as needed and as resources permit.

R.S.U. No. 67 currently uses data from the following externally designed assessments to monitor achievement in some grades and content areas:

• New England Common Assessment Program (NECAP): Grades 3-8—Reading and Mathematics; Writing (Grades 5 and 8)
  
  
• Maine Educational Assessment (MEA)/Maine High School Assessment (MHSA): Grades 5, 8, and 11—Science
  
  
• SAT: Grade 11—Critical Reading, Writing, and Mathematics
  
  
• Northwest Evaluation Assessment (NWEA): Grades 2-10—Reading and Mathematics

Assessment-related policies:

R.S.U. No. 67 Independent Practice and Preparation (Policy IKB and IKB-R)

R.S.U. No. 67 Grading and Reporting (Policy IKA and IKA-R)

To assist teachers in writing quality assessments and selecting appropriate assessment strategies, the following links and resources are recommended:

Assessment Cycle

Bloom's Revised Taxonomy

Formative versus Summative Assessment

Verbs Commonly Used on Tests and What They Mean

Checklists for Writing Effective Test Items

Multiple Choice/Selected Response

Matching

Fill-in-the-Blanks

True-False

Open-Ended/Constructed Response

Assessment Training Institute in Portland, Oregon

Study guides to books used by R.S.U. No. 67 to establish assessment literacy are located on this site.

Seven Strategies of Assessment for Learning (2009) by Jan Chappuis

Click here for a list of the seven strategies discussed in the book.

CAUTION: Reading the list is insufficient for understanding or being able to implement the strategies.

A Repair Kit for Grading: 15 Fixes for Broken Grades (2007) by Ken O'Connor

Click here for a list of the 15 fixes discussed in the book.

CAUTION: Reading the list is insufficient for understanding the reasons why grades are "broken" or the recommendations for "fixing" them.

Creating and Recognizing Quality Rubrics by Judy Arter (2007)

The following text (including two CDs of resource information and video footage) has also been used as the basis for building assessment literacy among teachers:

Classroom Assessment for Student Learning: Doing It Right-Using It Well (2004) by Rick Stiggins, Judith Arter, Stephen Chappuis, and Jan Chappuis.

All of these books are available through the professional library housed at the Office of the Director of Curriculum and Academic Achievement.

R.S.U. No. 67 Professional Library (Click here to access the database housing these resources.)

R.S.U. No. 67 maintains an extensive, up-to-date professional library of books and audio-visual resources that teachers may use to keep themselves current. Those resources can be searched via the Ella P. Burr library database.