How to Evaluate, Assess and Test Well!

Debbie Willingham
Aug 31, 2009

It is important that we evaluate the knowledge and skills students have gained in a variety of ways.  We often spend too much time stressing the memorization of factual information with the idea that students must "get" the information before they can go on to more application-based and critical thinking uses of the knowledge.  Most teacher-made tests are still written as fact-based, answer summaries of teacher lectures or readings.  Because we know and love our subject with a passion, we think everything is important and that we must convey every detail to our students.

In order to evaluate, assess and test well, however, you need to have a variety with different types and styles.  First, you must know what you want your students to know - what the standard says students should know, and you must know the content yourself.  Next you must let your students know up front what you want them to know, which reiterates the importance of Essential Questions.  Then you have to decide how you will know if and how well they know the information.  At times, it is important to have students create products and performances as culminating assessments in lieu of standardized tests, but sometimes you also need to have them write about what they know to see how they can put together factual information in a way that makes sense and gives you a true understanding of their depth of knowledge on the topic.  Three good ways to evaluate using a summative assessment of students' depth of knowledge in writing are constructed-response questions, thematic essays, and document-based questions.

Constructed-response questions are open-ended, short answer questions that measure both the Acquisition and Extending Thinking levels of students' learning.  They often use a range of stimuli such as graphs, charts, short readings, quotations, works of art, or cartoons. To set them up in a test format, each set of questions (usually three) should be based on one given stimulus. The first question is usually based on information taken directly from the stimulus, the second question usually asks students to make connections between and among the different parts of the stimulus, and the third question often brings in additional outside information related to the topic that goes beyond the stimulus data.

Thematic essays go beyond recall and reiteration of facts to ask students to make connections and linkages among the concepts within the topic. In essence they are asked, sometimes through the unit essential question, to pull together the concepts or subtopics learned within the unit to explain the bigger picture or theme of the unit. Students are expected to analyze, evaluate, construct support, or compare and contrast in a properly written, logically developed essay. A rubric should include how well students use relevant details and examples, how well they develop the theme by pulling together the pieces, and how the essay is logically organized and written.

Document-based questions also ask students to make connections using higher level thinking strategies, but they provide students with a common base (the documents) from which they demonstrate their depth of understanding by using the documents to support their answer to the question. Students often look at issues from multiple perspectives, take positions and support their conclusions using the documents, or make analogies based on a variety of data in the given documents. A rubric should include how well students analyze and interpret the documents, how they incorporate relevant outside information, and how they pull together a well-supported answer using all the elements supplied.

It is important to try new ways of evaluating, assessing and testing our students' knowledge and understanding. There are many ways to do this well, and using a wide variety over time will ensure that your students are learning and continuously practicing strategies for becoming successful thinkers, writers, debaters, and test takers.

Learn more about how to evaluate, assess, and test well in the LEARNING-FOCUSED book:  Connecting Learning to Assessments.