SAS+ASSESSMENT+POLICY

Shanghai American School Assessment Policy - DRAFT

I. RATIONALE II. PURPOSE OF ASSESSMENT III. PHILOSOPHY STATEMENT IV. PRINCIPLES OF ASSESSMENT V. ASSESSMENT PRACTICES

VI. TEACHER STANDARDS of ASSESSMENT VII. ADMINISTRATORS STANDARDS of ASSESSMENT

I. Rationale
 A Shanghai American School assessment policy is designed to articulate, codify and communicate common understandings regarding assessment. In addition, the purpose of this policy document is to establish the standards by which quality assessment will be judged at Shanghai American School. This policy strives to provide the SAS community with clear and explicit standards for quality assessment practices.

Practical reasons for an assessment policy include:

1. Our current assessments provide evidence of only some of the learning we value. Dispositions (E.A.G.L.E.S) and trans-disciplinary skills such as problem solving, communication skills, critical thinking, creativity and innovation are not uniformly taught or assessed. 2. Thanks to current research our understanding of how students learn has expanded, yet our assessment practices do not match. 3. Our assessment practices are uniformly aligned with neither instruction nor curriculum. 4. Many recording and reporting practices serve to contaminate the assessment data and ensure inconsistency across teachers and courses. 5. Among grade levels and departments, our assessment practices are broadly inconsistent. Currently there are no commonly held assessment agreements. 6. Levels of assessment literacy is varied among faculty; a common assessment lexicon does not exist at SAS. 7. The advent of gradebook transparency will bring questions of assessment practice and philosophy to the forefront of our community dialogue.

These statements provide SAS with a starting point and purpose in rethinking and reexamining our approach to assessment of and for student learning.


 * "Essential Questions"**
 * 1) How confident are we that assigned student grades are consistent, accurate, meaningful and supportive of student learning?
 * 2) What is assessment?

Assessment is an ongoing, dynamic process of gathering, evaluating, reporting and utilizing learning feedback. Assessment involves the materials, practices, and procedures used to:
 * Collect evidence of learning
 * Evaluate learning and provide feedback to the learner
 * Record evaluation data
 * Report and communicate evaluation data to various audiences.

III. **//Purposes of Assessmen//**t (Why Assess? What is the purpose of assessment? Who will use the results?) The purpose of assessment for:
 * 1) **Students** - Self Evaluation - Motivation - Goal Setting - Course selection and placement - To demonstrate their achievement of a learning goal.
 * 2) **Teachers / Faculty** - To build a profile of the student’s learning and understanding upon which future instruction can be planned. - Evaluate and then communicate the student's attainment of the learning goal. - Instructional modification - Curricular modifications
 * 3) **Parents** - Monitor student learning and growth; - Support and encourage the learning process; - To make personal decisions regarding academic programs, career choices, additional support; - To make decisions to enroll or withdraw.
 * 4) **Curriculum Leaders** - Evaluate our school program including both curriculum/school initiatives. - Address professional development needs for teachers. - To modify curricular or instructional decisions.
 * 5) **School Administration** - Admission decisions (admission, special needs, placement). - Informing school policy making/revision. (eg. Admissions policy, curriculum policy, reporting policy) - Provide information regarding areas of school strengths / weakness. (Programs and faculty evaluation, reporting school-wide student achievement results to the Board and parent community.) - To allocate funds and resources; - Marketing the school; - Baseline date for comparison to other benchmark schools.
 * 6) **Board** - Informing school policy making/revision. (eg. Admissions policy, curriculum policy, reporting policy) - To allocate funds and resources; - Marketing the school.
 * 7) **Other schools (Colleges, universities, other schools)** - Provides data necessary for admissions and grade/course placement decisions - Provides the opportunity to place students effectively within a learning continuum - As information for comparison.

IV. Philosophy Statement
//At Shanghai American School, we believe that// //assessment is a// //dynamic process, the primary goal of which is to support and enhance student learning.//

== V. Principles of Assessment "A balanced assessment system takes advantage of assessment of learning and assessment for learning; each can make essential contributions. When both are present in the system, assessment becomes more than just an index of school success. It also serves as the //cause// of that success." (Stiggins, 25) ==

Assessment should reflect the student's achievement of specific instructional outcomes as outlined in the SAS curriculum.

Assessment should involve a variety of assessment methods in order to gain a broad understanding of learning and to minimize test bias.

Sound assessment practice is essential to high quality instruction. It should inform instruction, result in improved teaching and learning and be aligned with instructional strategy. Sound assessment will yield valid and relevant information and inferences about student learning and student achievement of intended learning and curricular standards.

Assessment is inherently a subjective process that requires the professional ability and judgment of an expert learner – the teacher.

Assessment for improved learning or performance requires multiple opportunities for feedback and reflection.

The design of assessment should precede the planning of instructional strategy.

Effective assessment serves the specific information needs of intended users Effective assessment measures clearly articulated learning targets or outcomes Effective assessment yields results that accurately reflect student achievement Effective assessment yields results that are effectively communicated to their intended users Effective assessment recognizes and involves students as the primary user of assessment data.

1. The primary purpose of assessment is to support and enhance student learning: "When [teachers] assess for learning, teachers use ... assessment and the continuous flow of information about student achievement that it provides to advance, not merely check on, student learning." (Stiggins, 34)

Corollaries (Guidelines):
 * Meaningful to the student
 * Aligned to what is being taught
 * · Timely (immediate) feedback
 * · Descriptive not evaluative
 * Assessment positively influences student motivation and learning
 * · Students are involved throughout the assessment process
 * Effective assessment improves student learning and performance.

2. Assessments provide a comprehensive and accurate picture of student achievement

Corollaries:
 * A variety of assessment tools
 * Multiple opportunities (multiple opportunities to demonstrate achievement of a learning outcome.)
 * Comprehensive (knowledge, skills and concepts)

3. Assessments reflect student growth over time (I think that this is a corollary of #2. For it to be comprehensive and accurate, assessment must be over time, and should value the most recent example of learning above earlier attempts). Corollaries:
 * Use of consistent assessment tools from year-to-year
 * Frequent intervals
 * Scalable over multiple administrations
 * Aligned to standards
 * Understood throughout the organization

4. Assessments must be valid and reliable Corollaries:
 * Provide replicable results
 * Aligned to standards and instructional strategy
 * Administered appropriately
 * Unbiased

5 . Assessment data must be responsibly and efficiently collected, appropriately recorded and communicated. Results must be communicated effectively and in a timely manner to the intended users.

Corollaries:
 * Clearly defined purpose
 * Inform instructional practice, goals
 * Administered appropriately
 * Integrated into classroom instruction
 * The assessment information must be accurate
 * Sender and receiver must understand the learning target and the symbols to indicate a grade.

VI. Effective assessment involves students

" Students decide whether the learning is worth the effort to required to attain it. Students decide whether they believe that they are capable of reaching the learning targets. It is only after students make these decisdions

6. Assessment Practices (Describe, give examples of different types of assessments) EXAMPLES: The types of assessment strategies and tools may include but are not limited to: observations performance assessment process-focused assessment selected response open-ended tasks portfolios checklists benchmarks continuums anecdotal records rubrics

Essential Assessment Agreements (Should this list be developed at each level?) 1. Collecting / Designing ü Use common rubrics for key trans-disciplinary skills. Eg. writing ü Plan assessments before teaching. ü Provide students with a rubric or criteria for each major assessment task ü Ensure that the assessment tool provides the “best” evidence of the standards being assessed. 2. Evaluating/Feedback ü Do not contaminate evaluation and grading of achievement with non-achievement factors. Eg. penalties for behavior (late work, cheating, plagiarism.) ü Regularly use the results of assessment to modify instruction and /or alter the curriculum. ü Provide learners with frequent and timely feedback. ü Assess student learning according to standards in the written curriculum 3. Recording ü Do not use grade averaging. ü Do not assign zeros 4. Reporting ü Not all feedback needs to be reported. Report only the most recent example of learning against a specific standard. 4.1 Types of Reporting At Shanghai American School, the following methods of reporting student learning are used: Parent – Teacher Conferences Student Led, Parent – Teacher Conferences Final Semester Reports (twice a year) Mid Semester Reports ((twice a year) Progress Reports (throughout the school year) Email correspondence Phone calls College transcripts Letters of reference SCHOOL REPORTING SYSTEM GRADING SCHEME Elementary School Trimester Reports Middle School Quarterly Reports Percentage High School Progress Reports Mid Semester Reports Final Semester Report Cards A – 89 – 100% B – 79 – 89% C – 69 – 79% D – 59 – 69% F – below 59% 7. Glossary of Assessment Terms (A common SAS vocabulary regarding assessment, evaluation, etc.) GLOSSARY OF KEY ASSESSMENT TERMS Assessment: Assessment is a process of learning feedback, designed to modify instruction, communicate the attainment of the learning target and enhance learning. Assessment includes all the materials, practices and procedures used to: 1. Collect evidence of learning 2. Evaluate learning and provide feedback to the learner 3. Record evaluation data 4. Report and communicate to various audiences External Assessment: Refers to assessments that are external to the school or classroom; standardized assessments generated by an external educational source. Examples include: IB, AP, IGCSE, SAT, PSAT, ITBS, ERB, PISA, MAP, etc. Common Assessment : Any task or tool designed to examine essential learning beyond a single classroom. Assessments that provide data on student learning of common standards across grade levels, subject areas or classrooms. Chunk Assessment : Assessment that provides information and summarizes what students have learned at the conclusion of an instructional ‘chunk’. Similar to ‘summative assessment’, chunk assessments often take the form of unit tests, culminating projects or performances. On Going Assessment : A dynamic process involving any tool which delivers learning information DURING the instructional process. Ongoing assessment is rooted in the cycle of feedback to the learner. (Includes formative assessment, checking for understanding, feedback, etc.) Trans- Disciplinary Skill : A skill, disposition, or knowledge learning target that is shared be multiple disciplines or subject matters. (Eg. Research skills, global minded). Rubric : Specific sets of criteria that clearly define for both student and teacher what a range of acceptable and unacceptable performance looks like. Criteria define descriptors of ability at each level of performance and assign values to each level. Levels referred to are proficiency levels which describe a continuum from excellent to unacceptable product. Formative Assessment : Observations which allow one to determine the degree to which students know or are able to do a given learning task, and which identifies the part of the task that the student does not know or is unable to do. Outcomes suggest future steps for teaching and learning Summative Assessment : Assessment used to communicate the attainment of a learning goal at the end of the learning period. Summative Assessment : Evaluation at the conclusion of a unit or units of instruction or an activity or plan to determine or judge student skills and knowledge or effectiveness of a plan or activity. A culminating assessment, which gives information on students' mastery of content, knowledge, or skills. Grading or Evaluating: The process of evaluating or judging or placing value on student learning and reporting student achievement in some universally understood way. Reporting: The process of communicating learners’ attainment of the learning target to a diverse group including, the teacher, the student, parents, administrators, other schools and colleges. Assessment Literacy: The possession of knowledge about the basic principles of sound assessment practice, including terminology, the development and use of assessment methodologies and techniques, familiarity with standards of quality in assessment. Increasingly, familiarity with alternatives to traditional measurements of learning. Curriculum Alignment: The degree to which a curriculum's scope and sequence matches a testing program's evaluation measures, thus ensuring that teachers will use successful completion of the test as a goal of classroom instruction. TYPES OF ASSESSMENT The Assessment Continuum 8. Monitoring and Review Practices (How do administrators monitor, supervise and review assessment at SAS?) 9. Assessment Map (A visual outline of various assessment practices throughout SAS?) 10. Standards of Assessment Literacy for Leaders - Kind of like our "Standards of Professional Practice" but for assessment. 11. Standards of Assessment Literacy for Teachers - see above. 12. Assessment FAQ's 13. Annotated Assessment Bibliography - We could build this as we use/find resources, articles, journals