By Marilyn Mi, Chinese Teacher on Special Assignment at Portland Public Schools, Stephanie Knight, CASLS Language Technology Specialist, and Dr. Linda Forrest, CASLS Research Director
The activity featured below is for educators. It is one approach to working with assessment data from proficiency assessments.
Learning Objectives: Teachers will be able to
- Demonstrate understanding of ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines.
- Compare and contrast learner work with exemplars.
- Use data to inform instruction and instructional strategies.
Modes: Presentational Speaking, Presentational Writing, Interpersonal Communication, Interpretive Reading, and Interpretive Listening
Materials Needed: Student assessment exemplars, ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines, Student work
Procedure:
- Review assessment data for learners (either on the class level or a district level depending on context). Use the following questions to guide your thinking:
- What is the middle score? Is that indicative of my class on average?
- What are the highest and lowest scores? What is the relationship between the range of scores and level of differentiation I need in my classroom?
- What are the scores of the ‘middle half’ of my students? How does this information inform the learning activities that I develop for my learners?
- How do my learners’ productive skills compare to their receptive skills?
- How do my learners’ reading and writing skills compare? What about listening and speaking? How might this/does this relate to their interpersonal communicative abilities?
- Review assessment exemplars from the proficiency assessment in question in order to ensure understanding of how learner-produced texts are evaluated. This process is best realized by first attempting to evaluate the exemplars with the appropriate rubrics and then discussing how the exemplars were actually evaluated. It is important during this discussion to focus on how key phrases from the rubrics should be interpreted.
- Choose a random sampling of texts produced by learners in your class to compare with the exemplars. Use the following questions to guide your thinking:
- What proficiency levels should my learners be at? Are they there?
- Where do the strengths of my students lie? What does that information tell me about my teaching?
- What are the weaknesses of my learners? What are some instructional strategies that I want to focus on to address those weaknesses?
- Based on the text comparison and the data analysis, what is one realistic goal that I can set for my learners? What steps will I take to achieve that goal?
Notes:
While it is fine to engage in this assessment review process individually, understanding and strategy development is more robust when engaging in the assessment review process in groups such as Professional Learning Communities (PLCs).
The process for data analysis is most fruitful when educators are able to look a specific learners’ data over time in addition to the data discussed in this activity. Such an analysis, in combination with conversations with learners, has the potential to reveal general factors that impact learner success.
| 