EDS 113 Assignment 2

Artifact-Sampling and Analysis

Submitted by:

Maria Jesusa Silva

Eloisa Jose
 PART A: DEFINITION OF TERMS

i. Formal- Informal Assessment

Formal assessments are standardized measures which produce numerical data. This data
supports the conclusions made, and are easily comparable with the results of similar types of
measures. Most formal assessments involve “objective” questions, i.e. there is less bias in terms
of the correctness of answers, such as multiple-choice, fill in the banks and true or false.

Informal assessments involve unstructured and structured techniques that seek to identify
student’s strengths and individual needs. Compared to the “choose a correct answer” nature of
formal assessment, informal assessment is more performance driven. It often requires students
to display their understanding of a concept or mastery of a skill by performing tasks (e.g. oral
and written tasks). Because of this, informal assessment is able to provide more detailed
information on more aspects of student performance, and it documents student progress as
well.

ii. Formative-Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment or ‘Assessment FOR learning’ is done with the primary aim of improving
instruction and curriculum. Hence, it is conducted at a time period when it is possible to have
adjustments in one’s teaching approach and to streamline lesson content. It is often
incorporated with instruction, for example, a teacher commonly checks students’
understanding by asking them to summarize what they have just learnt. It is important to
mention here that formative assessment can also be used for diagnosis, remediation and
placement. It allows teachers to group students based on their proficiency level so as to better
enable themselves to design teaching approach suitable for a certain group.

Summative Assessment, also referred to as ‘Assessment OF learning’, is a “summary” of student

achievement after instruction has been given. It measures how much a student knows of what
has been taught during a certain time period. This often serves as proof or record of student
achievement; therefore, it comes with a well-structured report which can be both numerical
grades and sometimes description of student’s progress and performance. Summative
assessment often incorporates traditional assessment measures such as unit and final tests.

iii. Traditional and Authentic Assessment

Traditional assessment is what most teachers and students are familiar with, multiple choices,
selecting a response from a list of options, fill-in-the-blank, etc. It mostly involves recall and
recognition of facts. It is often ‘contrived’ as it hardly involves any real-life tasks.

Authentic assessment, as the term implies, involve real life tasks such as written tasks that aim
to practice fluency and accuracy in writing college admissions essays. Authentic assessment
tends to be more student-structured as students are given the choice to determine what is
presented as evidence of learning.
 PART B: PRESENTATION OF ARTIFACTS

The following are exemplary samples of each type of assessments. These are assessments given
to Grade 1 and 2 students at an international school in South Korea and to Grade 10 students at
a private high school in the Philippines. These are all for Language Arts (English and Reading)
classes.

Fig. 1. Formal Assessment , Oxford Reading Tree Diagnostic Reading Assessment

Fig. 2. Informal Assessment , My Classroom

Fig. 3. Formative Assessment , Non Chronological Report on Hedgehog

Fig.4. Summative Assessment , Reading Comprehension Multiple Choice

Fig. 5. Traditional Assessment , Fill in the blanks, Grammar Transitional Devices
Fig. 6. Authentic Assessment , Dear Santa Letter
 PART C: ATTRIBUTION

Fig. 1 Formal Assessment , Oxford Reading Tree Diagnostic Reading Assessment

The image shows a standardized reading diagnostic assessment which was developed by Oxford
University Press. It involves four steps; first, the student’s prior knowledge of the topic is
activated by asking the student questions about his own experiences related to the topic,
second is the oral reading part in which the teacher checks which phonemes and/or diagraphs
the student can and cannot read correctly. The teacher notes the number of errors the student
made. The third part is comprehension check, and the final part is a summary of the student’s
reading accuracy, reading strategies and skills, and reading performance.

As mentioned above, this reading assessment is a standardized one. It is used by many

educational institutions and educators around the world. The assessment involves
mathematically computed data, i.e. the number of errors in the oral reading; and this numerical
data supports the conclusions made about the student’s reading level.

Fig. 2 Informal Assessment , My Classroom

This is an example of an informal writing proficiency assessment. The aim of the assessment is
to check whether the student is able to follow basic rules of sentence writing such as
capitalization and punctuation. Students were not graded for this activity, and also the teachers
did not produce any mathematically computed data after she has checked the students’ writing
for errors. This writing activity is indicative of the student’s level of mastery of some rules in
writing.

Fig. 3. Formative Assessment , Non Chronological Report on Hedgehog

This is a good example of a formative assessment because it was conducted when the teacher
had enough time to make adjustments to her instruction. She could revise some of the criteria
in writing non-chronological reports, or she could just work on “polishing” the students’
grammar and punctuation. She based her decisions on the self and peer assessments of the
students. This reflection task was given to Grade 2 students at an international school in Korea.
It was given in the middle of a lesson so as the teacher could determine the student's’
familiarity with writing non-chronological reports. The students were given two days of
instruction on the said topic, and the teacher wanted to check if she needed to adjust the time-
frame for the lesson, and whether she had to spend more time explaining parts of a report.

Fig.4. Summative Assessment , Reading Comprehension Multiple Choice

This exam is a typical example of summative assessment because it was given so as to provide
stakeholders a tangible evidence of what the student has achieved and a basis of the students’
final grades. Just as most summative assessment, this exam include traditional types of test
questions such as multiple choice. This exam was given to Grade 10 students at a private high
school in Quezon City. It was an end-of-term test and a huge percentage of the students’ grades
was based on their performance in this test.

Fig.5 Traditional Assessment , Fill in the blanks, Grammar Transitional Devices

This shows a typical fill-in-the-blank grammar test. It involves selecting a response and for most
of the test items, there is only one possible correct answer. The test seeks to measure whether
students can accurately use transitional devices. Good performance on the test would display
that one does know the meaning and correct use of each of the transitional devices. Traditional
assessment commonly requires student to select a response from a pool of possible answers.
Image 5 shows that students were given ten options to choose their answers from. This type of
assessment is teacher-structured, that is, the teacher determines what is presented as evidence
of proficiency (Mueller,2014). It is also ‘contrived’ because it does not resemble any real-life
tasks. We hardly ever find ourselves choosing answers from a list of possible responses in real-
life communication.
Fig.6 Authentic Assessment , Dear Santa Letter
Image 6 was a writing assessment given to Grade 1 students at an international school. The
teacher checks for student proficiency in punctuation and using capital letters. Another goal of
the assessment was to see whether students could spell high-frequency words, i.e. a list of 100
words which Grade 1 students should be able to spell given the amount of formal instruction
they have received. This is an example of authentic assessment because it involves performing
a real-life task, writing a letter. It has an authentic communicative function. It is most likely that
the student who wrote this letter to santa genuinely wanted to have her wishes known by
Santa. In addition, this writing test exhibits developmental appropriateness (Hamayan,1995).
Authentic assessments usually set expectations that are appropriate within the cognitive, social
and academic development of the learner. This writing test measures specific skills in spelling
and punctuation which is appropriate to the developmental level of Grade 1 students.
 PART D: STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

Fig. 1 Formal Assessment , Oxford Reading Tree Diagnostic Reading Assessment

This diagnostic test comes from the UK’s number one reading program, the Oxford Reading
Tree (ORT). Endorsed by the Department for Education in England as “perfect” for its National
Curriculum, the program, is also used in 130 countries around the world including South Korea,
which has a literacy rate of 97.9% (as of 2013). The test, including the other components of the
overall ORT program, are highly acclaimed because they are targeted to specific levels, highly
systematic and has a theme of “reading for pleasure.” Specifically, this diagnostic test, apart
from identifying the level of a student’s oral and comprehension abilities, also points out what
the next steps should be after evaluation.

As for its weakness, while this diagnostic reading test can be an effective literacy tool, we have
to look at its validity and reliability when considering: 1. the differences in US English and UK
English vocabulary, spelling and in the case of an oral reading test, pronunciation 2. problem in
applying a literacy measure developed in the West to be implemented in other parts of the
world. The second weakness, studied extensively in “Landscapes of Literacy: An Ethnographic
Study of Functional Literacy in Marginal Philippine Communities,” demonstrated that the
measures of literacy from other nations cannot just be lifted out and applied elsewhere as
there are social and cultural implications to be considered.

Fig. 2 Informal Assessment , My Classroom

Although this assessment is not graded, the student-produced writing assignment will enable
the teacher to identify where the student is in terms of his/her ability to form proper
sentences. This knowledge will then help the teacher to determine where to focus her teaching
and clarify muddy points i.e. use of have/has, subject-verb agreement, capitalization, etc.
Further, after more instruction time and another round of writing assignment, both teacher and
student can take a look at “before” and “after” products to see progress (or lack thereof).
Outside the measurement of the student’s writing skills, the assignment also lets the student
engage his creativity through the drawing component of the assessment.

As for its weakness, the perceptions that may arise from this informal, ungraded assessment
may work against its usefulness: 1. the student may not put the required effort because this is
“low stakes,” 2. perceived strength is an actual weakness of the student. The student, having
written several sentences may think that he is “very good:” notwithstanding the fact that there
were several errors made. 3 The areas that need to be addressed in the student’s sample
writing work cannot be encompassed in one single lesson.

Fig. 3 Formative Assessment , Non Chronological Report on Hedgehog

Prior to the assessment activity, the instructor gave sufficient preparation time for the students
to know what the reflection activity is for. The prompts and illustrations also help the students
organize their thoughts into writing in lieu of something that is in chronological order. By
conducting self and peer assessments, the students learn how to take a step back and
objectively evaluate their own work as well as their classmate’s work. Another one of the
strengths of this kind of assessment is that even with the use of pencil and paper, it’s beyond
the plug-in-your-answer type of assessment that is usually required from students. The type of
activity here is more authentic because students are asked to describe something instead of
producing one word answers.

As for its weakness, the students may use the prompts as a crutch if used in the long term.
Students may rely only on the guide questions and graphics overtime that they won’t be able to
write a non-chronological report without these cues. Also, the teacher needs careful time
management if she/he wants to give this activity a lot of time (as it happened the instruction
phase took two days).

Fig. 4. Summative Assessment , Reading Comprehension Multiple Choice

The strength of this test given to all Grade 10 student lies in the fact that even though it’s a
multiple choice type, it goes beyond the remembering level in Bloom’s Taxonomy. In order to
answer the questions, students would need to recall what the different elements of a plot are
(exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution) then apply those concepts in the
Les Miserable story. This ensures comprehension as well - that students are able to connect one
set of facts to another. This kind of test also underscores the importance of the formative stage
of learning - the elements of plot must have been taught prior to the summative test -
therefore if students were absent, did not pay attention, or didn’t do the work then, they
wouldn’t be able to answer this test correctly now - in other words, the summary of their
achievement would be lacking.

The weakness of this type of this multiple choice test lies in the normal challenges of a
traditional test: it is one-shot, time-constrained and norm-referenced. It does not really show
where the student had difficulty in the test, thus failing to identify where the student’s
weakness lies and it does not show the progression of the learner.

Fig.5 Traditional Assessment , Fill in the blanks, Grammar Transitional Devices

Because fill-in-the-blank tests are also common traditional forms of assessment, they are highly
reliable and valid. It is better than a True/False type of test because it limits the guesswork from
test takers. Also, by putting the blanks in context, the students would need to have a deeper
comprehension of the transitional words. For example, by itself, there is nothing wrong with
the first answer “But first you should remember that it is not the end of your world.” But with
10 possible words, the best answer must be gleaned from the choices.

The main weakness of this type of assessment is that as a form of language proficiency
assessment, it’s hardly communicative. Specifically, the student may perfectly be able to use
those transitional words in real-life communication (verbally or in writing such as a job
application) - thus showing his/her ability to apply it in a real world scenario but this test
severely limited this function.
Fig.6 Authentic Assessment , Dear Santa Letter

The letter to Santa is able to demonstrate the student’s literacy abilities in a personal context -
thus the authentic aspect of this assessment. Because there are no answers to choose from and
there’s not necessarily one correct answer, this type of assessment engages the higher order
thinking skills of students. This kind of assessment also makes the student an active agent in the
test, instead of taking on a more passive role in the traditional pen-and-paper tests. This kind of
test allows room for creativity.

As for its weakness, perhaps if we’re going for some “real life application of knowledge” a letter
to a real life figure (a family member, a community leader or person the child looks up to)
should be better. As we don’t know the background of the households where the Grade 1
children are coming from, some might take offense to the idea of writing a letter to a “mythical
figure that encourages materialism.” In addition, if there is a very specific learning outcome
that the teacher is looking for, it might be easier and faster to resort to a traditional
assessment. In this case, the goal is to learn how the student is doing in terms of capitalization
and punctuation.
 PART E: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT

1. Fig.4. Summative Assessment, Multiple Choice Reading Comprehension, Les Miserables

A way to improve this is to add an explanation component in the questions. After
choosing their answer, students need to explain why. This way, the teacher can get a
better view of how the student arrived at the answer- showing a clear picture of the
thinking process: the student’s ability to link the lines in the story with the element of
plot.

As an Assessment OF Learning, the improvement made will be able to provide a clear

evidence of student achievement of the learning goals. The addition of the
“justification” component in the multiple choice test will provide a more tangible
evidence that student has gained proficiency in the reading comprehension. Here, the
assessment principle of validity and reliability is achieved.

2. Fig. 3 Formative Assessment, Non-chronological report on a hedgehog

A way to improve this assessment is perhaps to make the student choose their own
topic - and if too broad, the teacher can choose a general topic such as Animals, Plants,
etc. Another way to improve it would be making the self and peer assessment oral but
still using the teacher’s rubrics.

As an Assessment FOR Learning, the importance of student buy-in, making the lesson
more meaningful and relevant are important aspects of classroom instruction. By
allowing the students to choose a topic they are interested in, the teacher-student
become collaborators in the learning process. Also, by making the self and peer
assessment an oral discussion, the importance of direct, timely feedback are
emphasized. With the correct facilitating of the teacher, this aspect will also help to
make the classroom experience a supportive and more motivational one.
References:

Hamayan, E.V. (1995). Approaches to alternative assessment. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 15, 212-226.

Kwako. A Brief Summary of Traditional and Alternative Assessment. Retrieved online from
www.stat.wisc.edu/nordheim/Kwako_assessment4.doc

Shermis & Di Vesta. (2011). Summative and Formative Assessments.

Marzano (2010). Formative Assessment & Standards-Based Grading. Marzano Research Library.

Weaver, B. Formal versus Informal Assessments. Retrieved online from

www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/formal-vs-informal-assessments

Navarete, C. et.al. (1990). Informal Assessment in Educational Evaluation: Implications for Bilingual Education
programs. NCBE Program Information Guide Series, Number 3.

Student Peer Assessment. Retrieved online from https://teaching.unsw.edu.au/peerassessment

Mueller, J. (2014). Authentic Assessment Toolbox. http://jmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox/index.htm

The Oxford Reading Tree https://global.oup.com/education/content/primary/series/oxford-reading-tree-

international/?region=uk

Oxford Reading Tree is Perfect for the New National Curriculum

http://fdslive.oup.com/www.oup.com/oxed/primary/literacy/ort/OUP141_WEB_SPREAD.pdf?region=uk

South Korea Literacy http://sites.miis.edu/southkoreaeducation/diversity-and-access/

Landscapes of Literacy: An Ethnographic Study of Functional Literacy in Marginal Philippine Communities by Maria
Luisa Canieso Doronila http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9097638-landscapes-of-literacy

Assessment at a Distance: Traditional vs Alternative Assessments http://www.tojet.net/articles/v2i3/232.pdf

Indirect Assessment (Fill-in-the-blanks) https://coerll.utexas.edu/methods/modules/assessment/02/fib.php

What is Authentic Assessment? https://www.eduplace.com/rdg/res/litass/auth.html

Authentic Assessment Overview https://www.teachervision.com/teaching-methods-and-

management/educational-testing/4911.html

Problems with the Christmas Curriculum http://www.tolerance.org/article/problems-christmas-curriculum