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Computer-based Assessment. Paul Horwitz The Concord Consortium Presentation to DR-K12 PI Meeting, November 10, 2009. For assessment purposes, is the computer a process innovation or a product innovation?. Inventions that started as process innovations and became new products The telephone
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Computer-based Assessment Paul Horwitz The Concord Consortium Presentation to DR-K12 PI Meeting, November 10, 2009
For assessment purposes, is the computer a process innovation or a product innovation? • Inventions that started as process innovations and became new products • The telephone • The refrigerator
Computer-assisted assessment as a way to increase productivity • Deliver the identical test online • Embed questions within visualizations • Random assignment of items • Adaptive testing
Assessment techniques that depend on the computer • Performance assessment based on simulations of real systems and processes • Assessment based on students’ manipulations of causal models • Inferences based on tracking of problem-solving activities
Examples of performance assessment:1. The SPARKS Project • Current ATE Project • College level: introductory electronics • Building self-paced assessments that give students useful feedback and offer an opportunity to practice skills • Optionally, assessments generate reports for instructors as well.
Examples of performance assessment:2. “Evolution Readiness” • Current DR-K12 project • Fourth grade science dealing with evolution as emerging from natural selection • Students perform experiments with virtual plant and (soon) animal communities • Actions are logged, analyzed, and used to report on students’ inquiry skills and content knowledge
Challenges to innovation in assessment • Technological barriers • Models and simulations take time to build • Required infrastructure complex and hard to maintain • Psychometric barriers • How do you score these things? • e.g., what constitutes an “item”? • How do you determine validity and reliability?
Importance of innovation in assessment • Our understanding of learning has advanced faster than our ability to assess learning • Schools live or die by the results of assessments that don’t reflect current learning sciences research • We “teach to the test” so we don’t teach what we ought to teach