Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Wineburg, Sam, Smith, Mark, Breakstone, Joel
Format: Recurso educativo Open Access
Language:en
Published: 2012
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1003790
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1867181707587747840
author Wineburg, Sam
Smith, Mark
Breakstone, Joel
author_facet Wineburg, Sam
Smith, Mark
Breakstone, Joel
Wineburg, Sam
Smith, Mark
Breakstone, Joel
collection Education Resources Information Center
contents New Directions in Assessment: Using Library of Congress Sources to Assess Historical Understanding Wineburg, Sam Smith, Mark Breakstone, Joel Academic Achievement Primary Sources Teaching Methods Validity Evaluation Methods Foreign Countries Feedback (Response) Formative Evaluation Partnerships in Education History Instruction Social Studies Thinking Skills Electronic Libraries School Districts Student Evaluation Research has shown that formative assessment is a key ingredient in raising student achievement. The goal of formative assessment is not to grade students, but to pinpoint where they are having trouble and then to take appropriate instructional action. In a review of 250 studies, Black and Wiliam found that formative assessments had a more significant effect on student achievement than practically any other classroom innovation. However, effective formative assessments must provide insight into student thinking, something multiple-choice tests don't do very well, as well as allowing for quick evaluation, the Achilles' heel of document-based questions (DBQs). Designing such assessments was the authors' challenge and their opportunity. With support from the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Program, they set out to marshal the resources of the digital revolution to create new history assessments. How could they use the Library's vast collection of documents, photos, paintings, speeches, radio broadcasts and film clips to help teachers track students' growth as thinkers? In partnership with the San Francisco (California) Unified School District and the Lincoln (Nebraska) Public Schools, their research group has spent nearly three years constructing, piloting, and revising assessments that provide social studies teachers with new options. They call their items "History Assessments of Thinking" (HATs). HATs fill the void between the recall of discrete facts on a multiple-choice question and the complex orchestration of skills required by a document-based essay. They have piloted dozens of HATs with thousands of students in California, Nebraska, Florida, Iowa, Wisconsin, and as far away as Singapore, while also conducting validity studies in which they ask students to tell them what they are thinking as they complete their assessments. The results have been promising. Evidence suggests that their items do indeed tap important aspects of historical thinking. Just as promising is feedback from teachers, who report that HATs give them the kind of information they need to make adjustments in their teaching. (Contains 11 notes.)
format Recurso educativo Open Access
id eric_EJ1003790
institution ERIC Institute of Education Sciences
language en
publishDate 2012
record_format eric
spellingShingle New Directions in Assessment: Using Library of Congress Sources to Assess Historical Understanding
Wineburg, Sam
Smith, Mark
Breakstone, Joel
Academic Achievement
Primary Sources
Teaching Methods
Validity
Evaluation Methods
Foreign Countries
Feedback (Response)
Formative Evaluation
Partnerships in Education
History Instruction
Social Studies
Thinking Skills
Electronic Libraries
School Districts
Student Evaluation
New Directions in Assessment: Using Library of Congress Sources to Assess Historical Understanding Wineburg, Sam Smith, Mark Breakstone, Joel Academic Achievement Primary Sources Teaching Methods Validity Evaluation Methods Foreign Countries Feedback (Response) Formative Evaluation Partnerships in Education History Instruction Social Studies Thinking Skills Electronic Libraries School Districts Student Evaluation Research has shown that formative assessment is a key ingredient in raising student achievement. The goal of formative assessment is not to grade students, but to pinpoint where they are having trouble and then to take appropriate instructional action. In a review of 250 studies, Black and Wiliam found that formative assessments had a more significant effect on student achievement than practically any other classroom innovation. However, effective formative assessments must provide insight into student thinking, something multiple-choice tests don't do very well, as well as allowing for quick evaluation, the Achilles' heel of document-based questions (DBQs). Designing such assessments was the authors' challenge and their opportunity. With support from the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Program, they set out to marshal the resources of the digital revolution to create new history assessments. How could they use the Library's vast collection of documents, photos, paintings, speeches, radio broadcasts and film clips to help teachers track students' growth as thinkers? In partnership with the San Francisco (California) Unified School District and the Lincoln (Nebraska) Public Schools, their research group has spent nearly three years constructing, piloting, and revising assessments that provide social studies teachers with new options. They call their items "History Assessments of Thinking" (HATs). HATs fill the void between the recall of discrete facts on a multiple-choice question and the complex orchestration of skills required by a document-based essay. They have piloted dozens of HATs with thousands of students in California, Nebraska, Florida, Iowa, Wisconsin, and as far away as Singapore, while also conducting validity studies in which they ask students to tell them what they are thinking as they complete their assessments. The results have been promising. Evidence suggests that their items do indeed tap important aspects of historical thinking. Just as promising is feedback from teachers, who report that HATs give them the kind of information they need to make adjustments in their teaching. (Contains 11 notes.)
title New Directions in Assessment: Using Library of Congress Sources to Assess Historical Understanding
topic Academic Achievement
Primary Sources
Teaching Methods
Validity
Evaluation Methods
Foreign Countries
Feedback (Response)
Formative Evaluation
Partnerships in Education
History Instruction
Social Studies
Thinking Skills
Electronic Libraries
School Districts
Student Evaluation
url https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1003790