Modern Curriculum for Gifted and Advanced Academic Students by Todd A. Kettler

Author:Todd A. Kettler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

Chapter 11

Authentic, Formative, and Informative

Assessment of Advanced Learning

TRACY F. INMAN AND JULIA L. ROBERTS

Each chapter so far has addressed one fundamental question: How should we design learning experiences for our most advanced academic students in the foundational curriculum areas? Assessment, this chapter’s topic, plays an integral role in all aspects of the learning experience. Once planning has occurred, assessment begins with a preassessment to determine what the individual student already knows, understands, and is able to do so that the learning experience is designed for the learner to make continuous progress. Students cannot learn what they already know. Then formative assessments take place throughout the lesson; these growth checks critically determine what learning occurs and the next appropriate steps. Formative assessment results dictate daily alterations of the learning experiences to ensure continuous progress. Finally, differentiated summative assessments determine what has been learned at the culmination of the learning experience; ideally these are product-based or performance-based in nature. They are the requisite grades in the grade book. Without informative, intentional, authentic, and appropriate assessment, learning experiences may be designed, implemented, and evaluated without our advanced academic students learning much at all.

When the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC; 2010) developed the Pre-K–Grade 12 Gifted Education Programming Standards in programming, services, and teacher preparation, the organization fully realized how foundational assessment is to learning, listing it as one of six standards. Emphasizing identification, learning progress and outcomes, and evaluation of programming, the standard stresses that “knowledge about all forms of assessment is essential for educators of students with gifts and talents” (NAGC, 2010, p. 2). Because the focus of this chapter is neither identification nor program evaluation, the most important piece of this standard addresses learning: “Students with gifts and talents demonstrate advanced and complex learning as a result of using multiple, appropriate, and ongoing assessments” (p. 2). Five evidence-based practices complete this standard: (a) using pre- and post-performance-based assessments to measure progress, (b) using differentiated product-based assessments to measure progress, (c) using off-level standardized assessments to measure progress, (d) using and interpreting qualitative and quantitative assessment information to develop a profile of the strengths and weaknesses of each student to plan appropriate intervention, and (e) communicating and interpreting assessment information to students and their parents/guardians.

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