Summative+Assessment

Summative Assessment  Design of summative assessment takes place after "indicator work" has been completed. As a district, it is our goal to align our summative assessments with the outside audit for the particular level and course. For example, sixth grade math attempts to align their summative assessment with the Ohio Achievement Test, while AP Biology aligns their summative with the AP assessment. For grade levels that are assessed in bands, it is especially important to collaborate learning outcomes across grade levels. For example, 6th, 7th and 8th grade social studies needs to communicate and determine what indicators are taught by each grade level. Typically, outside audits come with a curriculum map, an outline informing us of how many selected response, short answer, and extended response questions can be expected. As part of the summative design process, our teams should determine a proportional assessment map for their own summative. This does not mean that we cannot include performance-based assessment and authentic open-ended projects in our curriculum. We just need to understand what the learning is that students need to prove, and evaluate it accordingly. 

Rick Stiggins web-page []

Classroom Application Tips  *Summative questions are very difficult to create. Re-use good questions created by organizations that have put the questions through a battery of tests. Sometimes these organizations release "not so good questions"; however, their "not so good" questions are typically better than our questions.
 * Use our state and other states as resources and question banks.
 * Do not release summative assessments to students (we need to protect the integrity of our assessments).
 * Do this collaboratively; it will take less effort and time.
 * Take the summative before the students, every one of us has given an assessment and realized something did not make sense.
 * Although the data from summative is not meant for learning, we have developed uses to encourage continual growth.
 * Try to use summative assessments by unit and not quarterly. Each indicator should be assessed a minimum of twice (sample size) on each summative. This is difficult to attain if it is a quarterly summative with a lot of indicators.
 * Each of the indicators on the summative should have already been assessed and the data should have been analyzed and intervention given for students not proving mastery. (This is IMPORTANT)