Lack of parent involvement is one of the biggest problems facing the public school system today.

Parent involvement has helped students increase test scores and graduation rates. Parent involvement has increased the number of children attending schools and decreased the number of absences. Parent involvement increases motivation and improves self esteem. Parent involvement has decreased the use of drugs, alcohol, and violent behavior.

Getting Involved
Importance of Involvement
College is more than just attending class; its going out there and enjoying that full college experience. The University of MichiganDearborn knows that the best way for you to enjoy your time here is to get involved. Getting involved helps you experience things you wouldnt be able to learn in class. Its a one-on-one, personalized education where you dont always realize you are learning. So, live up to your full potential and get involved! How YOU Benefit from Being Involved:

Sense of belonging to something greater. Feeling of achievement. Working in small groups tailored to your interests. Self-growth and development. Leadership skills development. Expanding your group of friends. Learning to balance your academic and social life. Valuable career, academic, and social networks. Enjoying the activity. Being recognized for your hard work. Learning transferable skills that an employer will find desirable.

The UNIVERSITY benefits from your involvement by having:

Informed, active and educated students. Students who are involved and committed to different causes. A group of students available as resources to solicit feedback or solutions. Students connected to other students, faculty and staff and campus resources.

And the COMMUNITY benefits by having:

An educated and engaged student body. College graduates with outstanding leadership qualities and skills. Future community leaders who have integrity, credibility, well-developed communication, problem-solving and leadership skills.

Approximately 85% of UM-Dearborn students stay in the Metropolitan Detroit community after they graduate. It is important that our current students get connected to their communities as students and that they leave the University prepared to take on leadership roles in their families, their professional organizations and communities. Getting involved shouldnt be a burden, but rather a great experience! If you feel like youre missing out on something during your college career, this could be it!
CONCLUSION

In this article, I have shown that assessment can be used by biochemistry and molecular biology educators and educational developers as a powerful instrument for bridging the gap [23] between research knowledge on curricula, teaching, and learning and its application in the educational process. More specifically, assessment can be used in multiple ways as a powerful tool for affecting student learning and facilitating both faculty development and curriculum change. Since the major aim of this article, and all the articles in this column, is to facilitate the application of ideas from the science education research literature to teaching practice, the following is a summary of the multiple ways in which I recommend biochemistry and molecular biology educators could harness the power of assessment.

Use summative assessment to measure (grade) student achievement of course objectives; Use summative assessment to evaluate instructor and course effectiveness and to inform faculty and curriculum development; Use formative assessment to monitor student progress during the course and give feedback that is explicitly used to improve and promote teaching and student learning; Use PRSs to give immediate feedback that promotes active learning, critical debate, and the remediation of any difficulties among students; Use action research to monitor and inform teaching practice, student learning, and curriculum change; Use continuous assessment, with no final examination, to promote consistent studying and to allow students to recover from setbacks and improve their accumulative grades during the course; Use what you assess to influence what students learn (learning to the test); Use how you assess to determine whether students will use a surface or deep approach to learning; Use what and how you assess to influence what and how faculty teach (teaching to the test); Use assessment to promote the development of instructors' PCK.

In conclusion, it is perhaps fitting to quote the words of Graue [30] who states, Choosing the appropriate assessment strategy is a validity concern; the tool must be relevant to the task at hand . In discussing the important relationships between teaching, learning, and assessment, this article has introduced many important aspects of what amounts to the issue of validity. This topic will be the focus of more detailed coverage in the next two articles of this column, where we will illustrate how different forms of assessment need to be used, depending on what knowledge and skills are being assessed.

What Are Some Examples of Authentic Assessment?

click to enlarge Types of authentic assessment take many forms, all of which involve higher order levels of thinking. They are often task-based and analytical. For example, a traditional assignment might ask students to identify and describe the setting of a story; an authentic assessment of the task would instead have students explain why the author chose to select the storys setting and what effect it has on how the story progresses. In this type of assessment, students might discuss books, write letters, participate in debates or dramatic presentations, or keep journals. Some specific examples for the core subject areas appear below. Language Arts Most types of student writing, including the revision and editing stages, would fit into the authentic assessment model. Some ideas include writing letters to story characters, creating story maps, planning a business and writing a request for start-up capital, or writing/delivering speeches in a political campaign. Older students could research a selected topic and write an annotated bibliography instead of the usual term paper. Mathematics Math may lend itself most easily to finding examples of authentic assessment. Primary students can create shape pictures and then demonstrate understanding by identifying the shapes and colors they used. Hypothetically trading stocks and evaluating the results, interviewing other people or journaling about the use of fractions in one day, determining how much paint or carpet required to redecorate a room in the students home, or working with a group to teach the vocabulary or concepts of a particular math unit are all examples of alternative assessment. Science Performance assessment has been a part of most science classes since long before researchers recognized its validity. Lab experiments are excellent opportunities for students to demonstrate knowledge in real-world style situations. Recycling or other health campaigns are also fun ways to evaluate students understanding. Social Studies Authentic assessment has also become a regular part of many social science teachers repertoire. History teachers may assign groups to plan the founding of a moon colony, analyzing what would be necessary to make it succeed. A Venn diagram comparing the Articles of

Confederation and the U.S. Constitution is a simple way to determine how well students truly understand the documents, while writing help wanted ads for members of the branches of government allow assessment of both government concepts and writing skills. Geography students can show what they know by creating travel brochures for the regions, states, or countries the class is studying. Older students can show their understanding of both significant court cases and the judicial process by holding mock court to argue the Marbury vs. Madison or Brown vs. Board of Education cases.

Types of Authentic Assessment:

Scoring Guides/Rubric: A scoring scale used to assess student performance along a taskspecific set of criteria. A list of required elements are grouped together to make the scoring guide with point specific designations. Portfolio/E-Portfolio: A collection of a student's work specifically selected to highlight achievements or demonstrate improvement over time (e-portfolio is electronic and usually accessible on the Internet). Authentic Task: An assignment given to students designed to assess their ability to apply standard-driven knowledge and skills to real-world challenges. Self-Assesment: Evaluating one's own performance to determine stregth and weaknesses and reflecting on what improvements can be made to enhance product Oral Interviews: Teacher asks student questions about personal background, activities, readings, and other interests. Story or Text Retelling: Student retells main ideas or selected details of text experienced through listening or reading. Writing Samples: Student generates narrative, expository, persuasive, or reference paper. Projects/Exhibitions: Student works with other students as a team to create a project that often involves multimedia production, oral and written presentations, and a display. Experiments/Demonstrations: Student documents a series of experiments, illustrates a procedure, performs the necessary steps to complete a task, and documents the results of the actions. Constructed-Response Items: Student responds in writing to open-ended questions. Teacher Observations: Teacher observes and documents the students attention and interaction in class, response to instructional materials, and cooperative work with other students.

Using Performance-Based Measures for Assessment

While tests and surveys remain the most popular assessment instruments, many departments are beginning to recognize the value of assessment that is based on student classroom activities. This chapter explores different types of performancebased assessment activities and discusses ways to maximize their effectiveness. Performance-Based Assessment

Performance-based assessment is the process of using student activities, rather than tests or surveys, to assess skills and knowledge. Class assignments, auditions, recitals, projects, and so forth, while intended to evaluate the individual student, can be reviewed as a whole (using all or a sample) to evaluate the course. What does overall student performance on these assignments tell you about your course(s)? While performance-based projects can be designed specifically for assessment, you might consider using existing classroom projects as assessment tools. The last couple of years have seen remarkable growth in the use of portfolios and other types of performance-based assessment. These activities are being used in conjunction with tests to provide a complete picture of student skills and abilities, rather than simply relying on one test score. Test scores can be adversely affected by a student's health, personal life, or even the weather. Critics of testing also point out that tests, particularly multiple choice tests, don't provide sufficient opportunity for students to think through what they are doing, or to want to do their best. Portfolios and other forms of performance-based assessment, on the other hand, invite the student to show his or her "best" work (Belanoff & Dickson, 1991, p. xvi).

Types of Performance-Based Assessment

Portfolios Performance measures Assessment center method Unobtrusive measures (see Chapter VII)

Portfolios
- collected examples of student work over time Though the use of student portfolios has a long history in disciplines such as art and architecture, it is rapidly gaining popularity in other areas, particularly in the assessment of writing skills. While portfolios are frequently used to evaluate an individual student's progress, they are also useful in allowing a department to take a critical look at overall performance of students in the program. Possible items to include in portfolios:

exams (multiple choice and essay) research papers essays projects videotapes audio tapes

Suggestions for Using Portfolios:

A department could keep portfolios on a sample of students in a General Studies course. Faculty members could then rate the portfolios according to the goals and objectives of the course.

Students could be asked to submit a portfolio of their work as an admission requirement to the program. They would then be asked to maintain their portfolios as they progress through the major, adding selected materials from each course that they take. The portfolios would allow the department to chart the progress of their majors. To assess writing skills in the major, a department could choose to keep samples of student writing from all the courses in the major. Are students getting ample opportunity to write? What types of writing assignments are being required? How does the writing ability of the sophomores compare to the skills of the seniors? Is there one particular course in the program that seems to have a significant impact on the writing skills of the majors?

Performance Measures
- using examples of students' writing, presentations, or projects for assessment. Again, looking at overall student performance on these types of classroom assignments can tell you a great deal about your courses. You can learn a tremendous amount from just a few projects if you choose the right projects.

Suggestions for Using Performance Measures for Assessment:

A common writing assignment, such as an essay or research paper, can be used to examine more than one aspect of a General Studies course. An initial reading of a paper can assess students' understanding of the course content. A second reading could evaluate writing skills, while a third reading could explore critical thinking skills. Similarly, a computer project can be used to evaluate both students' knowledge of course content as well as the level of computer competency. Samples of students' art or photographic work could be displayed on a classroom wall. Faculty members can then examine the work against a set of criteria and make judgments about the strengths and weaknesses of the program. Accreditation teams sometimes use this approach. If students are required to perform, as in a dance, music, or speech course, the performances could be videotaped. A team of faculty members would review a sample of the performances against a set of criteria.

Assessment Center Method

- simulation of real-life situations in which student performance is evaluated by expert judges This method of assessment is a type of performance measure that attempts to create a professional situation in which students participate. While this type of activity does evaluate individual student performance, its role as an assessment activity is to provide feedback to the department on the effectiveness of the program.

Suggestions for Using the Assessment Center Method:

Ask students to prepare a business plan and present it to a panel of faculty members as if they were prospective clients. The faculty members then make judgments about the quality of the students' work. Assign students roles in a fictitious situation particular to the area of study. For example, to assess a social work course, the students could be asked to assume the roles of client and social worker. Observe and rate the student performances against a set of criteria that are determined by the objectives of the course.

Questions & Answers on Performance-Based Assessment

Q) What is the first step in establishing performance-based assessment? A) Begin by asking faculty members to answer two questions:

What outcomes do we value? How would we identify a successful student in our course(s)? Aubrey Forrest, Director of Assessment and Educational Measurement at Emporia State University (Forrest, 1990, p. 5), makes the following suggestions for prioritizing outcomes for portfolios, but his remarks have general applicability to other forms of assessment:

1. Begin by collecting a representative range of student work from marginal to outstanding and determine what learning appears to be taking place and what is not. This can be the basis for a discussion of what the most important intended outcomes ought to be. 2. Identify a group of "exemplary students," collect their course work or observances of their performances, ask the students to describe what experiences in the course helped them the most and then do an analysis of the interviews and course work. 3. Concentrate on one or more outcomes of your program for which portfolios or performances seem most useful or appropriate. Some outcomes, such as reading or computational skills, may have been adequately assessed already. Higher-order or more complex outcomes may be more appropriately assessed by a performance-based process. 4. Base the evaluation on an existing official statement of intended outcome such as your goals and objectives statement for the course. Build your assessment around this detailed statement of goals and guidelines. Q) Who needs to be involved in performance-based assessment? A) This will vary with departments. Many assessment techniques, by their very nature, don't allow many opportunities for discussion and debate among faculty. Frequently these activities are designed and implemented by one, maybe two, faculty members. Performance-based assessment, though, as one writer puts it, "practically begs for conversation" (Belanoff & Dickson, 1991). Getting faculty members together to discuss what constitutes, for example, a successful General Studies student, can be thought provoking and enormously rewarding.

Q) What are the advantages of performance-based assessment? A) Assessment activities that are separate from the daily teaching routine of the department can be perceived by students and faculty as intrusions. Performance-based assessment builds on the daily work (assignments, exams, projects) of students and faculty. Probably the biggest problem faced by those conducting assessment activities is student response not only getting students to participate in "voluntary" activities such as assessment tests and surveys, but getting them to do their best. While students are usually highly motivated to do their best when working on something that will count toward their grade, they are less likely to do so on an activity which will not affect their grade. Using actual class projects means getting results from students who were probably motivated to do well. Q) Should we use students' best work or choose from a range of grades? A) Actually, either way is fine the question is, which will best suit the department's purpose? Since students' "best" will vary, you can learn a lot about your program from looking at those assignments which earned the highest grades. What differences do you see in these samples of work? Why are some students' "best" works better than others? On the other hand, selecting from a wide range of grades will say something as well. What is failing, average, or excellent work in your courses? Is there commonality among each of these ranges that gives some clue as to who is doing what kind of work and why? Q) Should we collect work from all our students or just a sample? A) This depends on the size of your student population as well as the type of project being used. If you have only one or two sections of thirty students each, then perhaps you could keep portfolios or do performance reviews for each of them. If, though, you have eight sections with anywhere from 80 to 200 students in each, a sampling of students is sufficient. Q) Who decides which items or projects go in portfolios or are used for performance assessment students or faculty? A) The type of assessment being done determines this. In some cases, faculty members will ask the students to select what they (the students) consider to be their best work for inclusion in their portfolios. In other situations, the instructor may provide a list of class assignments or exams that are to be included in portfolios. The department may choose to create the portfolios themselves, rather than asking the students to do it. Either way, students probably have a right to know what you are doing and why. Q) Who should see the materials in portfolios? A) This is, again, a matter for the department to decide, depending on what your purposes are. It could be a committee only who sees the materials, or it could be open to all faculty members, advisors, and even students. Q) How do we know if our assessments are reliable? A) Aubrey Forrest suggests that reliability means the extent to which:

1. the evaluators agree on the analysis of the portfolios or performances. 2. these same evaluators would make the same decisions at another time. 3. these evaluators would agree with another group of evaluators. Q) What are the standards for rating performance-based materials? A) Once the intended outcomes for the course have been identified, the faculty will need to set the standards for the evaluation of the portfolio materials or performance measures. For example, the faculty may decide that the course is doing what it is intended to do if 30% of the students' materials or performances are rated at least 3 on a 6-point scale, 30% rate 4, and so forth. A course might be judged successful if the average for the group is at least 3 on a 6-point scale. The important thing is that there is consensus among faculty members. Performance-based assessment is most effective if faculty members agree on the intended outcomes of the course or project, as well as the standards set for the evaluation.

What Should Parents Know About

Performance Based Assessment?
Performance assessment is one alternative to traditional methods of testing student achievement. While traditional testing requires students to answer questions correctly (often on a multiplechoice test), performance assessment requires students to demonstrate knowledge and skills, including the process by which they solve problems. Performance assessments measure skills such as the ability to integrate knowledge across disciplines, contribute to the work of a group, and develop a plan of action when confronted with a new situation. Performance assessments are also appropriate for determining if students are achieving the higher standards set by states for all students. This brochure explains features of this assessment alternative, suggests ways to evaluate it, and offers exploratory questions you might ask your child's teacher about this subject. What Are Performance Assessments? The Office of Technology Assessment of the U.S. Congress describes performance assessment as testing that requires a student to create an answer or a product that demonstrates his or her knowledge or skills. Examples of performance assessments include: Group projects enabling a number of students to work together on a complex problem that requires planning, research, internal discussion, and group presentation. Essays assessing students' understanding of a subject through a written description, analysis, explanation, or summary. Experiments testing how well students understand scientific concepts and can carry out scientific processes. Demonstrations giving students opportunities to show their mastery of subject-area content and procedures. Portfolios allowing students to provide a broad portrait of their performance through files that contain collections of students' work, assembled over time.

One key feature of all performance assessments is that they require students to be active participants. They also focus attention on how students arrive at their answers and require students to demonstrate the knowledge or skills needed to obtain a correct answer. To illustrate, if high school juniors are asked to demonstrate their understanding of interest rates by shopping for a used-car loan (i.e., comparing the interest rates of banks and other lending agencies and identifying the best deal), a teacher can easily see if the students understand the concept of interest, know how it is calculated, and are able to perform mathematical operations accurately.

Improve product oriented assessment is a kind of assessment where in the assessor views and scores the final product made and not on the actual performance of making that product. It is concern on the product alone and not on the process. It is more concern to the outcome or the performance of the learner.It also focuses on achievement of the learner. Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_product-oriented_assessment#ixzz1XkpbzJlA