Alternative Assessment

By
Hugo Areiza Restrepo
Marcela Jaramillo Restrepo
Jorge Pineda Hoyos
Diana Quinchía Ortíz
 Contents
 Bibliography
 Introduction
 Main Concepts
 Types of Assessment – CEF -
 Traditional vs. Alternative Assessment
 Authentic Assessment
 Journals, writing samples, oral performance, portfolio,
peer and self-assessment, project work, observation,
conference.
 Advantages, disadvantages and recommendations
 Practice exercise
 MAIN CONCEPTS
PEALE GROUP – UNIVERSITY OF ANTIOQUIA
(2006)
 EVALUATION: information gathered by
teachers to regulate their teaching, the program,
and the students’ learning
 ASSESSMENT: information continuously
gathered by teachers and students for
reinforcement and remedial work concerning
students’ learning.
 TESTING: information gathered by teachers to
check their students’ foreign language
achievement.
 MAIN CONCEPTS
O’MALLEY AND VALDEZ (1996)
 ALTERNATIVE ASSESSMENT: Approaches for
finding out what students know or can do other
than through the use of multiple choice testing.

 AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT. Procedures for

evaluating student achievement or performance,
using activities that represent classroom goals,
curriculum and instruction or real life performance.
TYPES OF ASSESSMENT
Council of Europe, 2002
Achievement assessment Proficiency assessment
Norm-referencing (NR) Criterion-referencing (CR)
Mastery learning CR Continuum CR
Continuous assessment Fixed assessment points
Formative assessment Summative assessment
Direct assessment Indirect assessment
Performance assessment Knowledge assessment
Subjective assessment Objective assessment
Checklist rating Performance rating
Impression Guided judgement
Holistic assessment Analytic assessment
Series assessment Category assessment
Assessment by others Self-assessment
 Traditional vs. Alternative Assessment
Traditional Assessment
One shot, standardized exams
Timed, multiple-choice format
Decontextualized test items
Scores suffice for feedback
Norm-referenced scores
Focus on the “right” answer
Summative
Oriented to product
Noninteractive performance
Fosters Extrinsic motivation
Brown, 2004
Alternative Assessment
Continuous, long-term assessment
Untimed, free response format
Contextualized communicative tasks
Individualized feedback and washback
Criterion-Referenced scores
Open-ended, creative answers
Formative
Oriented to Process
Interactive Performance
Fosters Intrinsic Motivation
 Authentic Assessment -
Characteristics
 Asks students to perform, create or produce something
 Encourages student self-reflection
 Measures outcomes of significance
 Taps higher-level thinking and problem-solving skills
 Uses tasks that represent meaningful instructional
activities
 Invokes real-world applications
 Uses human judgment (rather than machines) for
scoring
 Requires new instructional and assessment roles for
teachers
 Authentic Assessment -
Characteristics
 Provides self-assessment opportunities for
students
 Provides opportunities for both individual and
group work
 Encourages students to continue the learning
activity beyond the scope of the assignment
 Defines explicit performance criteria
 Makes assessment equal in importance to
curriculum and instruction
 Oral Performance
 Presentations
 Role-Play
 Story or text retelling
 Interview
 JOURNALS - SAMPLE
“are written conversations between students and teachers” ( Peyton,
1993)

Claudia, a sixth grade student from El Salvador, illustrates the nature of the
writing (from Peyton ,1993).

March 17

Claudia: The new teacher of helper in our class is very good. I like her, don't you like
her? Today she helped me and us a lot. But Tony didn't want help. Why doesn't Tony
want us to help him?
I will try & bring my lunch every day from now on because the turkey stew & other
lunches put me sick. I hate them. When I am very hungry I have to eat them but when I
get to my house my stomach hurts & I am sick for 3 days. Can't the teachers protest or
say something about the food that they give here?
What do you feed chickens here? We have a hen that laid an egg.
 JOURNALS - SAMPLE
Teacher: The lunches are not that bad! I've eaten
them sometimes. You are wise to bring your own
lunch. That is usually what I do too. You have such
good food at home that nothing served here could
taste so good!
Tony is embarrassed. He wants help, but he does not
want anyone to know that he needs it. Offer to help
him and if he says no, then leave him alone.
Chickens will eat scraps of bread, wheat, seeds,
water and some insects.
 Portfolio
DEFINITION
 Showcase: Students’ best work
 Collection : All of a students’ work (rough drafts,
sketches, works-in-progress, and final products.),
not carefully planned and organized for a specific
focus.
 Assessment: Focused reflections of specific
learning goals that contain systematic collections
of student work, student self-assessment, and
teacher assessment.
 CHARACTERISTICS OF A MODEL
PORTFOLIO PROCEDURE Moya and
O'Malley (1994)

Comprehensiveness
Informative
Tailored
Authentic
PORTFOLIO ASSESSMENT MODEL

Identify purpose and focus of portfolio

Plan portfolio contents
Design portfolio analysis
Prepare for instruction
Plan verification of procedures
Implement the model

Moya and O'Malley (1994)

 SAMPLE PORTFOLIO ANALYSIS FORM
EDUCATIONAL GOAL: Student demonstrates ability on variety of
writing tasks - O'Malley and Valdez (1992)

PERFORMANCE TASK CONTENTS ILLUSTRATING DATE

STUDENT PROGRESS

Demonstrates interest and Literacy development 3/20/92

ability in variety of writing Checklist
Writes a short story Writing Sample: Dog Story 4/22/92

Writes to communicate with Letter 4/10/92

others Dialog Journal 3/31/92
Expresses writing Preferences Self-Assessment of Writing 4/24/92

Shares writing with others Anecdotal record 4/6/92

Summary coments:
 Project Work
“It is an attempt to introduce genuine problems into
education. In it students have to use their initiative to identify
problems they wish to solve or questions they wish to
explore, decide on the information, materials, equipment
which they need and how they can obtain them, use this
information to plan the work, attempt to solve the problem or
answer the question and present their results coherently. The
way to assess project work is indicated by the above list of
activities which constitute the work. Thus each of the
following activities needs to be addressed separately”
Taken from http://www.iml.uts.edu.au/assessment/types/projects/index.html
 Observation
 Checklists
 Rubrics Individual
 Rating Scales Groups
 Anecdotal Pairs
Records
 Peer and Self Assessment
Richards, Platt and Platt, 1996
 Peer assessment: Checking a peer’s performance
on a language – Cooperative Learning.

 Self Assessment: Checking one’s own

performance on a language learning task after it
has been completed or checking one’s own
success in using a language.
 Types
 Assessment of performance-immediate,
specific
 Indirect Assessment of competence-long-
term, general
 Metacognitive Assessment-goal setting
 Socioaffective Assessment- affective
factors in learning.
 Conferences
 It was essentially “a standard part of the process
approach to teaching writing, in which the teacher,
in a conversation about a draft, facilitates the
improvement of the written work” Brown (2003,
p.264)
 “One-on-one interaction between a teacher and
student, and the teacher’s being able to direct
feedback toward a student’s specific needs”
Brown (2003, p.264)
Conferencing is also used to direct feedback on:
-

 Drafts of essays and  Learning strategies

reports  reading
 Portfolios comprehension
 Journals  Oral production
 Oral presentations  self- and peer
 Project proposals assessment
 Feedback on tests  Near future goals
 General progress
 CHARACTERISTICS
 Teacher’s role as facilitator, not of an
administrator of formal assessment
 Students’ self-reflection and improvement.
 Formative and not summative (not scored and
graded)
 Positive washback
 Principled Evauation of Alternatives to Assessment – Brown,
2004
S
E
L
C I O F
p J O N B /
O O N T S P
R U F E E E
T R E R R E
Practice F N R V V R

Practicality mod mod

low low low mod
Reliability mod mod low mod mod low
Face validity mod high high high
high

Content high high high high high high

validity
Washback high high high mod mod high

Authenticity high high high mod high high

 Practice
 Level: Elementary
 Topic: Games and Sports
 Objective:
 Type of task:
 Description (instructions)
 Aspects to consider when assessing your
students
 Bibliography
 Arias, C. and Maturana, L. Evaluación en lenguas
extranjeras: discursos y prácticas. IKALA, Revista de
lenguaje y cultura. Vo 10,N°16 (2005, ene-dic).
 Baxter, A. 1997. Evaluationg your Students.
Richmond Publishing.
 Brown H.D. 2003. Language Assessment. Principles
and Classroom Practices. Longman
 Ekbatani, G., and Pierson, H. 1999. Learner –
Directed Assessment on ESL. Lawrence Earlbaum
Associates, Publishers.
 Genesee, F. & Upshur, J. (1996). Classroom based
evaluation in Second Language Education
Cambridge : Cambridge Universtiy Press.
 Bibliography
 Frodden, C., Maturana, L. and Restrepo, M.S.
(2004). Analysis of Assessment Instruments Used in
Foreign Language Teaching. IKALA. Revista de
Lenguaje y Cultura. Vol 9 N° 15, (2004, ene-dic).
Universidad de Antioquia.
 Harris,M. and McCann, P. (1994). Assessment.
Handbooks for the English Classroom.
Heinemann
 Langan, M., and Wheater, P. Can Students Assess
Effecctively? Some Insights into Peer Assessment.
Learning and Teaching in Action. Vol 2. Issue1:
Assessment. (2003, February)
 Bibliography
 O’malley, J. and Moya, S. 1994. A Portfolio Assessment
Model For ESL .
The Journal of Educational Issues of Language
Minority Students, v13 p. 13-36, Spring. Retrieved at
http://www.finchpark.com/courses/assess/portassess.ht
m
 O’malley, J. and Valdez Pierce, L. 1996. Authentic
Assessment for English Language Learners. Longman.
 O’malley, J. and Valdez Pierce, L. 1992. Performance
And Portfolio Assessment For Language Minority
Students. NCBE Program Information Guide Series,
Number 9, Spring. Retrieved at
http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/pubs/pigs/pig9.htm
 Bibliography
 Peyton, J. (1993).Dialogue journals :
Interactive Writing to Develop Language and
Literacy.Washington, DC: NCLE.
 Richards. J., Platt, J., and Platt H. 1996.
Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and
Applied Linguistics. Longman.
 Watson, R. Using Self-assessment for Evaluation.
English Teaching Forum. (2002, January)
 Wiggins, G. 1998. Educative Assessment.
Designing Assessments to Inform and Improve
Students Performance. Jossey Bass. A Wiley Print