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ACASE News & Events
June 2008
An Alternative to Destructive Testing Practices in Educational Programs
Presenter: Paul Zachos
Alternative Education Resource Organization's 5th annual AERO conference. Troy, New York, June 26-29th.
Description of Workshop:
It is possible to collect information about student learning in a way that is non-threatening, and even motivating and educational. The information derived can then be devoted exclusively to improving teaching and learning. This will increasingly be the character of educational assessment in the future. Examples of this new generation of assessment practices already exist and are employed today by innovative educators who use them to obtain deep knowledge of their students.
This workshop demonstrates such an assessment and shows how it provides a rigorous and practical alternative to the harmful testing practices which now dominate educational settings. Workshop participants will have the opportunity to experience (from the student perspective) such an innovative assessment. The experience will take about 30 minutes. It will be followed by a 15 minute explanation of this new paradigm. Remaining time (as much as can be made available within the structure of the conference) will be devoted to questions and answers and participant generated discussion on alternatives to destructive testing practices.
February 2008
The 2nd Annual EduCamp Saratoga was held on February 23rd, 2008. Teachers, educational researchers, scientists, permaculturists, engineers, and interested people came from around the region to discuss issues in education and come up with creative solutions. Check out the website in a few weeks for a full report, http://EduCampSaratogaNY.pbwiki.com/
If you missed it this year, keep posted for future EduCamp and ACASE events.
November 2007
Many thanks to NSTA for their recognition of ACASE in the GrabBag of the November 2007 newsletter.
October 2007
Version 2 of the ACASE Assessment Information System (AIS), developed through generous funding by the Nordlys Foundation, is up and running. AISv2 is the first educational information system that is designed to analyze data to help teachers easily import and export classroom data, aggregate and disaggregate information, and build customized assessments.
AIS Version 2 features
- the ability to compare performance of students by any desired characteristic (e.g. grade level, socio economic status, competence in mathematics)
- the ability to meaningfully aggregate information numerically and graphically from different levels of an educational system (class, school, school district, state etc.)
- The ability to simultaneously look at performance of groups and individual members of the groups
- The ability to easily import existing classes and student characteristics into the system (this saves teachers the trouble of entering the information manually)
- Easy export of assessment information into statistical packages for further analysis
- Teachers can use the system to build their own learning goals and assessment activities thus customizing the system for local relevance
AIS Version 2 can be examined at: http://scientificinquiry.org.
Why these new features were needed
Existing 'educational data' used in federal, state and local planning is almost exclusively comparative test scores. Ranking and grading of this type does not provide the information needed to support or enhance teaching and learning. Moreover this information is misleading when it is used for purposes of accountability. The true and best unit of educational information is information concerning the extent to which students have attained goals for learning. This information can assist decision making when looking at individuals, classes, schools and school districts and when making comparisons between different groups of students. Indeed this information is meaningful and useful even when aggregated at state and national levels.
Version 2 of the ACASE Assessment Information System (AIS), developed through generous funding by the Nordlys Foundation, is the first educational information system that is designed exclusively to work with information of this kind. We believe that the move to educational research, evaluation and planning based on information about the extent to which learning goals are being achieved will bring positive changes into educational programs that are more powerful than other proposed or existing methods of educational reform. This is because other methods of reform base their decisions on information that inherently does not have educational relevance; test scores are the center of these reforms rather than attainment of learning goals.
June 30, 2007
Starting in July of 2007, Version 2 of the ACASE Assessment Information System (AIS) will be operational
*Version 2* will be bringing a number of new features, including:
Reports can now aggregate and disaggregate data using categories
that you select. For example, you can graphically compare performance
of girls to boys in a particular grade on a series of learning goals.
You can now add and modify these grouping categories and make those
changes at the district, school or individual teacher level. So if
your district wants to compare students who are bus riders vs. those
who walk to school, you can. If a teacher wants to compare performance
of students who've received particular instructional methods, you can
do that too.
Individual settings for districts and schools - for example, class
types and terms can now all be individualized for the district or
school, instead of shared by all system users.
District and school staff can now create teacher accounts with no
need to contact ACASE for help in this routine task.
Teachers can now label assessments by type, such as "pretest" or
"post test", making cross classroom comparisons much easier.
School staff can reduce teachers' workload by creating classes, and
generating assessments for teachers.
*Version 2.5*, due out this Fall, will also add the ability for
teachers to create their own learning goals and assessment activities.
Please contact Paul Zachos if you would like a tour of the new system.
May 7, 2007
On the evening of May 7, William Doane led an exploration and discussion on the subject of wikis - web sites where visitors can contribute and edit content.
The session was held in the Gallery at 110 Spring Street, Saratoga Springs.
We built a wiki site together, saw some exemplary sites in use, and explored a variety of issues that surround the use of wikis from education-related legal issues to site management and archival concerns.
Some attendees with laptops that had wireless capability were able contribute to the wiki we created in real-time!
Wil is a founding member of ACASE. He teaches courses in information and computer science for the University at Albany, Skidmore College and the Center for Talented Youth.
If you want to know more, please contact Wil Doane
Recent Items
- June 2008
- February 2008
- November 2007
- October 2007
- June 30, 2007
- May 7, 2007
- February 3, 2007
- April 10 and 11, 2006
- April 2006
- Winter 2006
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