The Islamic University – Gaza

Education College

Department of Psychology

Classroom Assessment and Evaluation

Prepared by

Dr. Basel El-Khodary

2020

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Chapter 4

Basic Assessment Strategy: Categories of Learning,

Objectives, and Backward Design

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Outlines …

▪ Categories of Learning (Cognitive, Affective and Psychomotor

domain)

▪ Instructional Objectives

▪ Modern Classroom Objectives

▪ Backward Design

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Objectives

After studying this chapter, you should be able to:

• List the stages of Bloom's Taxonomy of levels of understanding

• List the stages or categories of other frameworks for classifying understanding

• Create high quality instructional objectives that are linked to high quality

classroom assessment

• Apply the steps of backward design, which creates a logical chain of objectives

to assessment to instruction Stories.

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“If you don't know where you are going, you will probably

end up somewhere else.”

Lawrence J. Peter, Educator (1919–1990)

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Introduction

➢ Teaching is tough to do well. The classroom is a complex environment with so many different participants, goals, expectations, pressures, and possibilities.

➢ It is useful to try to simplify the educational aspects of the classroom by focusing on what a teacher hopes to make happen regarding student learning and the strategies for helping make those things happen.

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➢ In the modern classroom, assessment is a crucial component.

➢ This chapter explores traditional and modern ways of categorizing the different types of student learning that can occur in the classroom,

➢ Suggests tactics for defining teachers' expectations in useful and concrete objectives, and

➢ Presents the modern strategy of “backward” design to promote student learning through close connections between objectives and assessment.

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Categories of Learning

➢ Assessment in the modern classroom is driven by a teacher's objectives for his or her students.

➢ Those objectives can be classified in helpful ways that guide choices of both teaching and testing strategies.

➢ One of the most widely used ways of organizing

levels of teaching and testing strategies is

Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives.

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➢ Bloom’s taxonomy is usually used in order to set the learning objectives in education.

➢ Every subject must be referred to Bloom’s Taxonomy in order to have standardized objectives.

➢ It is divided into categories and each of them has their own definition and explanation about learning objectives.

➢ It is the systematic way to classify each category and the system in teaching and learning.

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➢ Bloom’s Taxonomy has divided the class into three domains which are cognitive, psychomotor and affective.

➢ Cognitive domain focuses on the mental operation during the process of learning.

➢ Affective domain includes the areas of emotions, feelings, interest, attitude, appreciation and values.

➢ Psychomotor domain deals with the action or performance level.

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➢ In making and designing the learning objectives, a domain must be included between the three.

➢ This is due to the reason that each domain contribute to the end product of any level in Bloom taxonomy.

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➢ For decades, this simple breakdown of knowledge has been found to be very useful.

➢ It presents a reasonable way of thinking about the continuum of learning that makes sense and matches real-world experience.

➢ There were some objections, though, that researchers, theorists, and educators had with the original six stages.

➢ These concerns focused on the order of the stages, their names, and describing the levels in observable ways.

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➢ Early in this century, Anderson and Krathwohl (2001) presented a modern version of Bloom's framework.

➢ They changed the order a bit (the product creation stage, creating is now considered the highest form of learning),

➢ described the stages as types of cognitive processing (using verbs instead of nouns), and

➢ presented many examples of how those processes actually occur in observable classroom behaviour.

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Good instructional objectives have these characteristics:

1. A behavioural action must occur: The student will … name, compare, decide, indicate, write, mark, sing, answer, and so on.

2. An observable outcome or product is identified: Assessment results, structures, performances, and so on.

3. The criterion for success is identified: List three examples, recite without error, complete 70% of the steps on a checklist, and so on.

4. The conditions under which the behaviour must be performed are often described (or assumed): When asked, on a quiz; when questioned, in front of the class, at the science fair, and so on.

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Instructional objectives consists of:

Verb + scientific content + performance criterion + conditional criterion

▪ Recite the 26 letter alphabet with no errors” is an observable instructional objective.

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First: Cognitive domain (Bloom's Taxonomy Revised)

1. Remembering. Retrieving relevant knowledge that have been learnt in class.

✓ It is demonstrated by recognizing and recalling information.

➢ Action verbs:

➢ Arrange, define, describe, duplicate, identify, list, match, memorize, order, recognize, relate, recall, repeat, reproduce.

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2. Understanding. Constructing meaning through interpretation, classification, and summarization.

➢ It is demonstrated by explaining, comparing, or contrasting.

➢ Action verbs:

➢ Classify, convert, defend, describe, discuss, distinguish, estimate, explain, express, give examples.

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3. Applying. Carrying out a procedure.

✓ It is demonstrated by implementing.

➢ Action verbs:

➢ Apply, demonstrate, discover, employ, illustrate, interpret, manipulate, modify, operate, practice, predict, prepare.

➢ These three levels fall under Lower Order Thinking Skills or LOTS.

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➢ The Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) starts at the fourth level

of Bloom’s taxonomy.

4. Analysing. Breaking ideas or content into parts and pieces.

✓ It is demonstrated by indicating how the parts relate to one another

or to an overall structure.

➢ Action verbs:

➢ analyse, appraise, calculate, compare, contrast, criticize,

differentiate, distinguish, illustrate, infer, separate, subdivide and

test. 19

5. Evaluating. Making judgments.

✓ It is demonstrated by producing critiques or investigating the value of content or ideas.

➢ Action verbs:

➢ Appraise, argue, assess, attach, choose, compare, conclude, contrast, defend, describe, discriminate, estimate, evaluate, explain, judge, justify, interpret, relate, predict, rate, select, summarize, support and value.

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6. Creating. Putting elements together to form a meaningful whole.

✓ It is demonstrated by planning or organizing pieces into a new pattern or product.

➢ Action verbs:

➢ Construct, create, design, develop, devise, explain, formulate, generate, plan, prepare, rearrange, reconstruct, relate, reorganize, revise, rewrite, set up, summarize, synthesize, tell and write.

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➢ In tertiary level, students are exposed to HOTS more than LOTS.

This is because, students are required to think analytically and

critically.

➢ By using all this taxonomy in creating questions to the students, it can make the instructors life easier as they will only need to refer the first word in each question in order to know the level that they question is asked.

➢ It is also will be an easy task to analyse each question given to the students.

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➢ A second dimension was also added by differentiating between different kinds of knowledge.

➢ The Anderson and Krathwohl model describes four types of knowledge:

1. Factual. Knowledge of what is true or exists

2. Conceptual. Knowledge of ideas and the abstract

3. Procedural. Knowledge of how to do something

4. Metacognitive. Knowledge about one's own knowledge

➢ So, one could choose learning goals so specific that they apply to a specific level of learning and a specific type of knowledge, producing 24 different types of potential learning outcomes.

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Second: Affective domain (Values as Objectives )

➢ Just as there are ways to classify knowledge, there are also some useful ways to categorize attitudinal and affective learning.

➢ In fact, Bloom's Taxonomy was part of a set of classification systems that included a taxonomy for the “affective domain.”

➢ A few years later, Krathwohl, Bloom, and Masia (1964) suggested this set of levels for learning goals having to do with attitude change, appreciation, or supporting some value:

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1. Receiving. Awareness of the existence of certain ideas.

➢ Action verbs:

➢Acknowledge, asks, attentive, follows, listens, understands.

➢Examples: Listen to others with respect.

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2. Responding. Active participation on the part of the learners.

➢ Action verbs:

➢Answers, assists, complies, discusses, performs, presents, tells.

▪Examples:

▪ Participates in class discussions.

▪Gives a presentation.

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3. Valuing. The worth or value a person attaches to a particular object,

phenomenon, or behaviour.

➢ Action verbs:

➢Appreciates, demonstrates, initiates, invites, respect, shares.

➢Examples: Shows the ability to solve problems.

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4. Organization. Organizes values into priorities by contrasting

different values, resolving conflicts between them, and creating an

unique value system.

➢ Action verbs:

➢ Compares, relates, synthesizes.

➢Examples: Explains the role of systematic planning in solving problems.

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5. Characterization. Has a value system that controls their behaviour.

➢ Action verbs:

➢ Acts, discriminates, displays, influences, modifies, performs.

▪Examples:

▪Uses an objective approach in problem solving.

▪Values people for what they are, not how they look.

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Third: Psychomotor domain

➢ Two organizational approaches to the stages of psychomotor skill development are presented by Simpson (1966),

➢ For general physical body control skills for young students, and Harrow (1972), for the sort of skilful body movement used by dancers, gymnasts, actors, and public speakers.

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Simpson's Taxonomy has seven stages:

1. Perception. Awareness

2. Set. Readiness

3. Guided Response. Attempt

4. Mechanism. Basic proficiency

5. Complex Overt Response. Expert proficiency

6. Adaptation. Adaptable proficiency

7. Origination. Creative proficiency31

Harrow's Taxonomy is a set of categories, not necessarily a

sequence of stages:

1. Reflex Movement. Involuntary reaction

2. Basic Fundamental Movements. Basic simple movement

3. Perceptual Activities. Basic response

4. Physical Abilities. Fitness

5. Skilled Movements. Complex operations

6. Nondiscursive Communication. Meaningfully expressive activity32

Instructional Objectives

➢ Standard training for teachers includes learning ways to identify the hoped for outcomes for their students and ways to express those outcomes in observable, measurable ways.

➢ These student outcomes are typically labelled instructional objectives (because they shape teachers' lesson plans and instructional choices), and they are usually written as behaviours (so they can be observed and measured).

➢ In fact, if an objective cannot be assessed, it is probably not a very useful objective, at least in terms of planning how one will teach to that objective.

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Goals and Objectives

➢ There are some customary ways of defining those terms in education, though.

➢ Typically the word goal is used for broad, abstract outcomes, and the word objective is used for narrow, more concrete outcomes.

➢ You can think of a goal as generating a whole bunch of objectives.

➢ Meeting those objectives provides evidence that a goal is being met.

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▪ “All my students will learn basic beginning reading skills” is a goal.

▪ “All my students will learn the 26 letter alphabet” is an objective.

▪ “All my students will be able to recite the 26 letter alphabet with no errors” is an observable instructional objective.

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➢ Because the most valuable instructional objectives are, well, objective, the wording matters.

➢ Words that aren’t open to interpretation are best.

➢ So it is best to avoid abstract words such as knows, understands, and appreciates.

➢ Better words are solves, builds, and writes.

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Objectives, Assessment Formats, and Bloom's Taxonomy

➢ The move during the last 50 years toward more explicitly considered instructional objectives in the classroom was driven by Bloom's Taxonomy, which was designed to generate quality objectives.

➢ Consider Table 3.1, which lists each level using the revised categories and suggests words that are useful in describing behaviours consistent with each level.

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Table 3.1 Bloom's Revised Taxonomy and Observable Behaviours

Level Useful Verbs

Remembering Name, define, match, outline

Understanding Classify, summarize, explain

Applying Demonstrate, solve, compute

Analysing Separate, diagram, order

Evaluating Support, judge, interpret

Creating Revise, compose, construct

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➢ Just as different objectives can be matched with different levels of Bloom's Taxonomy, the choice of the different approaches to assessment can be driven by the cognitive level of learning for which a teacher has aimed instruction.

➢ Each approach often suggests different expectations of learning.

➢ Although each assessment philosophy can be designed to assess at any level, the most common levels of learning for each approach are listed here:

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Traditional Paper-and-Pencil Assessment

➢ Formats such as multiple-choice and matching are very efficient ways

of measuring learning at the relatively low levels of Understanding and

Remembering. In fact, other formats, such as performance-based

assessment, may make assessing these levels a bit more complicated.

Performance-Based Assessment

➢ This approach is often taken when teachers wish to assess higher levels

of Bloom's Taxonomy such as Creating, Evaluating, Analysing, and

Applying.

➢ It is often difficult to assess at these levels using objectively scored

selection items such as true-false and multiple-choice items.40

Formative Assessment

➢ Any level of Bloom's Taxonomy can be assessed formatively and most any item format can be used.

➢ If the formative assessment system focuses on collecting quantitative data (e.g., to chart progress), the use of traditional paper-and-pencil tests can work well.

➢ If the focus is for students to judge the depth and clarity of their own understanding, the well-detailed scoring rubrics used in performance based assessment can be very useful.

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Authentic Assessment

➢ Real-world evaluations are usually based on performance or production and seldom based on traditional paper-and-pencil test scores.

➢ Consequently, it is likely that the most authentic assessment strategies are based on performance-based formats.

➢ Regarding Bloom's Taxonomy, authentic assessment tends to value higher levels of knowing such as Application and above.

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Universally Designed Assessment

➢ The principles of universal test design apply to any assessment formats.

➢ Many of the research-based suggestions for developing assessments fair to all

students, however, focus on traditional paper-and pencil formats.

➢ Choosing tasks that are meaningful to all students and providing instructions

that can be processed and understood equally well by all students are

important universal test design goals, and those goals make sense regardless

of the level of learning expected or item format used.

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Modern Classroom Objectives

➢ Since the time of Bloom (1950s and 1960s), teachers have moved a bit from mainly expecting memorization and recitation of basic facts as student outcomes to expecting more complex and higher level (in Bloom’s terms) outcomes.

➢ Today's teachers tend to have instructional objectives that describe outcomes that are consequently more complex.

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➢ Because objectives still should drive both instruction and assessment, most teachers still produce concrete behavioural objectives for their students.

❖ Today, they are often created and determined through a collaboration between students and teacher.

❖ Another modern aspect of classroom objectives is that they are broadly predetermined by school, district, or state policy.

➢ Even in these cases, teachers typically have the freedom to specify instructional objectives that are relevant to the teacher-chosen activities and learning strategies.

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❖ A third way that modern classroom objectives may differ from those explicitly chosen in the past is in the kinds of learning that a teacher expects.

➢ Some objectives are not easily derived from traditional Bloom or Bloom-type classification systems.

➢ Fink (2003) lists some of these contemporary types of objectives: leadership, interpersonal skills, communication, ethics, learning how to learn (metacognitive skills), tolerance, and “character.”

➢ The Taxonomy of Significant Learning defines learning in terms of significant change that affects students' lives.

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➢ Instructional objectives that can have lasting benefits beyond the classroom, according to Fink, focus on

✓ Foundational Knowledge. Understanding and remembering

✓ Application. Skills

✓ Integration. Connecting new knowledge and skills to what came before

✓ Human Dimension. Knowing yourself and others

✓ Caring. Developing feelings, values, and attitudes

✓ Learning How to Learn. Teaching students to be self-directed

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Backward design

➢ Is a method of designing educational curriculum by setting goals before choosing instructional methods and forms of assessment.

➢ Backward design of curriculum typically involves three stages:

1) Identify the results desired (big ideas and skills)

➢What the students should know, understand, and be able to do.

➢ Consider the goals and curriculum expectations.

➢ Focus on the "big ideas" (principles, theories, concepts, point of views, or themes).

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2) Determine acceptable levels of evidence that support that the desired results have occurred (culminating assessment tasks).

➢ What teachers will accept as evidence that student understanding took place.

➢ Consider culminating assessment tasks and a range of assessment methods (observations, tests, projects, etc.).

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3) Design activities that will make desired results happen (learning events).

➢ What knowledge and skills students will need to achieve the desired results.

➢ Consider teaching methods, sequence of lessons, and resource materials.

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Backward Design: Matching Assessment Formats to the Relative Importance of Objectives

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Priority Corresponding Assessment Format

Worth being familiar with Traditional Paper-and-Pencil Tests

Basic introductory and background information can be

assessed reliably and efficiently with these objectively

scored formats.

Important to know and do Performance-Based Assessment

Skills and the application of important concepts should

be assessed in ways that demonstrate mastery.

Enduring understanding Authentic Assessment

Assessments that encourage long-term learning should be

engaging and intrinsically meaningful for students.

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