My action research project is on the use of
Standards Based Common Assessments. My
project is progressing right along. I
researched Common Assessments and found some contradictory information on
them. I initially found that they were
20-25 question “benchmarks” to use to check for understanding. My school district already implements the use
of benchmarks and I was looking for research supporting the use of shorter “mini”
common assessments. According to W.J.
Popham, “It is
critical that all of the assessed standards be truly significant. From an
instructional perspective, it is better for tests to measure a handful of
powerful skills accurately than it is for tests to do an inaccurate job of
measuring many skills.” Therefore, after collaborating with my team, we felt it
more beneficial to administer short (10-15 questions) formative common assessment
to check for understanding of standards taught. Then, I provided some initial training to my team of 5th grade
teachers on the creation and analysis of standards based common assessments. Since then, we have created and used three
Math Common Assessments and two Science Common Assessments. We come together to disaggregate the data and
to discuss the results. . Just as we were congratulating ourselves on a
job well done, it became clear based on the results of the common assessments
that there were definite gaps between what we taught and what the students
understood and retained. . These common assessments have been a great
tool to keep our team on track with each other and we have been able to
establish a true PLC (professional learning community). It has encouraged and manifested a sense of
collaboration, discussion and respect for each other as educators.
