Part 2-Assessment Project

You will justify your topic selection and its relevance to the school district’s goal of improving its assessment results.

Note: Refer to the Project Description in Week 1 BELOW:

Imagine that your locally elected school district board has commissioned an assessment task force to improve the overall standardized test scores of the students within the school district. The superintendent (a role played by your professor) has asked you, a member of the assessment task force, to research a specific topic relevant to improving the standardized testing. Your research will be combined with research from other team members to create a comprehensive report on the district’s assessment program. The superintendent will review the parts of your proposal as you develop each part and provide you feedback. This feedback needs to be incorporated into subsequent parts of the proposal for presentation.

Your part of the report needs to include:

• A summary of the local school district’s established assessment goals.
• A report of the research you have found on your chosen topic.
• Proposed recommendations for changes to the district’s K–12 assessment strategy based on your research.

The superintendent would like to see research on these topics in the final comprehensive report. You are to select one of the topics to research and write up for the report. If you have ideas for other topics that would be useful to include in the report, you can suggest them.

1. Bias (cultural and gender) in aptitude and standardized tests.
2. Implications of cognitive science and brain research upon assessment.
3. Implications of Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015 with respect to testing.
4. Alternate assessment methods for special populations (e.g., gifted students, students with learning disabilities).
5. Assessing students with disabilities using computer technologies or other innovations (select one or more types of disabilities).
6. Implications of National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) for teachers, coaches, and students to school districts with respect to program assessment.
7. Implications of the Common Core Standards and/or state standards with relation to your chosen local school district, state education system, or education system on a national level.
8. Balancing the use of formative or summative assessments in the classroom with required standardized assessments.

Instructions

Write a 3–5 page paper in which you:

1. Revise the Assessment Project (The revision of the previous assignment is not included in the page count for this assignment).
2. Evaluate your district’s assessment strategy for the area(s) that are relevant to your research and make any recommendations. Consider the following points:
   • Does your district’s current assessment strategy meet the needs of certain populations of students?
   • What can be done to improve assessment results, especially within specific populations?
   • Are there any concerns about your district’s assessment strategy that you have based on your research?
   • How do your research and recommendations fit into the boarder picture of improvement?
3. Ascertain three new advances in computer and web technologies that would benefit K–12 assessment that are related to your topic. Highlight one of these new innovations that might be practical for the district to implement in the near future. Provide a rationale for your response.
4. Propose the strategic manner in which you would conduct a training needs analysis for teachers related to your topic.
5. Provide at least three additional reliable, relevant, peer-reviewed references published within the last two years.