Evaluate 1.1.3 The Summative Assessment

The goal of a summative assessment is to evaluate student learning at the end of a curricular unit by comparing it against a standard or benchmark.  In my on-level US History class, this translates to a series of 3-4 district level benchmark exams and the state-mandated End of Course exam.  Comparatively, my AP US History students must take the EOC, but also have the opportunity to take the National Exam in May.

Thus, the goal of creating summative assessments in my own classroom is to design authentic tests that mimic very closely the EOC and National APUSH Exams.  Making my classroom assessment as similar to the design and parameters of these two exams proves their validity and relevancy.  Further, to maintain their reliability it is essential to review testing data and to consider each assessment as organic- constantly being analyzed and improved to ensure accurate summation of learning.

While the first two factors in summative assessments- validity and reliability- apply equally to both brick-and-mortar and virtual teachers, the final factor highlights a stark difference.  In the e-learning settings, security takes especially careful thought from the virtual teacher. For my own APUSH classroom in the cloud, I would employ three basic practices to maintain security:

1. Establish a very strict time limit that mocks the AP Exam:  55 Multiple Choice Questions in 60 minutes, 4 Short Answer Questions in 40 minutes, 1 Long Essay Question in about 35 minutes, and 1 Document Based Question in 60 minutes.  Note: I would NOT give a 3 hour mock exam in one online sitting.  Instead I would use the time parameters listed above as guidelines.  For example, a 25 multiple choice exam with 2 short answer questions would take students no more than 50 minutes to complete.
2. Draw from an extensive test bank and give multiple forms of the exam.
3. Display one question per page with limited opportunities to go back to previous questions, maybe even breaking the exam into a few sections.

To maintain my own classroom test integrity, I have opted out of posting sample questions from my own summative exams.  However, to showcase the types of questions that I use to create my assessments, please follow the link below to College Board's Released APUSH Exam: http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/ap/ap-us-history-practice-exam.pdf