Poem

This poem was published in the book “A Broken Flute”, edited by D. Seale and B. Slapin, in 2005.
My Precious Little Nephew
By Cindy La Marr (Paiute/Pit River)
My precious little nephew
Was born one fall,
With long black hair
and big black eyes.
My precious little nephew
Knew more than his years,
Before he could walk
He wanted to dance.
When he hears the drum
He cannot play
For fear he will miss a beat,
my precious little nephew.
My precious little nephew
Is to be a traditional dancer,
Practicing for hours
In his room by himself
My precious little nephew
Wakes up to his precious belongings over his bed…
His beadwork, his moccasins,
his regalia.
My precious little nephew
Learned early to be
Respectful to others,
For that is the Indian way.
My precious little nephew
Entered school this fall
at the age of four,
so eager to learn and share with others.
Today, my precious little nephew
Came home from school….
He was told to memorize a song with “war whoops”.
He was told to bring a hanger to school for a bow.
He was told to bring a nylon to wear over his face, so he can be an “Indian”.
Today, I saw a change in
My precious little nephew…
Confusion, shame, and self-doubt
Were some of the questions on his face.
All he knew about life
So far
Is that he is
Proud to be Indian.
My precious little nephew
Who just turned five…
What honor has been taken from you?
What harm will come to you
As a young Indian student
in the years to come?
My precious little nephew.

discussion format for Nelson-Barber & Trumbull Article

Making Assessment Practices Valid for Indigenous American Students
Nelson-Barber, S. & Trumbull, E.

This article discusses ways in which educators can make assessment practices valid for the Indigenous American students.
I. Research; what it has shown:
a. Maintaining linguistic and cultural congruence between home and school
b. Educating students in their heritage language
c. Using local knowledge and culture in the curriculum
II. Implications for assessment
Why, if the above is true, is this not being applied to the realm of assessment? Are the standards that most of us use in our districts culturally relevant to our communities? In what way does NCLB effect implementation of culturally relevant curricula?
III. Incorporating “cultural validity” as a core concept in assessment
In your context, how does belonging to your sociocultural group relate to learning and doing? Do the current practices in assessment reflect that? In what ways can a developer or educator make a difference?
IV. Cultural Nature of Assessment
How is assessment part of a cultural process? Are the expectations of children at school culturally relevant? What are the expectations in your context? What works?
V. Sources of Cultural Biases in Assessment
In minimizing bias and increasing equity in the assessment of Native students what steps did the author mention in the reading? Name the sources of cultural bias, see Table 1 on page 138. Discussion on discussion board;
Group 1 (Sally, Emily, Quana) discuss and share: Turning to the Wisdom of Local Culture (p. 139).
Group 2 (Erin, Theresa, Joanne) discuss and share: Paying Particular attention to the language of testing (p. 140).
Group 3 (Mae, Carol, Marilee) discuss and share: Using cultural experts to score (p.141)

As I was working on putting this together, I was thinking about the many ways in which the students come to school with so much prior knowledge. Sometimes, I think what happens to the students is that they lose faith in learning, because the curriculum that is offered to them in their classrooms is foreign to them. It doesn't make sense to them.
In thinking about developing assessment for the students, I was thinking how difficult a task this would be. When developing assessments, I have learned that it takes more than one teacher to develop one. In the school that I'm at, the turn-over would effect this process.

Solano-Flores article

Solano-Flores: Who is given tests in what language by whom, when, and where? The need for probabilistic views of language in the testing of English language learners.

The article discussed the ways in which the current assessment methods are unsound and unfair for the English language learner (ELL). It mentions the many different ways in which the assumptions and methods are wrong when it comes to the ELL students. In explaining the sentence “who is given tests in what language by whom, when, and where?” The author explains how the assessments the ELL students have to take do not necessarily test what it is testing. The “who” portion of the sentence is the students themselves. The inconsistent definition of the ELL and their proficiencies makes their classifications inaccurate. In the “test” portion of the sentence, the author explained that the developing, adapting, and administering of the tests are difficult and that they are not implemented properly or consistently. In the “language” portion, it pointed out the fact that a language, like Yup’ik, has many dialects within its domain. Even in the English language there are dialects- village English, eastern dialect, so on. With each language there is a dialect. There is still a belief out there by some test developers, raters, etc. who do not understand, or know this. So the validity of the test is compromised because of the dialect variations. In the “whom” portion it is mentioned that there are times when the person is administering the test can sometimes effect the ability of the test taker wither negatively or positively. Even the developers of the test become questionable, because it is not clearly understood what they are faced with because they (developers) come from different experiences and knowledge. The “when” portion discusses the implication of when to test the ELL. The myths and misconceptions of language development and proficiency come into the picture. Just because the ELL is able to speak the second language doesn’t mean they are proficient in the second language. There is research that mentions that it can take anywhere from 3 to 7 years for the second language to be “proficient”. The “where” pertained to what works in one setting, doesn’t mean it will work in another because of dialect differences. This discussion led to the probabilistic views of language in the process of ELL testing (p. 193). In this view, there is no set determiner of what is being tested. It “approximates” the item or items to be tested. In this view the theory of generalizability (G) theory was explained.
In reading this article it made more and more sense to use authentic testing for the language learner. In authentic testing, the main purpose for me would be the student. What they are learning, where they are having difficulty, and go from there. With all the negativity with standardized state and national tests have for the language learner, it makes sense to use the authentic assessments.

testing the test

McNamara Chapter 5: testing the test

When testing a test, it is done to make sure that it is valid. There has to be enough data-right data – to make sure it is valid. Sometimes the test is said to have been tested, but there is no evidence of data to verify it, therefore that test is not valid. Sometimes the data does not match the context, or what it is suppose to test, therefore the content is not valid. I know what valid means in everyday terms, and I hope that I am understanding it correctly in terms of second language acquisition. I think after the face to face in Bethel, I might have gotten validity and reliability confused, and therefore I am having to think about it too much!

When I think validity in terms of second language assessment, I’m thinking that validity is when the data from the test matches what I have been teaching in class, yes?

Shohamy article

Shohamy article: The language assessment process: A “multiplism” perspective

This article was on multiplism perspective on assessment; using a variety of assessments be it self assessment, group assessment, use of portfolios, paper & pencil tests, observations, and interviews. There was a lot of information on do’s and don’ts for putting together when thinking about assessment.
The article went from discussing the importance of knowing the purpose of the assessment to the reporting of assessment results. There was many points in between these two; defining, selecting, designing, administering, determining, assessing, and interpreting of an assessment.
It also covered the importance of reliability and validity. These two concepts are stressed for all the readings I have done so far. The question of making sure that the assessment is reliable and valid in making sure that the assessment measure what the content or curriculum covers in a class instruction. Is this assessment going to assist both the student and teacher make learning more effective?
The importance of the test being ethical and moral, making sure that the assessment is not biased in any way.

O'Malley and Pierce Chapter 2

Chapter 2 – O’Malley & Pierce

Chapter 2 is about designing authentic assessment. In designing authentic assessments the chapter starts out by explaining the teaching and learning models. Then it goes on to explain the review of various types of assessment and their advantages. At the end of the chapter it explains the steps into designing the assessments. It also mentions the importance of rubrics and how to score authentic assessments. Of course the importance of validity and reliability is discussed in depth for the reader to understand their place in the assessment.

What I learned in reading the chapter, the importance of making sure what I am assessing matches the students knowledge from classroom instruction and local curriculum. Authentic assessment is making sure that the assessment is reflective of what the student has learned based on their experiences in the classroom. There are different types of authentic assessment: there are ORAL INTERVIEWS, STORY OR TEXT RETELLING, WRITING SAMPLES, PROJECTS/EXHIBITIONS, EXPERIMENTS/DEMONSTRATIONS, CONSTRUCTED-RESPONSE ITEMS, TEACHER OBSERVATIONS, and PORTFOLIOS. These types of assessments are either scored by a rubric or scale. In designing an assessment these steps need to be followed: Build a team (colleagues, administration, and community), determine the purposes of the authentic assessments, specify objectives, conduct staff development, collect sample assessments, try out the assessments, and review the assessments. The chapter discussed the importance of staff development and training, like a rater training before this type of assessment is adopted so that the test can be used effectively so that scoring and grading is consistent among staff/school. An effective assessment is an assessment that will help improve instruction and benefit the students.