Formative assessment everywhere

Formative assessments (of which PASeries is one, using screener, progress and diagnostic tests) is in the news everywhere these days, it seems.

District Administration's "Making Assessments Work" states, "Educators can't wait until the end of the year to gauge how they're doing, and they have to be sure that what they're teaching equates to what will be required of their students on the state's summative test." The article also lists its definitions of such terms as formative assessment, predictive assessment, value-added assessment, vertical scaling, computerized adaptive testing and (take a breath before proceeding) more. A telling point of the confusion in the classroom: "Formative testing seems to mean just about anything that's non-summative."

Almost on cue, Education Week features a commentary titled, "Is Formative Assessment Losing Its Meaning?" As the author notes that formative assessment, as a term with a specific definition, may be heading down the same road as "aligned" and "standards-based reform." One observation, "Any test can be used to some extent in a formative way: to help shape instruction, to identify curricular strengths and weaknesses, or to inform students of what they know and don't know, or can and cannot do, at a given point in time. Any formative benefit for teachers and students, however, is dependent upon the quality of the test itself."

Another reason for the strong item authoring and review procedures, and scientific scales that link to other assessment instruments and curriculum materials, in PASeries.

Interactive overview released

A new, brief Flash overview of PASeries has been posted for those not ready yet to invest the time in a detailed training tutorial.

The PASeries Overview (see the box on the lower right corner) provides brief summaries of PASeries' capabilities in administration, testing, reporting, reading measurement, math measurement, sample test items and sample reports. (Don't miss Twing typing.)

New PASeries training resources

We always provide a number of resources on the PASeries information site. But another place to find good resources is on the resource page of the PASeries administrative/product site.

That online Resource Library has recently been streamlined and updated. One of the most useful -- and coolest -- new additions became available this week: a Macromedia Flash-powered training program (just look on the left, under the section Online Demos for the entry PASeries Online Training).

Both low- and high- bandwidth versions of the training are available (one with audio, one without), and take an hour or so to go through all of the modules, from an overview about what PASeries is, to how to select tests, to how to read reports.

Savvy viewers will also note the brief appearance of the PASeries training helper, a very animated otter named Twing.

Making use of Lexile measures

One of the strengths of PASeries Reading is in its use of Lexile measures as PASeries' scoring scale. Lexiles, for the uninitiated, are a standard measure of reading ability and text difficulty. The Lexile measures in PASeries Reading provide the reading ability part of the measurement.

The real power of using that PASeries Reading Lexile score comes when an educator, parent or even the student can use the score to match reading ability with a book or article in everyday life. If a reader's Lexile measure is matched with the Lexile measure of a text (say, 800 to 800), that reader is expected to comprehend about 75 percent of the written material -- tough enough to be challenging, but not so difficult as to be frustrating.

So how does one go about using the Lexile measures generated by PASeries Reading?

An easy way is to visit the Lexile.com Web site and the free Lexile Book Database. Some 100,000 books have Lexile measures, and on the Lexile site you can plug in a Lexile score and get a list of books in approximately the same range. It's a nice, free tool, provided by MetaMetrics, the developers of the Lexile Framework for Reading.

"Research based"

A common buzzword used in education testing today is that a product or service is "research based." However, we felt it was important that we do more than claim PASeries is research based, but show some of the thinking and process that gave the product its scientific chops. For more detail, check out the new white paper, "Achieving Student Progress with Scientifically Based Formative Assessment."

About the PASeries blog

So what is this? Yet another corporate blog, written by public relations professionals who carefully filter every word and original thought?

Not at all.

The PASeries blog is penned (or, more accurately, typed, or even more accurately, keyboarded) by members of the team responsible for Pearson PASeries, a.k.a. Progress Assessment Series. It is here you'll find the latest developments for PASeries Reading and Mathematics, information on upcoming PASeries products, tips and tricks on the best way to use PASeries in the classroom and elsewhere, and pointers to relevant and useful research.

Unlike an e-mail newsletter, you don't have to worry about a blog entry getting accidentally caught in a spam filter. And if you want to find out what's new on the blog without checking the Web site, subscribe to the RSS feed. Instructions for setting that up -- quite simple, actually -- can be found here.