STANDARD BASED TEACHING starts with standard based assessments. Edify is a standard based assessment program.  Before starting to create assessments in edifyAssess there needs to be a clear understanding of what standards will be assessed.  A good place to start is with a Curriculum Map that explains what standards will be focused on during each trimester or semester based on the curriculum being taught.  Data driven instruction will be based on data from the standard based assessments. Decisions on what to teach or not to teach will be based on this data. Assessments will be "living” because they will change based on what the data is showing. 

What to Assess? 

Assessments generally fall into these standard based categories and the categories often overlap: 

All assessment categories should be included in questions for any assessment. 

                A. Content: what students should know? 

                B. Skills: what students should be able to do?

                C. Literacy: What students should be able to do with text? 

How to build assessments:

Quick assessments can be made in edifyAssess based on standards.   Manual assessments can be made by pulling from the question bank and aligned to standards.  Manual assessments can also be made by typing in your own questions. All questions must be standard based and it is required to link a question to a standard when you create the assessment item. When manually creating assessments try to create assessment questions with various question types such as:  multiple choice, constructed response and a variety of graphic response questions. Find example questions from state and national assessments to model questions after. 

Performance-Based Assessment Items:

Don't forget to include performance-based items:  examples are included below

                A.  Writing Tasks: thematic essay, document based essay, and research or historical investigation paper

                B. Authentic Tasks: letter to the editor, policy proposal, public service announcement, and marketing proposal.

* Every course is tied to the ELA standards and each teacher can prepare assessments using those standards as well as course standards.