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Student History Assessments & Interest Inventory are Posted

Reminder: All WASAH teaching scholars should report to Mike Derr which classes that they will be issuing the (1) 40 multiple choice question history assessment; and (2) Student Interest Inventory. URL addresses and directions for the history assessment and interest inventory are listed in the body text.

 

WASAH teaching scholars will recall that during the summer instituate we summarized how you can help us with our overall program evaluation by administering U.S. history content assessments and history interest inventories to your students in classes that feature U.S. history content.  We have now completed developing 40 multiple choice question tests for students. Separate tests will be used for grades 3-5, 6-8 and 9-12. The test questions are pulled largely from the U.S. history NAEP exam, but some questions have been pulled from various state assessments. In developing the test questions, we tried our best to align them with the WI history standards and with the content that was and will be featured throughout the WASAH program.

 

We have now uploaded the three History Assessments and the Student Interest Inventory and posted them on a Zoomerang URL site, so that the instruments can be administered and completed online.  This approach will alleviate the need for you to collect tests and send in the responses to me -- all results will be submitted and tabulated automatically. All students should be able to complete the History Assessment in 40 minutes, and the Interest Inventory in 20 minutes.  Here are the URL addresses for the three Assessments and the Interest Inventory:

 

 

Time Frame: We are asking that you have your students complete the History Assessment during September or as soon as possible, then again complete the Assessment at the end of the course (whether in early Jan. or in May/June).  Similarly, we would like you to administer the first Interest Inventory during October or early November of the fall semester for full-year classes, and as soon as possible if you are teaching a one-semester class. The Inventory should again be administered in May 2009 (or in early Jan. for semester long classes). As in the case for the History Assessment, you should administer this Inventory to your students in classes that feature a significant amount of U.S. history (history units that ccover at least two weeks).

 

What we Need from All Teaching Scholars: Please consider which courses you are teaching this year/fall semester that features a significant amount of U.S. history themes, then contact me by email to identify what classes you will be administering the History Assessment and Interest Inventory to. Some of you will be administering these instruments to only one class; others might be administering this test to 3 or 4 classes or sections.  If it is simply not feasible for you to issue the instruments to all your classes, do the best you can and issue both instruments to as many classes as you can to try providing us with an accurate sample of students to draw data from.

 

What students should the content assessment and Interest Inventory be issued to? Obviously, students enrolled in U.S. history and other social studies classes that feature a significant amount of US history should complete both instruments. So should students in English and American Literature where those classes feature some U.S. history themes. (By significant, the rule of thumb we would use is if you include U.S. history themes within more than 2 weeks worth of classes. This is a loose rule, we realize, and really is a judgment call on your part. We're simply asking to do the best you can and exercise good discretion on this.) All grade 4-5 teachers should administer the instruments to their homeroom or general class of students. (Some middle school teachers might also teach one group of students predominantly -- give those students the test as well.) For those of you teaching music or language/culture, try to administer the instruments in at least one or two classes that feature the most number of U.S. history-related units.  Note: Students who are in more than one of your classes need only complete the pre and post Assessment and Inventory once.

 

What if you are teaching courses with less traditional formats?  For those of you teaching one-semester long courses, admininster the instruments as soon as you can, then again in December or early Jan. For your spring semester classes, administer the instruments in late Jan/early Feb., then again in May. And so on. If you are paired up with another teacher so that you're teaching one group of students in the fall semester and a 2nd group in the spring semester, employ the same timeline for these situations.

 

Special Accomodations: If you are teaching students requiring assistance with reading or taking the assessment or Inventory, you can use the same accomodations that are allowed for the WKCE assessment. For example, you can read the questions or statements aloud for the students so that they can better understand the question.  Or you can help clarify the meaning of words or statements so that students can better understand the meaning, as long as you don't change the essential meaning or gist of the questions/statement.

 

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