CSAssess is a CSForAll:RPP project related to the NSF grant titled Seeding an Assessments Hub and Catalyzing a Community of Educators for Student Success in CS. The project entails exploratory research and development activities to (1) seed a sustainable technology hub (for and by teachers along with researchers and technologists) that push the boundaries on rich, innovative assessments organized by CS standards, grade, concepts, curriculum and other relevant criteria for intuitive use by teachers of all experience levels, (2) create a framework for helping make formative assessment a critical part of K-12 CS classroom practice, and (3) support professional development and a Community of Practice (CoP) for K-12 CS teachers in the US centered on a shared need for quality assessments and building CS teachers’ assessment capabilities. A strong interdisciplinary leadership team from Looking Glass Ventures, LLC (creator of an NSF-SBIR funded assessment authoring and delivery platform-‘Edfinity‘) and Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA), will collaborate with K-12 CS teachers, curriculum developers, the CSForAll community, and experts in the field to execute this vision.
This project is funded by the CSForAll program of the National Science Foundation (CNS #1943530).
This project is funded by the CSForAll program of the National Science Foundation (CNS #1943530).
CSAssess Activities
[Capacity Building] Partnering with teachers to conduct workshops and PD aimed at building capacity among K-12 CS teachers to make formative assessments an integral part of their classroom practice
[CS Assessments Hub]Creation of a repository of K-12 CS assessments
Contributors/Collaborators/Creators: Shuchi Grover, Daniel Moix, Padmaja Bandaru, Kelly Powers, Vicky Sedgwick, Pauline Lake, Darci Santella, Derek Babb, David Petty, Danielle Bodine, Mobile CSP, Code.org, BJC, UTeach-CS,
Over a 1000 assessments organized by curricula, standards (e.g. CSTA, for now), curricula, grades, and by user-created tags such as programming language (if applicable) have been aggregated, curated, organized and created on edfinity.com
Assessments are autogradable but go beyond multiple choice and multiple select to include Parson’s problems, matching column, Hotspot/point & click, subgoal labeling, and unit test code correctness (currently only for Python).
Creation of problems focusing on mi
[Research Activities]Conduct research on formative assessment in CS, student misconceptions, innovative assessment types, and teacher experiences
Develop and propose a framework for formative assessments in K-12 CS.
Formative Classroom Assessment for Teachers in K-12 Computer Science (CSTA
Teacher PD Module
Formative Classroom Assessment for Teachers (FCAT) is a professional development workshop series was designed to deepen teachers’ understanding of how to adapt and use formative assessment in K-12 computer science classrooms. In this multi-part series, we present a synthesis of research and many examples, plus interactive activities to practice evaluating, adapting, and responding to assessment items. Examples cover content related to algorithms and programming, with examples across grades 3-12.
These workshops were designed as professional development (PD) in-a-box — i.e., resources that can easily be used and adapted by others to facilitate high quality PD in their own regions and contexts. We recommend implementing as a series of three sessions of approximately 90 minutes each over the course of one month (e.g., weekly) or one semester (e.g., monthly):
What/Why/How of Formative Assessment
Quality Quizzes for Quick Feedback
Tackling Misconceptions Through Formative Assessment
Session Design
Each session includes direct instruction synthesizing research on assessment and guided practice with many examples of assessment items. Additionally, there are breakouts for practice of the target skills in small groups. Finally, there is suggested “homework” to apply the learning from each session and preview other resources. Subsequent sessions begin by reviewing this homework to provide some continuity across sessions.
Objectives
Understand what, why, and how regarding formative assessment.
Expand types of formative assessment used, and understand the value of different types.
Evaluate assessment items using a framework or set of design features.
Identify common misconceptions and select items to diagnose learning.
Plan how to respond to assessment results.
Session Resources
1: What/Why/How of Formative Assessment
Objectives
Understand what, why, and how regarding formative assessment.
Evaluate assessment items using a framework or set of design features.
Align assessment items to granular learning goals.
Suggested citation: Twarek, B. and Grover, A (2022). Formative Classroom Assessment for Teachers in K-12 Computer Science: A Professional Development Workshop Series. Retrieved from https://csassess.org/fcat.
This work is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1943530. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
Team
LEADERSHIP TEAM
Shuchi Grover (PI)
Bryan Twarek (Co-PI)
Shivram V (Co-PI)
TEACHER PARTNERS
Padmaja Bandaru
Daniel Moix
Kelly Powers
Vicky Sedgwick
David Petty
Danielle Bodine
We’re also grateful for the participation of Mobile CSP (Pauline Lake & Jennifer Rosato), Code.org (Daniel Schneider), UTeachCS, Darci Santella, and other members of the CSForAll community.
[Capacity Building]
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