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Home > Resources > Classroom Practice > Assessment > NY Assessment Collection
Introduction to the New York Assessment Collection Web Version
Table of Contents:
- About the Project
- Dimensions of Assessment
- Getting Around
- Suggestions for Using the NYAC
- Future Directions
About the Project
This World Wide Web Sampler Page is an introduction to the New York Assessment Collection, a multimedia resource bank of student assessments developed by New York State public elementary, middle and secondary school teachers. The complete New York Assessment Collection contains case studies on a wide range of locally developed student assessments, including exhibitions, portfolios, design projects, simulations and other performance tasks from schools across the state.
The New York Assessment Collection has three main purposes:
- To support local development of assessments
- To provide examples of good performance assessment across the curriculum and levels of schooling
- To promote communication among schools about good assessment practice.
The New York Assessment Collection has been developed by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, Brown University. Support for this project has been provided by the New York State Education Department and IBM. The case studies that make up the collection represent examples of locally developed student assessments. These assessments are intended to provide teachers and other educators with a better understanding of the varieties of assessment practice. They are not intended to serve as assessments developed or endorsed by the New York State Education Department or the New York State Board of Regents, nor to substitute for such assessments.
On this site, you'll find a complete list of all the assessments included in the New York Assessment Collection, as well a menu of five sample assessments. You'll also find information on how to order the complete New York Assessment Collection on CD-ROM, disks (for Macintosh or Windows)
or print. Finally, we invite you to give us your feedback about the Assessment Collection and/or join in a 'threaded discussion' about assessment issues.
Dimensions of Assessment
To help teachers learn about these assessments, each of the 33 assessments in the Assessment Collection is described in six dimensions. It's our belief that these six dimensions not only help describe these complex assessments, but also provide teachers a useful framework of questions for discussing and developing assessments for their own students and within their own school context.
The six dimensions are:
Vision:* What are the goals for student performance?
Prompt:* What is it that students know they'll need to do?
Performance:* What does student work and performance look like?
Evaluation:* What are the criteria for judging student performance?
Context:* How do teachers support student performance?
Reflection:* What kind of feedback is collected about the assessment?
The Performance dimension is central to each case study and always includes samples of actual student work. The multimedia technology allows the user to view graphic and video images from the assessments, as well as text descriptions. In one case, for example, it is possible to view the blueprints of a student-designed machine, as well as read the written description of the design the students have prepared. Users of the CD-ROM version will be able to look at short video clips of some student presentations, as well as students and teachers in the process of preparing for the assessment.
To describe each of the assessments in the Collection, the project staff worked closely with a teacher-consultant. The teacher-consultants are the real experts on their own assessment systems, and have agreed to respond to questions and comments from users of the Assessment Collection. A school address and e-mail address
(when available) is included at the end of each assessment case study.
Please remember: None of the assessments included here is considered to be a perfect model. Rather the New York Assessment Collection presents a selection of works in process as a resource for teachers engaged in developing assessments for their own students. These will change from year to year as the teachers reflect on the students' performance and revise the assessments to be more effective.
Getting Around The Assessment Collection World Wide Web Sampler
We recommend that you first link to the Table of Contents for this Web Site. Here, you can view the layout of the New York Assessment Collection, as well as the options connected to it. Once you've accessed the List of Participating Schools, you'll be able to browse through any of the five sample assessments underlined to show they are active links. When you click on an underlined assessment title, you'll be taken automatically to the Vision Dimension for information about its goals and a summary of the entire assessment. At any time--and in any order--you may click the other Dimensions (Prompt, Evaluation, etc.)
At the beginning of each Dimensions entry, you have the option of viewing another Dimension, or accessing the Table of Contents and list of Participating Schools by simply clicking the underlined text by the same name.
Suggestions for How to Use the New York Assessment Collection
- Browse a variety of assessment case studies or explore several in depth to expand thinking about authentic assessments;
- Use as an idea bank in developing your own assessments;
- Choose one or more case studies as a centerpiece for staff discussion of authentic assessment;
- Use selected assessments from the Collection to discuss goals and principles of authentic assessment with students, parents and other stakeholders;
- Apply the dimensions (vision, prompt, etc.) to your own assessment practice: How could you document assessment practice in your own classroom or school?
- Make connections with other teachers and schools involved in authentic assessment.
Future Directions and Feedback
While the Assessment Collection is intended to be a resource for teachers right now, it is part of a larger study to discover how technology can support schools and teachers in shifting to more authentic teaching and assessment. This year we have released the Assessment Collection on disk (version 1.0) and on CD-ROM with video clips (version 1.1), as well as this World Wide Web Sampler Page.
Do you have a question about the New York Assessment Collection? If so, you can send e-mail to David_Niguidula@brown.edu. Frequently asked questions will be posted and updated on a regular basis.
New York Assessment Collection Navigator
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Sample Assessments Menu
List of Participating Schools
Page last updated: June 07, 2002
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