Involving Educators

We Help Get Educators Invested in the Assessment Process

What was your experience as an educator at a Questar item writing workshop?

“The process of studying the standards for the purpose of writing an assessment item was helpful as professional development. The information about item validity helped ground items in the standards. The training on bias and avoidance of cluing helped emphasize the intentionality needed to write an effective item.”

Educators are vital to the assessment process. Yet a common challenge many of our clients face is ensuring that their educators know that they are an integral part of that process. Questar works with our partner states to involve local educators. While the specific areas of educator involvement vary from state to state, clients who build educator involvement into their assessment development plan reap many benefits that include:

  • Creating a shared sense of responsibility for the success of the state assessment
  • Improving teachers’ abilities to write formative assessments that more accurately measure students’ day-to-day learning
  • Fostering peer-to-peer training in assessment best practices
  • Increasing understanding of how daily classroom work aligns with state standards of college or career readiness
  • Generating buy-in and creating a shared vision among key stakeholders and educators across the state who place a high value on ensuring that assessments align to their state’s standards

 

 

Our clients customize their state’s level of educator involvement by choosing from options we offer that support that engagement. Our assessment services team take the lead on educator involvement by:

  • Conducting item writer workshops to train educators to write items for the statewide assessment and ensure that the assessment reflects the real learning taking place in classrooms around the state (These workshops are excellent professional development opportunities for teachers, too!)
  • Guiding educator participation in test content review sessions
  • Educator participation in item, passage, bias, and sensitivity reviews

We also engage educators in other ways, including:

  • Joint visits to schools and districts during testing periods from our Local Assistance, Support, and Readiness (LASR) teams
  • Participation in feedback sessions after testing has concluded