Discuss six major differences between the teacher made test and standardized test

(introduction...)

"If you hit every time, the target is too near or too big."

-Tom Hirshfield Physicist

Therese had just finished her first year of teaching. She loved her assignment as a teacher in a busy community just outside the capital city. Although she had to deal with large classes and a chronic lack of materials, she really felt that she was making a difference. She was especially excited about the environmental education piece she had added to the ag-extension classes she was teaching in the secondary school. Many of the students had not only opened up and started asking questions, but they had also taken part in tree planting activities, a stream clean-up, and a community pesticide program. Therese had even gotten some positive comments from parents.

But one thing was troubling Therese. Despite her successes inside and outside the classroom, many of her students did poorly on the national exams. Although she was convinced that the environmental content she was teaching was relevant to her students' lives, it wasn't helping her students pass the tests. Should she change her strategy for next year? Was it the standardized test that was at fault? Her teaching methods? The school's curriculum? How could the next PCV at her site improve on her efforts?

Like Therese, all teachers and administrators are faced with questions about what to teach, how to teach it, and how to measure success. In Therese's case, she was comparing high marks in nonformal evaluation (environmental improvement in the community, high grades on non-standardized tests, positive student attitudes) with low standardized test scores. But she was confused about how to use the information to plan her teaching strategy for the following year. Was it better for the students to learn practical knowledge about their local environment or facts and general knowledge that could help raise their test scores? Or was it possible to do both?

In this chapter, we'll look at four major topics related to evaluation:

1. WHY EVALUATE?
2. WHAT TO EVALUATE
3. HOW TO EVALUATE
4. HOW TO USE EVALUATION TO GAIN SUPPORT FOR YOUR PROGRAM

Specifically, we'll look at strategies for how to evaluate your program, from deciding what's most important to evaluate to how to use the results of the evaluation to improve your program, measure student progress and gain support We'll also discuss formal and nonformal evaluation techniques, grading, and how to measure attitude changes Of course, the ultimate test of any environmental education program is whether it has improved environmental quality. But many other factors need to be considered when evaluating an environmental education program, including:

* the needs of the students
* the demands of the community and administration
* available resources
* short-term versus long-term goals
* how well your environmental education objectives help fit in with and enhance other curricular objectives.

It's also important to keep the "evaluation" tips and tricks (in the margin) in mind as you develop your program.

Evaluation tips and tricks

* Build evaluation into your program from the beginning. (As you develop objectives, you need to be thinking about how you will evaluate success.

* Help students take an active role in evaluation process by encouraging them to offer suggestions and comments about how to improve instruction throughout the year.

* Make sure the evaluation process is fair and realistic for all students.

* Make evaluation an on-going process.

* Share the results of your assessment with students, administrators and parents.

Why evaluate?

There are many reasons to spend time and resources evaluating your environmental education program. Evaluation can help you determine how effective your teaching is and how well your students have learned the material, as well as provide you with the information you need to improve your teaching. Evaluation can also help motivate students by giving them rewards (high test scores, gold stars, and so on) and feedback (how to improve weaknesses, how to make the most of strengths). Evaluation is also important because it lets administrators, parents, and community leaders know what's happening, which can mean support for your program down the road.

What to evaluate

Deciding what to evaluate is the most important part of the evaluation process. Although your main goal is to assess how well you achieved your objectives, you might also decide to evaluate other aspects of your program, including the effectiveness of certain teaching techniques, how well your program has enhanced the school curriculum, and so on. However, in most schools around the world, resources are scarce especially for evaluation. So it's important to focus on what you really need to know and build that evaluation into your program from the start. We recommend that you evaluate both student learning and the effectiveness of your program, using a variety of formal and nonformal assessments.

Unfortunately, many teachers think about evaluation as part of an "end of the year" or "end of the course" wrap up. They ask themselves questions after the fact, such as:

* Did my students learn skills that will help them solve environmental problems?
* Are they motivated to take action to solve local environmental problems?
* Did they gain knowledge about environmental issues and solutions?
* How efficient was my teaching?
* Did the activities make the best use of my limited resources and time?
* Was there a better way to achieve the results I hoped for?
* How did my students do compared with students in other parts of the country?
* Did my objectives match those of the community and administration?
* Did my students enjoy themselves and get excited about learning and environmental education?

These questions are all good questions, but it's important to think about them from the start, as you plan an environmental education program.

One way to help decide what to evaluate is to list the questions you think you'd like to answer through an evaluation process. For example, Clean Bennett, in "Evaluating Environmental Education in Schools" suggests that you consider these questions before you begin planning an evaluation:

* How much growth in learning occurred because of the program?
* What aspects of the instructional program contributed to the results of the program?
* What aspects of the learning environment contributed to the results of the program?
* How did the program affect other people and the environment?
* Is the program's rationale valid, and are the goals and objectives appropriate?
* How do the results compare with those of similar or alternative programs?

It's also important not to rely on one type of evaluation to measure success. Both formal evaluation (classroom tests and standardized tests) and informal evaluation (interviews, observation, homework, group projects, class discussions, and so on) are important. And in many cases, informal assessments are much more telling than test scores.

"A [person's] errors are his or her portals of discovery."

-James Joyce

STUDENT LEARNING

Assessing student learning is directly linked to the objectives you develop for your program. As we mentioned in Chapter 2, your objectives should be tailored to meet the needs of your students and the environmental problems facing your community, and they should indicate how you would like your students to behave or perform as a result of your teaching program. They should also indicate the skills, attitudes, and knowledge you feel are most important for your students to acquire as a result of your teaching. An effective evaluation program can help you determine whether you met your objectives and how they could have been met more effectively or efficiently.

PROGRAM EFFECTIVENESS

When you evaluate an environmental education program, it's important to critique the program itself, as well as how much your students learn. From teaching methods to classroom environments, there are many pieces of your teaching program that you might want to evaluate. Here are some examples of questions that can help you evaluate your program's effectiveness:

* Were the teaching techniques you chose effective?
* Was there too much lecture?
* Too many outdoor activities?
* Too much paper and pencil work?
* Was the program flexible enough to adapt to students' changing interests?
* Did the classroom environment inhibit or promote learning?
* Did the program affect community members?
* If so, how did they feel about the program?

EVALUATE WISELY

Although evaluation is a critical piece of your environmental education program, it's important to evaluate only what you need to know. Extraneous evaluation wastes time and money, and in some cases may prevent you from spending time improving your program in the areas that count most.

WHAT'S IN A WORD

There are a variety of different terms used in evaluation. In this book, we are using the terms formative to mean on-going monitoring and summative to mean the final evaluation. However, some people use the terms program monitoring or intermittent impact analysis instead of formative evaluation and impact analysis instead of summative evaluation.

How to evaluate

In this section, we'll look how to evaluate your program by choosing the appropriate type of assessment. Specifically, we'll look at:

* pre-assessments and gathering baseline data
* formative vs. summative evaluation
* what makes a test reliable, valid, and usable
* pros and cons of standardized vs. teacher-made tests
* pros and cons of different types of test questions
* types of informal assessment tools, including
homework
journals and notebooks
research and reports
discussions and debates
peer evaluation and self evaluation
interviews
questionnaires
public displays

* the value of portfolios
* measuring attitude change

Types of evaluation: Pre-assessment, summative and formative

For the most part, you will probably be dealing with two types of evaluation: formative evaluation and summative evaluation. Formative evaluation measures progress periodically throughout the year using formal tests as well as observations, quizzes, class discussions, notebooks and journals, reports, homework, and other informal evaluative techniques. It allows you to give your students constant feedback to help focus and improve learning. It also allows you to gain insights into how to adjust your teaching program to make it more effective and efficient. Summative evaluation measures the end results of your instruction and helps you determine if your students have mastered your course objectives. Summative evaluation often takes the form of a standardized or teacher-prepared "end-of-the-year" test, but it can also include an "end-of-the-year" questionnaire or survey.

In some cases, you will also have an opportunity to assess how much your students know before you begin teaching. This type of evaluation, called a pre-assessment, can take the form of a formal test or an informal questionnaire, interview, or survey and can provide important baseline data.

Formative and summative evaluation, as well as pre-assessments, are important parts of an evaluation program and rely on formal and informal evaluation techniques. When designing an evaluation program and choosing an assessment tool, keep your specific situation in mind from the start. For example, large class sizes, lack of materials, lack of support for informal assessment, and many other conditions can make certain types of evaluation difficult. It's also important that you chose the right tool. In many cases, teachers make the mistake of using an assessment tool that does not measure what they've been trying to teach. For example, if you've been teaching problem-solving techniques and lab procedures, a multiple-choice test is not the best measure of your effectiveness. A hands-on, practical exam would be more appropriate because you could actually evaluate whether your students can conduct a successful lab activity or solve a real problem- two skills that can't be measured on a multiple-choice test that mainly tests factual knowledge.

We suggest that you do your best to try to incorporate formal and informal evaluation into your program, realizing the limitations you face. Here's more about the pros and cons of formal testing and informal methods of evaluation.

TESTS, TESTS, TESTS: FORMAL EVALUATION

In many school systems around the world, formal testing is the preferred means of evaluation. Tests are quantitative measures of student performance and some can be used to compare students to other students and measure improvement over time. Tests are more objective than informal testing because they rely on quantifiable data. There are generally two types of tests you will be working with: standardized tests that are prepared by others and classroom tests that you prepare.

When creating a test or selecting a test, you need to think about these three characteristics: reliability, validity, and usability.

RELIABILITY: A reliable test is one that will give the same results over and over again. It's consistent, dependable, and stable. It's important that a test is reliable so that you can count on the results. For example, if you give the same test to the same group of students three times in a row in a short period of time, the results should not fluctuate widely. If you use a different form of the test, the results should also remain consistent. If they don't, the test is not reliable. For example, if you have two test items to measure one objective, do the students who get one right also get the other right and the students who get one wrong get the other one wrong too? You want a test to be reliable so that you can count on it to test for the same things no matter who you give it to and when you give it. To improve reliability, you can increase the number of test items, give the test to a mixed student group, include test items that are of moderate difficulty rather than of mainly easy or hard questions, double check to make sure all test items are clear and understandable, and use test items that can be scored objectively rather than subjectively.

VALIDITY: When a test is valid, it measures what it's designed to measure. For example, if you are trying to test if your students have achieved the following objective "Given a plow, students will be able to plow on the contour to help prevent soil erosion" but test by using a test item that asks why it's important to plow on the contour, your test will not provide a valid measure of this objective. To test for that objective, you need to actually see the students plow. Or if your objective is to have students list three causes of reef destruction, but the test question has students list three causes of ocean pollution, the test item doesn't match the objective. If the test question were to ask students to list three causes of reef destruction, the question would be valid.

One way to make sure your test is valid is to double check each test item and make sure each is measuring your pre-determined objectives. You can also ask your colleagues to rate your questions against your objectives to make sure they match.

USABILITY: You should also select tests based on how easy the test is to use. In addition to reliability and validity, you need to think about how much time you have to create a test, grade it, and administer it You need to think about how you will interpret and use the scores from the tests. And you need to check to make sure the test questions and directions are written clearly, the test itself is short enough not to overwhelm the students, the questions don't includes stereotypes or personal biases, and that they are interesting and make the students think.

Standardized test vs. teacher-made tests

There are generally two types of tests used to evaluate environmental education programs: standardized tests (prepared by publishing companies, formal testing agencies, and universities), and classroom tests (prepared by the teacher).

Standardized tests are formal tests that allow you to compare your students with other students in the region or country. These tests are usually valid and reliable because they have been tested on large sample populations and have been revised to eliminate unreliable or invalid questions. They are useful if you want to compare your students with other students or if you want to rank students against the "norm." (Ratings of validity and reliability are published for standardized tests and you can check on the documentation.) The norms for standardized tests depend on where the tests were developed. (U.S. norms may not be appropriate for non-U.S. students.)

One serious drawback to standardized tests is that they are not effective with students that have abilities, needs, or problems that differ from those of the "normal" student population. In addition, the content of standardized tests does not always match what is taught in a certain school or classroom. As Therese found out, many students in less developed countries do poorly on standardized tests-especially on tests that are developed in other countries. One reason for this is that these tests are usually given in English, which is a second language for many students. Another reason is that the content and culture of the test usually does not match the classroom content and culture in a particular school.

Standardized tests are often not appropriate measures of environmental education learning. Not only do the questions often not deal with environmental issues or ecological content, but the types of questions mainly test for knowledge and facts-not skills and attitudes, two important components of an environmental education program. Although standardized tests are changing to include more variety and to encourage higher-level thinking, they are still very limiting and should not be used as the sole measure of a student's performance.

Standardized tests definitely have their drawbacks. Yet, in many school systems, scores on standardized tests determine a student's academic future. If a student passes, he or she can move ahead. If a student fails, he or she will not have the same opportunities. The number of students that pass and fail is also seen as a reflection of the quality of teaching and the success of the school system itself.

Unlike standardized tests, teacher developed tests have not been tested on sample populations of students and do not allow you to compare your students to a standard. Instead, these tests (also called criterion-reference tests), help test a student s understanding of a particular (and often limited) body of knowledge. For example, if you are teaching a unit on ecology and want to determine whether your students have learned about predator-prey relationships in Belize, you would include test questions about predator-prey relationships in Belize that related to your specific objectives. You could also include questions dealing with knowledge and attitudes about predators and make the questions as easy or difficult as you wanted, based on the objectives you outlined earlier.

Note: Some established textbook and curriculum programs may include regular progress tests based on the goals and objectives of the program. Unfortunately, these tests are often multiple choice or true/false and usually don't measure attitudes or skills.

Many teachers prefer criterion-reference tests because the evaluation is based solely on the students' performance and the test relates directly to what was taught during the course. If everyone in the class can match the performance outlined in the objectives, then everyone gets top marks. Criterion-reference tests make a lot of sense for environmental education because if you design the right type of test, you can determine if your students have learned what you hoped they would learn. Criterion-reference tests can measure skills, knowledge, and attitudes-the three major components of your environmental education program, and they can be tailored to meet the environmental I needs of your community.

The drawbacks to teacher-made tests are that they are often unreliable and less valid than standardized tests, and their effectiveness relies on the skill of the individual teachers who create the tests and grade them. If you don't have a lot of experience designing effective tests, you might want to meet with several of your colleagues and work together to come up with good questions.

When creating a test, it's important to match the test questions to your objectives. It is also helpful to ask yourself the following questions:

* Does this test match the level of difficulty I covered in the class?
* Does the test provide a representative sampling of the material I presented in class?
* Does each test question measure one or more of my objectives?

Of course, it's also important to match the type of test you give to the material you are trying to teach. For example, you might not want to give students an essay test to see if they learned key ecological vocabulary words, since a short answer test would be more efficient. But you might prefer an essay test if you are trying to evaluate how your students organize their thoughts and can analyze and evaluate an environmental problem in their community. Here are some tips and tricks about when to use short answer tests (multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, true/false, and matching) and when to use essays, along with some examples of each:

USE SHORT-ANSWER TESTS WHEN YOU:

* have a large number of students

* want a reliable test that is quick and easy to grade

* feel more comfortable about your ability to create short answer test questions that reflect your objectives than about grading an essay test objectively and determining whether your objectives have been met

* have more time to develop the test than grade it

* want to measure broad content

* are working with lower level primary students

* want to test for simple facts and vocabulary words


USE ESSAY TESTS WHEN YOU:

* want to test for critical and creative thinking skills such as problem solving, analyzing, and evaluating

* want to evaluate written communication skills

* have more time to grade a test rather than develop it

* want to make sure students can't "guess"

* want to know how much in-depth understanding students have

* want to evaluate how well students can organize their thoughts

* don't have access to copying facilities and need to write questions on the chalkboard or on a flip chart


SHORT ANSWER TIPS AND TRICKS:

* Make sure test questions measure the objectives you feel are most important. Don't include trick questions or "trivial pursuit" questions.

* Check for and eliminate stereotypes and bias.

* Try to make each question independent. Students shouldn't be able to answer one question by reading another

* Make sure questions are easy to understand and well-written.

* Match the number of questions to the time/emphasis you put on objectives in class. If you spent 10% of the class focusing on objectives related to acid rain and detecting bias, then about 10% of the test should reflect that.

* Match the length of the test and the time given to take the test to the abilities of your students. (Some students need more time and fewer questions.)

* Don't include choices that are obviously wrong. (However, you might consider including occasional choices that are ridiculous or funny if you want to lighten the mood of the class a bit.)


Each type of short answer test has pros and cons. For example, multiple choice questions can test higher level thinking skills and in-depth knowledge, but they are more difficult to construct. And true/false tests are the easiest to construct and grade, but encourage guessing and often test for trivia. We recommend that you use a mix of questions and testing strategies to evaluate your students.

ESSAY TIPS AND TRICKS:

* Make sure the directions are clear so that students can focus their writing.

* Match the questions to the objectives you feel are most important.

* Set up an objective scoring system and explain it to your students. Also let them know how much each question is worth.

* Give students enough time. Give students a choice of questions. (Choose any 3 out of 6.)

* Make the most of the questions. Encourage students to think, evaluate, organize, and analyze.

* Don't give one-question essay tests.

* Balance essay questions that require long answers with those that require shorter answers. (This will help increase the amount of material you can cover.)

* Grade each essay question on each paper before moving onto the next. (Grade all the answers to question 1, then all the answers to question 2, and so on.) This will help you grade the answers more objectively.


Regardless of the type of test you decide to construct, it's important to use tests to help you find out the process your students use to think. Although student tests scores tell you how well your students performed, they don't tell you how students came up with their answers. One way to get around this is to give the students a test, record the scores, and then give the tests back to the students to discuss how they came up with the answers. You can use small groups or individual interviews to ask students how they came up with their choices. By asking students to think about their answers, you can discover misconceptions they might have and what type of thinking process they used to come up with their answers. Try asking questions such as "Why do you think this answer is correct?" What did you think the question was asking? Can you think of another way to answer the question?"

Another thing you might want to keep in mind as you develop a test is to keep a balance between lower-level thinking questions and higher level thinking questions. One way to do this is to use Bloom's taxonomy (see Chapter 4) as a guide. For example, Dr. Louis Iozzi, Clean of Science Education at Rutgers University in New Jersey suggests that you develop a chart that lists the topics in your lesson plans and the six levels of learning you have addressed through teaching and learning activities and check off each block to remind you what you have covered. When you develop an achievement test to cover the material, you should try to include one or more questions from each box that has a check.


NON-LIVING

ABIOTIC INFLUENCES

BIOTIC INFLUENCES

PLANTS

ANIMALS

BLOOM'S LEVELS






KNOWLEDGE

·

·

·

·

·

COMPREHENSION

·

·

·



APPLICATION

·

·


·


ANALYSIS

·





SYNTHESIS

?

?




EVALUATION

?

·




KEY:

· = this level was cleanly addressed through teaching/learning activities
? = this level was either addressed by some, through not all students in the course, or could be addressed, depending on how the unit was taught

Ideally, all "cells" of this matrix that show a check mark would be represented by one or more items on a unit achievement test. The exact number and type of items included is left to the discretion of the teacher, although it should attempt to reflect both stated objectives and teaching/learning activities.

Below we have included several sample test questions showing a variety of short answer and essay questions. These examples were reprinted with permission from Assessment of Learning Outcomes in Environmental Education by Louis Iozzi, Dany Laveault, and Thomas Marcinkowski (published by UNESCO, 1990).

1. TRUE OR FALSE
Acid precipitation is produced largely as a result of the burning of high sulfur coal and gasoline in automobiles.

2. COMPLETION QUESTIONS
Acid precipitation is produced when ________ mixes with ________ in the atmosphere.

3. MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS
Which of the following is not necessary for acid precipitation to occur?

a. water vapor
b. SOx
c. NOx
d. strong winds

Which of the following is not a cause of tropical deforestation?

a slash and burn agriculture
b. logging
c. ranching
d. changing climate patterns
e. greed

Which of the following energy resources are renewable?

1. wood
2. tidal
3. nuclear
4. geothermal
5. coal

Which of the above energy resources are considered to be renewable?

a. 1 only
b. 1 and 2 only
c. 1, 2, and 4 only
d. 1, 2, 4, and 5 only
e. They all are.

Which of the energy resources listed above are directly traceable back to the sun's radiation?

a. 1 only
b. 1 and 5 only
c. 1, 2, and 5 only.
d. 1, 2, 4, and 5 only
e. They all are.

4. MATCHING QUESTIONS
Match the words in Column A to their definition in Column B:

COLUMN A

COLUMN B

1.

a.

2.

b.

3.

c.

4.

d.

5.

e.

In the column to the left you will find definitions, and in the column to the right you will find terms. Your task is to correctly match the term to its definition by placing the term's letter in the blank space next to the definition. Use each letter only once.

DEFINITIONS

TERMS

1.

a.

2.

b.

3.

c.

4.

d.

5.

e.

5. SHORT ESSAY QUESTIONS
Briefly describe the causes of desertification in Senegal and how the process can be slowed and controlled.

In the space provided below, define the term "desertification" and give a local example showing what causes it and what the consequences are when an area becomes desertified.

6. OPEN-ENDED ASSESSMENTS
In the spaces below, list as many different things you could do (or actions you could take) to help improve the environment.

OBSERVE, LISTEN, RECORD, AND INTERVIEW: INFORMAL EVALUATION

Most teachers instinctively evaluate their students and programs informally throughout the year. Informal evaluation allows you to spot problems long before formal testing can, and it can provide continuous and helpful feedback to you, your students, and your colleagues and administrators. There are many ways to evaluate your students and your environmental education programs informally. Here's a look at some of the most effective:

KEEP AN EYE OUT: Observation, both inside and outside of the classroom, is an important evaluation tool. For example, Therese could see that her students were taking part in activities to improve the environment. She could see which students were planting trees, which ones organized the stream clean-up, and which ones took part in the pesticide safety day. She could also observe student behavior and performance in the classroom, and she knew which students were taking part in discussions and which students were actively involved in their learning.

Observation is most effective when you have an objective and systematic way of monitoring what you see. For example, you might want to keep a daily log or a checklist to document what you see and make notes to yourself (see below). It's also important to make sure you observe all students and keep learning styles in mind as you decide what is important to evaluate.


PARTICIPATES IN DISCUSSIONS

GIVES CREATIVE RESPONSES

WORKS WELL WITH OTHERS

YAMAI




DEREK




LASZLO




When holding debates and classroom discussion about environmental issues, you can take notes about which students participate or give students grades for classroom participation. (It's also important to help draw shy students into class discussions, if possible.) You can also observe student reactions to different teaching styles and activities, and learn valuable information from the questions students ask and the comments they make.

HONING IN ON HOMEWORK: Another way to informally evaluate your students and program is to consistently assign homework and then look it over carefully. Homework activities can evaluate activities that tests often can't. And by constantly checking homework and giving students feedback, you can get a good idea about how well your students are learning the information and how effective your teaching is.

Homework assignments can also "test" for skills and attitudes that are hard to evaluate from test scores. For example, a three-week homework assignment to plan and organize an environmental project can tell you a lot about a student's planning and organizing skills, which would be harder to test for. You can also give essay and report assignments to assess students' writing and thinking skills

JOURNALS AND NOTEBOOKS: Keeping journals and notebooks is one way to find out what your students are thinking and to help them develop their writing skills. Writing in journals or notebooks can help them express themselves freely and encourage them to write about their feelings and beliefs. You can have students keep personal journals and give them the option of sharing their writing with you and asking for your feedback or not. You can also tell them in advance that certain parts of the journal will be graded and to only include writing that they want you to read. (See Chapter 7 for more about keeping a journal.)

RESEARCH AND REPORTS: Learning how to find information about environmental issues and problems is an important component of an environmental education program. From using the library (if your community has one) to talking with parents and leaders in the community, your students can learn valuable research skills that they can use throughout their lives. Research assignments can also help them learn how to analyze information, document facts, distinguish facts from opinion, and organize their thoughts.

DISCUSSIONS AND DEBATES: As mentioned earlier, involving students in small group discussions, large group discussions, and debates about subjects they care about can help them learn to express their thoughts verbally, listen to other points of view, and clarify their own thoughts about how they feel. You can use these opportunities to evaluate how your students think and feel about a variety of issues related to the environment.

Because so many environmental problems involve group solutions, it's important to help your students learn how to contribute to group outcomes, work together, and cooperate more than they compete. Peter Martorella, in his book Elementary Social Studies (Little, Brown, 1985), recommends that teachers use discussions to evaluate their students on a variety of social characteristics such as:

* accepts ideas of others
* initiates ideas
* gives opinions
* is task oriented
* helps others
* seeks information
* encourages others to contribute
* works well with all members
* raises provocative questions
* listens to others
* disagrees in a constructive fashion
* makes an overall positive contribution to the group

TALK TO STUDENTS, TEACHERS, AND PARENTS: You can find out a lot about your students by talking informally with them throughout the year. When provided with one-on-one opportunities to talk, many students will open up, giving you a chance to gain insight into what they're thinking and feeling. Personal interviews also give you an opportunity to ask questions about your teaching style and approach. For example, you might ask students, "What did you like best and why? Did anything make you feel uncomfortable? What did you learn?

Talking to other teachers can also give you important feedback about your students and your teaching. If students are complaining about you to others, then you have a problem you might need to deal with. (Of course, teachers might not be able to share what students say in confidence, or they might not be willing to confront the issue with you.) You can also find out if students are excited enough about your environmental education activities to tell other teachers. And you can get other teachers' reactions to your students.

Talking to parents about specific issues regarding your environmental education program can also provide you with important feedback and support. Students often tell their parents things that they wouldn't tell you. By listening to parents, you can also determine how they feel about your environmental education activities, including community projects designed to improve environmental quality. Many teachers hold open houses and invite parents to speak informally about how their students are doing.

PEER AND SELF-EVALUATION: Encouraging peer review is another important informal evaluation tool. Students can ask each other questions, critique each other's papers, evaluate group participation, and take part in a variety of other assessment activities. Although some students might be embarrassed at first, it starts working when students realize they are able to help each other catch mistakes and inconsistencies. This helps provide you with feedback, and it helps students think about their own performance. This can be especially effective with environmental education activities involving controversial issues and community action projects. (When using peer evaluation, it's important that you work with your students to understand how to evaluate each other's work fairly and give both positive and constructive comments.)

Self-evaluation is also an important informal assessment tool. By asking students how they think they are doing, you will often get surprising insights into your teaching. You can ask students to rate themselves on a variety of issues and explain where they need help.

PUBLIC DISPLAYS AND PRODUCTS: Art displays, essays, performances, posters, bulletin board displays, maps, and other activities and products can also help you develop student interest and motivation. For example, if you are teaching English and assign your students a poster project focusing on an environmental topic, you can tell a lot about what they're thinking and what they know. You can also tell how well students use the resources they have. You can also evaluate environmental action projects, such as stream clean-ups, and school habitat projects.

OUTSIDE ACTIVITIES: Another way to evaluate the success of your program is to measure student activities outside the classroom. From observing their behavior when they leave school (Do they toss litter on the ground or sell wild animals?) to finding out if they are involved in environmental projects with church or community clubs, you can see if environmental education learning transfers to their personal lives.

QUESTIONNAIRES: Asking students, parents, and others to fill out questionnaires can help you evaluate your program and/or teaching. When developing a questionnaire, it's important to know what type of information you are asking for and to design the questions to match your audience. Although questionnaires can take time to develop and evaluate, they allow you to get honest feedback that can help you improve your teaching. When developing a questionnaire, write clear, easy-to-understand questions that don't influence the respondent. (For example, questions that start with "Don't you agree that . . ." would "lead the witness.") It's also a good practice to include a mix of open-ended questions (What did you like best about the field trip and why?) and forced choices (Rate the unit on rain forests, using the following scale).

PORTFOLIO POWER: Many educators collect and organize their informal evaluations by keeping portfolios of student work and encouraging students to keep their own portfolios. Portfolios are folders of class assignments, writing, homework, observation checklists, notes, and whatever else you feel would help you evaluate your students. Students can also keep some of their projects and assignments in their own portfolios so they can measure their own progress and proudly show off the projects they've worked on. Depending on your teaching program, you might want to have separate portfolios to collect environmental education materials or information on environmental education projects. (In some countries, due to lack of materials and storage space, portfolios might not be practical. But you might be able to keep a record on each student in a notebook or binder.)

Note: With all evaluation, and especially with informal techniques, establish criteria that will help you determine how well your students are doing. For example, if you are evaluating class participation, you need to decide before you start what determines an acceptable performance, what you hope to learn from the evaluation, and how you will keep track of who said what. And if you are evaluating research papers, you might want to set up criteria based on how the information is organized, how well the facts are backed up by credible sources, and how well the material is presented. It's also important to check for your own biases when conducting informal evaluation to make sure that you don't "play favorites" when evaluating your students.

Building on baseline data

By using a combination of formal and informal, formative and summative evaluation, you can find out important information about your teaching and how much your students are learning. But how you actually design and conduct your evaluation will depend on what you are trying to measure, as well as the time, interest, resources, school requirements, and so on. In most cases, large classes, limited resources, and limited time will prevent you from spending a lot of effort developing an in-depth evaluation design. But it's important that you work evaluation into your program from the beginning, no matter what kind of evaluation program you use.

We recommend that no matter what type of evaluation you end up doing that you conduct an informal evaluation of your school and students at the beginning of the year, so that you have some baseline data to use for comparison later on. By jotting down notes about your students (their attitudes about school, how they feel about environmental problems, what they hope to learn in the upcoming year, and what knowledge and skills they already have) and your colleagues and administrators (how they feel about environmental problems and environmental education), you can gather some important information. (See the questions in Chapter 3 for ideas about what to find out.) This qualitative information can give you a feeling for whether student and teacher attitudes have changed over time with regard to environmental education, environmental problems, your teaching, and so on.

It is difficult to know if student learning is the result of your teaching or outside factors, including TV, parents, books, movies, and so on. Evaluation can help produce more effective education programs, but it can't tell you everything. Trusting your intuition and feelings about what is effective is an important part of a total evaluation picture.

It's also important to get feedback from the students throughout the year. Give them an opportunity to tell you how they feel about what they're learning and what parts of your class they like and don't like and why. This can help you adjust the course as you go and keep your students interested. You can hold informal interviews throughout the year with individual students or small groups or have the students fill out informal evaluations. It's important to evaluate as you go so that you can get timely feedback. And if you wait until the end of the year, your students might forget the specifics. Student evaluation can be very informal-at the end of a unit, ask the group to write down everything they liked about the last three weeks (including subject matter, teaching style, and so on), anything they didn't like, and anything they would change if they had to take the unit again. You can also have students fill out quick evaluations at the end of some classes, jotting down what they liked, what they didn't understand, and what they wished they had spent more time on.

A WORD ABOUT GRADING AND TESTING

In some countries, you might be required to grade students in a way that you don't agree with or to teach to the test to help your students pass required standardized tests. It's important that you meet the requirements of your school and supervisors. But in some cases, you might be able to work with other teachers to help change a system you feel is overly rigid or ineffective. Some Volunteers, working in curriculum development units, have focused on incorporating more relevant questions into standardized testing, including more emphasis on the environment and other relevant topics. Many teachers are also working to increase the number of problem-solving questions and decrease the number of trivia-type questions.

It's important that you help your students do their best on standardized tests. But you don't have to forget about environmental education, even if it's not emphasized on the test. Use environmental education to help teach the objectives you are required to teach. For example, if you are teaching students how to conduct accurate measurements or figure percentages, use environmental content. (They can figure out the height of trees, sample insect populations, and figure out percentages by conducting community surveys.) If you are trying to improve reading and writing skills, use local newspaper articles focusing on environmental issues and other relevant and "real" content.

MEASURING ATTITUDE CHANGES

Although attitudes are an important component of environmental education, they can be tough to measure. Unlike knowledge and skills, you can t directly measure how students really feel about different aspects of the environment. How do you know for sure that a student values clean air or a healthy environment? It's also hard to know if attitudes translate into changed behaviors. How do you know that a student who vows to stop "wasting" energy will really cut back on energy use?

Although it is difficult to measure a person's attitudes and values, you can gather information that can help you find out how he or she feels. One way is by observing students' behaviors. For example, you can compare student behavior at the beginning of the year and at the end to see if there is a change. After teaching your class, do you notice that your students pick up litter, ask more questions about the environment, or get involved in community activities? Do they seem concerned about local and national environmental problems? Do they read more about environmental problems?

You can also give students a survey at the beginning of the year, asking how they feel about a number of issues and then resurvey after the course. For example, here are some ways to find out more about student values and attitudes:

1. OPINION POLLS

Give students statements about the environment and have them choose from several responses such as "totally agree, partially agree, disagree," or "strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree, strongly disagree."

People that drive polluting cars should be fined.

2. RANKING

Rank the following list of environmental problems facing Chad by writing " 1 " next to the problem that you think is most urgent and "5" next to the least urgent. Explain your reasoning.

3. VALUE CONTINUUM

Give students two attitude extremes and have them mark where they feel they are on the continuum. For example:

Wetlands are Worthless


Wetlands are Valuable

1

2

3

4

5

Farmers should not use pesticides


Farmers should use pesticides as they need

1

2

3

4

5

4. ACTION SURVEY

Ask students questions about their own behaviors and have them choose from responses such as "very often, often, seldom, never."

How often do you litter?

How often do you dump oil down the drain?

How often do you recycle?

Even though you survey your students, it's almost impossible to know if attitude changes that occur during a one-year course will continue after your students leave your class. For example, if your students say they are concerned about environmental issues, does that translate into responsible environmental behavior down the road? And if they take part in a clean-up during the school year, will that translate into community service and clean-ups after they leave school? In many countries around the world, researchers are tracking students to find out the long-term effects of an environmental education program.

5. MORAL DILEMMAS

You can use moral dilemmas to assess moral reasoning skills. For example, Dr. Iozzi has developed a standardized instrument to measure moral reasoning by using a series of four moral dilemmas that are keyed to Kohlberg's stages of moral reasoning. For examples of moral dilemmas, see Chapter 7.

How to use evaluation to gain support for your program

As you begin to gather data about your teaching program and student successes, use the information to gain support for your programs. Think about what parents, community leaders, school officials, public agencies, government groups, colleagues, and Peace Corps staff might be interested in knowing and what they might do with the information. In some cases, just keeping people informed is important. If your students have been organizing a tree planting program, invite the community to a tree planting ceremony or write an article for the local newspaper explaining the project. Let parents and community leaders know how many trees were planted, how students organized the event, how grades improved (if they did), how student or teacher attitudes changed, and any other relevant information.

It's also important to keep your administrators and colleagues informed by sharing evaluation results with them-especially if environmental education is new and people are concerned it will take time away from more traditional subjects. By letting others see that environmental education can help teach already established objectives, they will be more apt to support your efforts in the future.

SUMMARY

Evaluation can let you know what you're doing right and where you need to improve. It can also help you discover unanticipated outcomes-both positive and negative that result from your environmental education program. And it can provide you with insight about how to help your students become more environmentally literate. But remember that environmental education is a long-term process. You can't change your students overnight or expect them to think a certain way about the environment. What you can do is help students gain the knowledge, skills, and attitudes they will need to act in an environmentally responsible manner and help them realize that improving the environmental quality of their communities is in their own best interest.

There are many resources that can help you design and conduct an effective evaluation and help you figure out how to best use the informal and formal evaluation results to improve your program. Many of these resources also include more in-depth information about how to use formal and informal evaluation to fairly and effectively grade your students and how to design the most effective evaluation instructions. (See the Bibliography for a list of evaluation resources.)

QUESTIONS TO THINK ABOUT . . .

1. Do you know what you want to evaluate and what you want to do with your evaluation results?

2. Is you testing reliable, valid and usable?

3. Are you using a mix of formal and informal evaluation?

4. Do you know how you will collect and record your data?

5. Have you decided whom you will share your results with and how they will use the results?

6. Is the classroom environment conducive to learning?

7. Are you evaluating knowledge, skills, and attitudes?

8. Have you given your students an opportunity to evaluate your teaching?

What are the difference between teacher made test and standardized test?

The Teacher made Test vs. Standardized Tests: – The standardized test is based on the general content and objectives common to many schools all over the country whereas the teacher made test can be adapted to content and objectives specific to his own situation.

What is the difference between standardized and non standardized test?

Standardized tests may be both formative and summative because the results of these tests will be reliable and helpful for many purposes on different levels. Nonstandardized tests are usually instructional ones as they include lesson planning and promote the development of monitoring and adjusting.

What is the difference between standardized test and achievement test?

Achievement tests measure specific knowledge and skills in particular subject areas. The standardized tests required for home schooled students are academic achievement tests. These tests are designed to measure the things that a student knows and can do.

What is the similarity between educational tests and teacher made tests *?

Classroom and standardized tests are similar in that they both test student skill and knowledge at various levels. In high school English class, for example, teachers can choose to give students a summative, standardized test that assesses understanding of grammar and usage just like a standardized achievement test.