Free Resources and Tools for "Authentic" Assessment

Note: The School of the Future is part of a network of New York schools that develops and uses its own assessment techniques, referred to as DYOs. The school also uses Tasks on Demand, or unannounced assessments that do not provide supports for the students, in order to measure their learning at regular intervals.

Do Your Own (DYO) Assessment Examples, Rubrics, Data, and Data Analysis

Examples of criteria used in authentic assessment

• Examples of DYO Tasks for Sixth Grade Writing

• Example of a DYO Task for a Sixth Grade Science Microscope Observation Exercise

• Data Graph Showing Results on a DYO Task

• Narrative Analysis of the Data Collected from a DYO in Sixth Grade Science

• Example of a Seventh Grade Reading and Writing Data Log

• Middle School DYO Writing Rubric

• Middle School DYO Trends Tracker

• High School DYO Analytic Writing Rubric

• Examples of DYO Tasks on Demand for Ninth Grade Language Arts

• DYO Writing Assessment Data for Ninth Grade Language Arts

Skills Spirals and Tracking Sheets

Ideas for moving curriculum into a circular pattern and tracking performance to expose students to a wide variety of topics over and over again as the material gets more challenging

• Middle School Reading Spiral

• Middle School History Spiral

• Middle School Writing Spiral

• Analytical Writing Skill Spiral

• Skill Spiral for Personal Narratives in Language Arts

• Blank Formative Assessment Skills Tracker

• Skill Checklist for Study of Constant Velocity in Physics

• Skill Monitoring Checklist for Physics

SOF's Instuctional Tools for Teachers

Lesson planning guides, date-driven decision making tools, discussion protocols, and teacher observation forms

• Questions to Ask When Reviewing DYO Data in Teams

• Middle School Humanities Department PowerPoint which Analyzes Mid-Year Data and Tracks Trends to Inform Teaching in the Current School Year

• Rubric for Determining Overall Class Skills At a Glance

• Data Driven Instruction Lesson Planning Template

• Discussion Protocols for Any Subject

• Flow of Assessment Driven Instruction

• Instructional Strategies for History Classes

• Instructional Strategies to Support Individual, Partner, Small Group and Whole Group Work

• School of the Future Teacher Observation Expectations

• Instructional Strategies that Promote Student Thinking and Give Teachers Time to Observe Student Understanding

Tools for Developing a High School Humanities Project -- Persepolis

Rubrics, organizers, and lessons plans for a high school graphic novel project

• Guide for Developing Good Discussion Questions

• Habits of Mind: The Questions Intelligent Thinkers Ask that Help Them Solve Problems and Make Decisions

• Sample Script for a Graphic Novel

• Graphic Organizer for Writing a Literary Analysis Paragraph

• Organizer to Help Students "Show" a Story Graphically

• Sample Graphic Novel Lesson Plan

• Sample Graphic Novel Lesson Plan with a Focus on Visual Analysis

• Sample Graphic Novel Lesson Plan with a Focus on the Summative Accountable Talk

• Discussion Rubric for Assessing Student Participation

• Rubric for Assessing Final Project

Schedules and Other Resources

• Exhibitions Handbook that Provides Details for Creating and Administering High School Exhibitions

• School of the Future Family Handbook

• School of the Future Middle School Student Schedule

• School of the Future Middle School Teaching Schedule

Websites and Readings

• The Coalition of Essential Schools

• Teachers College Reading & Writing Project

• Other People's Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom Lisa Delpit (2006) The New Press

• "Thinking Algebraically: Promoting Rigorous Mathematics for All Students" (2008) NEA Policy Brief

• The Power of Their Ideas: Lessons from a Small School in Harlem Debbie Meier (1996) Beacon Press

• Assessing Writers Carl Anderson (2005) Heinemann

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