DiscoTests™

DiscoTests are online assessments that make it easy for middle and high school teachers to examine how well students understand what they are learning. They are designed by the Developmental Testing Service, which creates high quality research-based assessments of understanding and thinking for governments, businesses, schools, and other organizations. As we develop tests that are appropriate for middle and high school students, we make them available to public school teachers FREE* of charge—as DiscoTests.

DiscoTests are administered online and coded by teachers. For each test, students are asked to write 5-7 short essays in response to a series of thought-provoking questions. Teachers code the essays with built-in low-inference rubrics that are presented in the form of pull-down menus. Once a teacher is familiar with an assessment, coding usually takes 5-10 minutes per test. When the teacher's codes are submitted, an algorithm produces a score, and a Student Performance Report is generated automatically. Each report: (1) explains the level of understanding demonstrated by the student; (2) compares the student's level of understanding with the level anticipated at his or her grade level; and (3) makes suggestions for targeted learning activities.

During 2008 we plan to release the first six DiscoTests. The first two, the Energy Teasers (ET001 & ET002) will be available this spring. The Critical Thinking Teaser (CT001), a Waves Teaser (WT001), and a Leadership Teaser (LT001) will follow during the next several months. We also plan to release an assessment of ethical reasoning late in 2008 or early in 2009, and are currently working with research partners to design an assessment of "conservation of mass".

*DiscoTests are FREE to public school teachers and their students and home-schooling parents. If you work for a private school or are a researcher, please contact us before using DiscoTests.

 

Most people would agree that they haven't really learned something until they can apply it to a real-world problem. DiscoTests help students learn by asking them to do just that—use new knowledge to think through real-world problems or scenarios.

Because all DiscoTests require students to write short essays, they also help students learn to express how they are thinking. This hones their analytical skills and improves their ability to communicate their ideas to others. Both of these skills are essential for success in the modern world.

So, when students take a DiscoTest, they are not just providing information for their teachers, they are also learning. And when they code their own assessments, they learn even more.

DiscoTests support teachers by:

• allowing them to quickly and easily assess the quality and depth of students' understanding;

• providing them with valuable insight into each student's learning needs; and

• enhancing their understanding of how students learn important concepts.

Teachers often overestimate their students' levels of understanding. They assume that a student who has gotten a test item right understands the material presented in that item. But research shows that up to 50% of the students who get a typical multiple choice item right do not understand the item. The rubrics we design for each DiscoTest illuminate the strengths and weaknesses of students' understandings, and the student reports discuss the deeper meaning of patterns in students' responses. Over time, exposure to the rubrics (and student reports) deepens teachers' insights into students learning processes, making it easier to support the learning of individual students.

We are always eager to partner with researchers, schools, and other organizations to develop new DiscoTests. Over the next several years, we envision a constantly growing catalog of high quality DiscoTests in a range of subject areas.

There are a number of ways to participate in the Disco initiative. First, you can hire DTS to help you with an assessment, evaluation, or research project.

• If you are a researcher planning to study how students learn a particular subject, consider hiring DTS to help you with research design, instrument development, and data analysis. It is likely that the data you collect can be used to inform the design of one or more DiscoTests.

• If you are evaluating a new curriculum, DTS can design assessment instruments you can use to compare student learning under different conditions. These instruments, along with the student data collected for the evaluation, can provide part of the basis for a DiscoTest.

• If your school needs an assessment of students' understanding or thinking, we can develop an assessment to meet your needs, with the understanding that once it has been validated, it will become available to all middle and high school teachers, free of charge.

• Got a rubric? If you are working with a developmentally informed rubric-scored assessment that you think would make a good DiscoTest, let us know. We may be able to get it online.

Second, we welcome donations. Researchers, curriculum evaluators, schools, other organizations, and individuals with an interest in public education are invited to sponsor a DiscoTest. We also accept smaller donations, which support the infrastructure necessary to maintain the DiscoTest pages and keep DiscoTests current.

Third, you can participate in the research required to design DiscoTests.

If you are interested in working with DTS, sponsoring a DiscoTest, or making a donation, please contact us.

 

Energy Teasers