Evaluations and Assessments based on Washington (WA) Social Studies Standards for Elementary Level Grades 2 Social Studies education in Washington State is designed to develop responsible citizens living in a culturally diverse and democratic society.

Evaluation and Assessments

Two types of assessments have been defined viz. Classroom based Assessments (CBAs) and Classroom based Performance Assessments (CBPAs). The first are referred to as assessments for short and the second as evaluation (because it seeks to evaluate student performance).

Classroom based assessments are assessments that are given to students in the classroom by the class teacher. They are multi-stepped tasks or projects aligned to specific state learning standards. They were designed by the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. The state curriculum specialists design tasks and questions that model how assessments should be conducted and then provide these to local school districts.

The purpose of these assessments is to ensure that students are acquiring the essential skills, concepts and subject knowledge in social studies. that they have the opportunity to engage in a broad range of social topics that include civics, economics, geography, history, and general social studies skills. The plan is to eventually these across the state by 2008-09 in order to measure student learning in social studies. 9 CBAs are targeted for elementary school. They are believed to be better able to assess the subject as compared to standardized multiple choice and short answer questions for instance as well as have other advantages.

The main component of the CBA is the rubric page. This details how a student can reach proficiency for the particular assessment. Besides this, the CBA mentions support materials, provides a student checklist, suggested resources etc.

Formal and Informal Assessments

Both formal and informal assessments are similar in that they seek to provide a measure of student performance, usually as a summative assessment of learning. However, formal assessments are conducted under stricter exam conditions because their scores are noted on the student records. On the other hand, informal assessments are typically used to provide students with practice for the real formal assessments and may not be conducted under such strict conditions. The CBA issued by the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction are formal assessments. Any other student assessments conducted entirely by the teacher would be considered as informal.

Application

The Content and Regional Focus for GLEs for grade 1 is based as Families and the concepts of near and far, now and then. for grade 2 is based on Community and the same concepts. A simple example of a pre-assessment question is given below.

1. Here are some relationships. Which one is the nearest to you?

a) grandmother

b) mother

c) teacher

d) cousin

Another question could test the student’s knowledge and understanding of a simple family tree structure. For instance, a sample family tree could be drawn and the student asked to identify certain relationships by looking at the tree.