Assessing Student Learning

It is now common practice for teachers to have to provide evidence of student learning—either in relation to their own teaching effectiveness or as part of larger systems of assessment and accountability. In Live Well Foundations of High School Health we have provided some useful tools to help simplify this process. Many of the ancillary materials are also readily used as assessment tools.

Before providing an overview of the assessments that are available, we will begin with a brief reminder of key assessment terms and practices.

Overview of Assessment

Assessment is the systematic collection of information about student learning, using the time, knowledge, expertise, and resources available, in order to inform decisions about how to improve learning.

At its most basic level, assessment is composed of the following:

Articulating clear learning outcomes or learning targets
Gathering evidence and information about how well students are meeting the goals
Interpreting evidence and information based on predetermined standards or expectations
Using the evidence to improve student learning by altering instruction, methodologies, materials, or assignments

Types of Assessment

Assessment is often referred to as either direct or indirect and as formative or summative.

Indirect assessment includes asking current and past students how well they thought they learned, or inquiring about variables related to student learning such as satisfaction and engagement. Having students rate enjoyment of an activity and asking them to reflect on how well they performed on a task are examples of indirect assessment.
Direct assessment includes the demonstration of learning itself. Direct assessments require students to use their knowledge, skills, and abilities to complete the selected task. Quizzes, exams, projects, and assignments are common forms of direct assessment.
Formative assessment is assessment designed to give feedback on, and to improve, the process of learning. It captures students' progress toward the desired outcome. Formative assessment is typically embedded classroom assessment.
Summative assessment is assessment done for the purpose of providing an evaluative summary and capturing student achievement. Summative assessment typically occurs at the completion of a major project, a unit, or a course. Having students offer a thumbs up or thumbs down in response to a question and checking for understanding by having students repeat instructions are examples of indirect assessments.

Assessment Resources

Throughout the text you will find many features that can support all forms of assessment—indirect, direct, formative and summative—depending on how you choose to use them. You will also find two full comprehensive sets of holistic rubrics that can be used for any of the skill-development activities found in the book or in the instructor resources. These options provide you with ways for you to check student learning and skill development, for students to reflect on their own knowledge and skill development, and for data to be collected to demonstrate how your students as a whole are progressing in your course.

Suggestions on how resources available in the student text and the instructor ancillaries can be used to support instruction and the assessment of student learning are described next.

Understanding My Health

On the opening page for each chapter is a self-assessment activity that the student can complete. This Understanding My Health activity provides an opportunity for students to connect to the material and to better understand their own health. The instructor resources contain a worksheet copy of this same self-assessment as part of the first lesson plan in the chapter.

Assessment suggestion: Use this as an opportunity to gather indirect feedback on student learning and skill development by having students complete it before learning the material and practicing skills. Then, give the self-assessment again at the end of the unit or term to see whether students report changes to knowledge or behavior. For self-assessments that are focused on behaviors, this can help to document the impact of health instruction on the health behaviors and habits of students.

Students also have access to this assessment as part of the interactive web text.

Note-Taking Guide

Referenced on the lesson opener, this handout is available as part of each lesson's resources. The Note-Taking Guide helps students read more effectively and provides them with opportunities to organize and summarize information in a variety of ways.

Assessment suggestion: Spot-check the completed guides as an informal, formative assessment to help you identify areas of content where students struggle with comprehension or understanding. Use this information to identify areas where more time should be spent in class. This worksheet could also be used as a formal evaluation of reading comprehension and student learning with regard to health content.

Students also have access to the Note-Taking Guide as part of the interactive web text or the web resource.

Write About It

Every lesson begins with an optional Write About It question. Designed as a transition or warm-up activity, it helps students think about the content they will be learning in relation to their own knowledge, self-awareness, or life.

Assessment suggestion: Use this as an opportunity to assess student writing in support of cross-curricular needs, or have students respond to the prompt again at the end of the lesson or unit as a way for them to reflect on their own learning or growth, or as a way to assess improvements in understanding. Since most of these questions are opinion and experience based, evaluation should focus on thoroughness, thoughtfulness, and writing.

Skill-Building Challenge and Skill-Building Challenge Worksheet

The Skill-Building Challenge sits at the heart of each lesson. This activity is presented first in the student text and is used as a primary classroom activity in each lesson plan. The Skill-Building Challenge is accompanied by a Skill-Building Challenge Worksheet. In this activity, students are asked to apply some element of the content covered in the lesson to one of the major health skills from the National Health Education Standards.

Assessment suggestion: Have students complete the Skill-Building Challenge using the Skill-Building Challenge Worksheet; grade the worksheet itself as a formal assessment that focuses on skill development. This approach works best for skill-building activities that involve role playing, scenarios, and problem-solving activities. Alternatively, have the students complete the Skill-Building Challenge and use one of the analytic or holistic rubrics to assess overall achievement of the skill that is being developed. This approach works best for the skill challenges that have students directly engage in actions or behaviors such as goal setting, practicing health behaviors, and advocacy.

Healthy Living Skills

At the end of each lesson, you will find one or more Healthy Living Skills activities. These are designed to provide additional opportunities for students to work on health skills. Generally, these are slightly smaller tasks that don’t come with specific worksheets. These skill activities can be assigned as homework and for more advanced learning opportunities the students could be asked to develop their own tracking tool to monitor their progress on assigned Healthy Living Skills.

Assessment suggestion: Have students complete one or more of these tasks and use the corresponding analytic or holistic rubric to evaluate the student work.

Lesson Quizzes and Chapter and Unit Tests

Use the premade quizzes for each lesson or the premade test for each chapter or unit, or create your own quizzes or tests.

Assessment suggestion: Use these quizzes as pretests and posttests to show progress in student learning related to different health content areas. Organizing quiz questions by learning outcome and tallying student scores accordingly can also help provide evidence that students have met desired standards and learning outcomes.

My Action Plan

Each chapter includes a My Action Plan worksheet. This worksheet asks students to identify SMART goals, make a plan, track their progress, and reflect on their growth. While a specific focus is given to the My Action Plan within each chapter, the general worksheet format could be used for any skill area at any point in a term. This worksheet supports multiple National Health Education Standards and can provide valuable evidence of student learning and skill development over time.

Assessment suggestion: Ask students to set a goal in any area of health at the beginning of a term and then log their progress throughout the term. Have them reflect on their progress at the midpoint and the end of the term. Use the analytic or holistic rubric to assess their skill development.

Holistic and Analytic Rubrics

Two sets of rubrics focused on assessing skill development are provided in the resources. These rubrics are not tied to any single assignment or content area. In fact, they are designed to be used when assessing any health skill at any point in a health class. In this way, they can be used to help quantify student growth on any of the health skills that are part of the National Health Education Standards.

Holistic rubrics allow you provide a fast, big-picture view of a student's progress on a given skill. These rubrics are aligned to the skill cues that are presented in chapter 1 and used throughout the text. Students are given a single combined score for all the elements of the skill cue.

Analytic rubrics, like the holistic rubrics, allow you to determine progress on a given skill. The rubrics are aligned to the skill cues and allow you to identify and evaluate more specific areas of strength or weakness in a student's skill development by giving points separately for each element of the skill cue.