Can Assessments Motivate?

What is the point of the examples in the first few sentences of the article?

• To show that teachers should use a rubric for everything.
• To show that there are good parents and bad parents in this world.
• To show that teachers should allow students to try again because effort leads to success.
• There is no point.

Cheating, luck, and easy work can all lead to a student's success.

• True
• False

Why shouldn't we make our curriculum too easy for our students?

• We should make it really easy so they feel success.
• Because if it's too easy, the parents will complain.
• Because parents like to beat their kids in Candy Land.
• Because students do not feel pride when they complete something that is not challenging.

What are some problems with high stakes tests?

• Students get labeled.
• Students may try their hardest and still not do well.
• Students tend to believe that they are only capable of what those test results show.
• All of the above.

What is the most accurate metaphor to describe the problem with teacher-made tests?

• A job interview
• A baseball game
• A day at Disneyland
• A beehive

Which quote from the article best sums up the article's main purpose?

• "I define educational motivation as the desire to learn..."
• "Assessments should encourage students to keep trying, whatever their level of  achievement."
• "It's ironic that a tool as arbitrary as grades can have such a large impact."
• "Honing effort and giving effort and achievement equal weight can transform motivation in students."

Choose the best paraphrase of the following quote:
"My son, when in high school, once chose to be late with a project and accept the lower grade because he wasn't satisfied with the project and wanted to keep working on it until he improved it." 

• Meeting timelines does not always indicate effort.
• One time when my boy was in high school, he decided to turn in a project late, even though he knew he would get a lower grade because he wasn't happy with his project and he wanted to make it better."
• I knew a child who wouldn't turn in his homework until it was absolutely perfect, even if it meant he would turn it in late.
• Handing in papers in a timely fashion does not always have to do with effort.

Choose the best definition for the term Test Validity.

• The extent to which the test has an impact on the student's grade.
• The % that the test is worth in a weighted grading system.
• The extent to which the test clearly measures the standards taught.
• The extent to which a test accurately measures what it is supposed to measure.

What is the biggest difficulty with the first way to "encourage effort?" ("Never fail a student who tries, and never give the highest grades to one who doesn't.")

• The one who gets a lower grade for  more answers right will be mad that the student with fewer right got a higher score.
• It is often difficult to measure or see how much a student tries.
• If a student gets no answers right, but tried really hard, how can we give him/her a passing grade?
• How does the teacher know, especially in the first few years of teaching, what the right amount of challenge is?

Choose the most accurate essential question for this article.

• Why test?
• Why is teaching so complicated?
• Can't I just give my students candy to motivate them?
• I'm tired--why are you making me think?