SBIR-STTR Award

There is a critical need in education for the development of innovative assessment techniques that support the emergence of new teaching strategies, reflect what is known about the process of learning, and measure higher levels of reasoning. Studies by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, as well as state reform movements, identify the importance of a variety of assessments. These formats include oral discussion, group work, portfolios, self assessment, peer grading, observation, and performance-based, as well as standard written and multiple choice tests. To implement these new ideas, teachers require tracking and recording devices that are unobtrusive and adaptable. Also needed are assessment tasks and scoring techniques which focus on higher levels of thinking. The OTA congressional report discusses utilizing current technology: "Cuttingedge technology could push tests well beyond the existing paper-and-pencil formats. Structuring and presenting complex tasks, tracking student cognitive processes, and providing rapid feedback to learners and teachers are promising avenues for continued research and development." Researchers are testing the feasibility of designing assessment tasks and software systems, which may include new pen-based technology, to improve the quality of education and meet the needs discussed by OTA.The potential commercial application as described by the awardee: The goal is to provide a technology solution, starting in the area of mathematics, to assess higher order thinking skills, group work, and performance-based tasks. This product, if found to be as effective an assessment tool as suspected, would be relatively inexpensive, portable, and of interest to educators at every level.

In this Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project, Learning in Motion is developing a collection of assessment items to support mathematics instruction in grades K-2 that is aligned with the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Standards. The collection of items was begun in 1994 and is being evaluated and augmented with additional items with the cooperation of Thomas A. Romberg of the University of Wisconsin and Jan de Lange of the Freudenthal Institute in the Netherlands. Scoring rubrics are being developed and the items and rubrics are being tested in schools. A teacher enhancement component is being designed to help teachers build their own expertise in the area of assessment. The collection of assessment items is being made available for Macintosh and Windows environments and the accompanying software allows teachers to search for items using a variety of criteria, including level of difficulty, grade level, content strand, role of context, and length of time for completion. This project will create an assessment tool offering dynamic reporting thus giving teachers the direction they need to make important curriculum and testing decisions at the classroom level. Teachers will be able to assess their students understanding of mathematics at higher levels and to build better assessment programs overall.