Developing Classroom Assessment Tasks Based on a Language Arts Curriculum: An In-Service Approach

The purpose of this study was twofold: to develop teachers' assessment skills and to enable teachers to apply this knowledge to the creation of assessment tasks for the language arts curriculum thereby linking curriculum to assessment. Using a newly developed language arts curriculum, 79 urban Connecticut teachers were asked to develop the assessment component after they participated in a 6-session (12 contact hours) assessment training inservice. It was found that the participants were satisfied with this inservice program. They also reported that information and skills in assessment increased, and suggested that their approaches to teaching were influenced. Suggestions to improve this inservice included more time to develop the assessments and more hands-on work. Using this type of inservice in conjunction with curriculum guide development seemed to provide a means of integrating curriculum and assessment and developing the assessment skills of teachers were developed. Investigations into the impact on student learnin