Top-tier liberal arts colleges in the United States and the struggle for racial diversity: re-stating the problem and re-crafting its solution

This study concludes that, despite a rising din of criticism, and despite the existence of alternate assessment frameworks, top-tier liberal arts colleges in the United States measure themselves along axes of wealth and exclusivity, and prioritize their operations accordingly. Paradoxically, though, they articulate diversity, particularly racial diversity, as a key goal. To reconcile their exclusivity with racial diversity, such institutions recruit students that, regardless of race, arrive on campus pre-acculturated to the dominant White culture—a self-defeating recruitment pattern that tends to exclude students not so acculturated. This study reviews various ways such institutions can go about discussing and resolving this inherent conflict at the institutional level and in so doing support minority students from more typical schools and neighborhoods, who become fully immersed in the dominant culture for the first time only upon initiating their post-secondary education.

Opportunities and Challenges of Applying Cognitive Process Dimensions to Map-Based Learning and Alternate Assessment

In education, taxonomies that define cognitive processes describe what a learner does with the content. Cognitive process dimensions (CPDs) are used for a number of purposes, such as in the development of standards, assessments, and subsequent alignment studies. Educators consider CPDs when developing instructional activities and materials. CPDs may provide one way to track students’ progress toward acquiring increasingly complex knowledge. There are a number of terms used to characterize CPDs, such as depth-of-knowledge, cognitive demand, cognitive complexity, complexity framework, and cognitive taxonomy or hierarchy. The Dynamic Learning Maps (DLM™) Alternate Assessment System is built on a map-based model, grounded in the literature, where academic domains are organized by cognitive complexity as appropriate for the diversity of students with significant cognitive disabilities (SCD). Of these students, approximately 9% either demonstrate no intentional communication system or have not yet attained symbolic communication abilities. This group of students without symbolic communication engages with and responds to stimuli in diverse ways based on context and familiarity. Most commonly used cognitive taxonomies begin with initial levels, such as recall, that assume students are using symbolic communication when they process academic content. Taxonomies that have tried to extend downward to address the abilities of students without symbolic communication often include only a single dimension (i.e., attend). The DLM alternate assessments are based on learning map models that depict cognitive processes exhibited at the foundational levels of pre-academic learning, non-symbolic communication, and growth toward higher levels of complexity. DLM examined existing cognitive taxonomies and expanded the range to include additional cognitive processes that demonstrate changes from the least complex cognitive processes through early symbolic processes. This paper describes the theoretical foundations and processes used to develop the DLM Cognitive Processing Dimension (CPD) Taxonomy to characterize cognitive processes appropriate for map-based alternate assessments. We further explain how the expanded DLM CPD Taxonomy is used in the development of the maps, extended standards (i.e., Essential Elements), alternate assessments, alignment studies, and professional development materials. Opportunities and challenges associated with the use of the DLM CPD Taxonomy in these applications are highlighted.

Learning Approaches Related to Perception of Assessment in Students at Higher Education Level

The students' perception of classroom assessment impacts their approaches towards learning. Therefore, it is a demand for Higher education institutions to reassess their assessment procedures to face the challenges posed by the changing world, and to increase the competencies of the students for their workplaces in the future. The present study aims to correlate students’ learning approaches and their perception of assessment task at higher education level, using canonical analysis. The sample consisted of 468 master level students, selected randomly, of 10 general universities of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Results showed that students relied on surface strategies, leading to cramming, which was allied with a high degree of authenticity of assessment. Alternate assessment strategies like peer and self-assessment can encourage conceptual learning in students and turn will help them become competent at the workplace.

Recognizing Ableism in Educational Initiatives: Reading between the Lines

The ubiquity of ableism in education policy requires being increasingly alert to the portrayal of, (including the absence of), disability within educational initiatives. Ableism is a form of oppression, a largely unconscious acceptance of able-bodied norms from the inaccessibility of instructional materials, to assumptions about the body (a healthy body is within one’s control) to the acceptance of segregated settings. In response to the call for this special issue, previous qualitative inquiry into the unintended consequences of three educational reforms were synthesized using critical disability theory. Seemingly disparate at first glance, all three initiatives, while ostensibly increasing equity, also contained ableism that reinforced stereotypes about student variability and served to further isolate disabled students. One federal (Alternate Assessment), one state (CCSS modules), and one local (project-based learning) policy implementation are included in this theoretical analysis. Reading between the lines means being alert to ableism, and is essential to prevent the historical marginalization of students with disabilities from continuing within contemporary “progress”.

Use of Evidence-Centered Design to Develop Learning Maps-Based Assessments

Evidence-based approaches to assessment design, development, and administration provide a strong foundation for an assessment’s validity argument but can be time consuming, resource intensive, and complex to implement. This paper describes an evidence-based approach used for one assessment that addresses these challenges. Evidence-centered design principles were applied to create a task template to support test development for a new, instructionally embedded, large-scale alternate assessment system used for accountability purposes in 18 U.S. states. Example evidence from the validity argument is presented to evaluate the effectiveness of the template as an evidence-based method for test development. Lessons learned, including strengths and challenges, are shared to inform test-development efforts for other programs.

Constructing and Evaluating a Validation Argument for a Next-Generation Alternate Assessment

Alternate assessments based on alternate achievement standards (AA-AAS) have historically lacked broad validity evidence and an overall evaluation of the extent to which evidence supports intended uses of results. An expanding body of validation literature, the funding of two AA-AAS consortia, and advances in computer-based assessment have supported improvements in AA-AAS validation. This paper describes the validation approach used with the Dynamic Learning Maps® alternate assessment system, including development of the theory of action, claims, and interpretive argument; examples of evidence collected; and evaluation of the evidence in light of the maturity of the assessment system. We focus especially on claims and sources of evidence unique to AA-AAS and especially the Dynamic Learning Maps system design. We synthesize the evidence to evaluate the degree to which it supports the intended uses of assessment results for the targeted population. Considerations are presented for subsequent data collection efforts.