Benchmark assessments can provide educators with critical insight into student progress. However, a lack of proper implementation can lead to missed opportunities for growth, poor student engagement, and a lack of actionable insights.
To get the most from benchmark assessments, educators need to involve parents, take a granular approach to data, and adopt a regular assessment cadence.
This article shares insights from experienced educators on making benchmark assessments more effective to enhance student achievement. Read on to discover how you can optimize your benchmark assessments for maximum impact.
Key Takeaways:
- Educators use benchmark assessments to make informed decisions that directly impact student learning and instructional strategies.
- Clear, concise reporting turns assessment data into actionable insights that drive meaningful changes in the classroom.
- Regular assessment cycles help educators and students adjust their strategies and improve learning outcomes.
- Best practices for benchmark assessments include setting clear goals and involving stakeholders.
8 Benchmark Assessment Best Practices According to Educators
Benchmark assessments are periodic evaluations used to measure students’ academic performance relative to predefined standards.
Unlike summative assessments, which evaluate overall achievement at the end of a term, benchmark assessments are designed to monitor progress throughout the instructional period. However, they are more formal than regular formative assessments, because they test understanding against standards and learning objectives and often test a broader range of material.
The primary purpose of a benchmark assessment is to provide educators with actionable data that can be used to adjust teaching strategies and improve student outcomes in real time. However, benchmark assessments also provide students and parents with important feedback throughout the school year. Here’s a roundup of best practices for successful benchmark assessments, based on insights from educators.
1. Align Assessments with Learning Objectives
Ezra Luckcock, an English as a Second Language (ESL) tutor, says it’s important to align benchmark assessments with learning goals. His students are regularly assessed with International English Language Testing System (IELTS) assessments, which are international standardized tests.
Luckcock advises teachers to “teach to the test in the case of IELTS— including benchmarks/band descriptor target-hitting, but ensure general academic competency and good learning practices in each non-IELTS speaking class to improve confidence and performance.”
While IELTS instruction is more test-driven than other subjects, it’s always important to keep assessments closely tied to learning objectives. That way, stakeholders can see the specific areas they should focus on during the learning period.
2. Centralize Data
To get the most out of benchmark assessments, educators need to integrate them into a broader data-driven approach. With that in mind, Jana Lee, a consultant specializing in special education and data-driven instruction, recommends that teachers and administrators build data walls for their students. These can be physical or virtual walls that display a wide variety of student metrics in one place.
As she puts it, “Data walls allow leaders to see the whole picture of student metrics and growth. Demographics, absenteeism, behavior incidents, academic achievement, SES—when a leader can juxtapose this data, it allows them to make decisions and interventions that are truly individualized.”
When integrated into a comprehensive picture of student performance, data from benchmark assessments can help educators evaluate progress and pinpoint problem areas for each student.
Educators and administrators who want to create data walls should ensure that the testing software they use is interoperable. This means that software can be used seamlessly in tandem with other systems, eliminating the need for costly custom integrations. Teachers can then easily combine data from benchmark assessments with other information, such as attendance records, to make targeted interventions.
3. Establish a Regular Assessment Cadence
According to a 2010 policy brief from the University of California, benchmark assessments are most valuable when administered regularly. Because they test student performance against specific learning goals, they can provide more detailed feedback on class progress than a simple formative assessment.
Moreover, by integrating benchmark assessments into your classroom routine, you can help students get used to being assessed and reduce the chances of test anxiety interfering with performance. To this end, educators should ensure they communicate the results of benchmark assessments clearly to their students.
4. Automate Grading
Grading is a potential downside of a regular assessment cadence. While teachers, students, and parents benefit from regular insight into progress against learning objectives, educators can risk overburdening themselves by signing up to grade dozens of tests on a regular basis.
To avoid this, educators can use online assessment tools such as TAO that automate grading and deliver real-time results. When liberated from time-consuming assessment scoring, teachers can focus on targeting their instruction to address student needs.
What’s more, when students receive feedback on their performance without long wait times, they have a chance to self-correct in time for summative assessments at the end of the learning period.
5. Make Benchmark Assessments Engaging
Because they take up valuable class time, it’s vital to maintain student interest and engagement during benchmark assessments. One way to do this is to use an authentic assessment strategy for benchmarking student progress.
Authentic assessments using technology to enable real-world simulations and add deeper context to learning provide students with opportunities to demonstrate their knowledge in a digital environment. For example, the Buck Institute for Education has highlighted a project-based learning activity where 6th-grade history students designed a virtual civil rights museum app.
One benefit of authentic assessments is that they can measure performance on higher-order thinking skills, rather than simply rote learning. Instead of filling in the blanks or completing a multiple-choice test, students can
- Work in groups to explore a virtual ecosystem and identify wildlife
- Carry out chemical experiments in a science lab
- Work with digital tools that visualize physical properties such as volume
6. Involve Parents
According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, parents are the key to student success, and benchmark assessments can provide educators with a prime opportunity to get parents involved in their child’s academic life.
Teacher Mary Wade recommends using benchmark assessments to enhance parent-teacher conferences. Instead of just meeting with parents at the beginning and end of every school year, educators can invite engagement by holding conferences after mid-year benchmarks.
That way, parents will be informed about student progress and empowered to support any necessary changes in study habits. And when educators have a regular assessment cadence, they can give parents many more opportunities to engage in their child’s education.
7. Look at Growth Metrics
While overall proficiency metrics are important, growth metrics should not be overlooked. As Jana Lee explains, “growth metrics may be a more reliable data point than proficiency percentages. For example, smaller student bodies with 1 or 2 students in a subgroup can greatly impact the overall percentage.”
By taking a more granular approach to analytics, educators can ensure that any outliers don’t have an outsized impact on overall scores. They can also get a better sense of how their instruction is impacting students. A class that enters the school year at a high proficiency level may have good scores, even though opportunities for extending their learning are being missed.
Similarly, a class that enters at low proficiency may have substandard scores despite strong growth. A data-savvy approach can therefore give more objective insight into student progress.
9. Measure Specific Skills
To be insightful, data must be specific. Yet educators often fall into the trap of gathering only vague and general feedback from students. In fact, Jana Lee has found that “student anecdotes and observations and formative assessments that show general struggles, but do not reflect specific skills, make it nearly impossible for teachers to provide targeted interventions within their general education classroom.” And when those struggles later manifest in poor benchmark assessment results, referrals often result.
To avoid the pitfall of vague feedback, both formative and benchmark assessments need to measure performance against specific standards, which offer a more objective point of comparison for student progress.
That way, educators can come to students and parents with concrete problem areas to focus on and adapt their instruction accordingly. Interventions can only be targeted when all the stakeholders know what to aim for.
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When implemented with clear objectives and regular cycles, benchmark assessments are transformative. They offer a data-driven approach to pinpointing problem areas, improving instructional strategies and decision-making, and enhancing student outcomes.
Furthermore, when benchmark assessments are administered using online assessment tools, educators benefit from automated grading and a host of immersive test environments. For more insights into harnessing EdTech innovation to advance learning objectives, take a look at these guides on the TAO blog:
- 5 Major Pitfalls to Avoid When Implementing Assessment Tech
- The Future of Education & Assessment: 5 Predictions for 2024
- The Case for Formative Testing: 4 Reasons to Incorporate Technology
FAQs
What are the key benefits of benchmark assessments?
Benchmark assessments provide crucial data to help educators track student progress, tailor instruction, and make informed decisions to improve educational outcomes.
How often should benchmark assessments be conducted?
It’s recommended to conduct benchmark assessments at regular intervals, such as quarterly, to ensure continuous monitoring and adjustment of instructional strategies.
How can I ensure that benchmark assessments lead to actionable insights?
To ensure that benchmark assessments provide actionable insights, it’s essential to have clear reporting structures and take a data-driven approach.
