Consequently, over the past decade serious efforts have been made to develop alternative forms of assessment that are tied to state and national standards. Both learning theory and practical experience with the varied learning styles of students support the use of alternative assessment in the schools. The creation of good alternative assessment items is a task that should be carried out by classroom teachers. They know the goals and objectives of their curriculum better than anyone, therefore they are more likely to create valid alternative assessment items. However, many teachers feel inadequately prepared to create and use alternative forms of geography assessment, specifically assessments that are designed to measure student achievement on state and national standards.
Time is also a factor in the development of such items.
This publication is designed to provide assistance to geography teachers who want to develop and use alternative assessment items as part of their regular testing program. Also, it provides teachers with examples of alternative assessment items, which are keyed to national and state standards in geography, scoring criteria, and item-specific scoring rubrics that can be used directly with their students or as prototypes for development of their own alternative assessments. These are included as references for teachers who may not have the state and national standards documents at their disposal. Assessment Items contains fifty-four sample alternative assessment items that have been classified to both the national and state standards in geography. All fifty-four items were developed by a team of social science teachers who have taught or are currently teaching geography.