Teacher

UTIPS: A Formative Assessment Tool

by: Julie Quinn
Accountability/UTIPS Specialist, Assessment & Accountability, USOE

Utah’s Test Item Pool Service (UTIPS) is an internet-based software, available free of charge to Utah educators, which can assist in the process of formative assessment.  UTIPS has many features.  It provides teachers with a public website where they can administer assessments, upload documents, and communicate with students and parents usin g calendars and blogs.  The Utah State Office of Education (USOE) makes its test item pools available in UTIPS, to help teachers construct tests with well constructed items that are aligned to the Utah curriculum.  This alignment includes intended learning outcomes (ILOs) for science items, and increases the validity of test score interpretations. Teachers can also create tests using their own items which can be aligned to the curriculum.

UTIPS immediately scores multiple choice, matching, and short answer questions, in addition to surveys.  Essays and performance tasks can be graded by the teacher – scores are combined with the other items on a test to give an overall score.  To use UTIPS as a formative assessment tool, teachers must do more than give a test and enter the results into their grade book.  UTIPS saves time, but to see the achievement gains that research has shown are possible, the results must be used to inform instruction.

Formative assessments should be used in classrooms every day.  The principles of formative assessment include using feedback gathered about a student’s understanding to guide the instructional activities students engage in.  This can be done by either the teacher or student.   As instruction is tailored to meet the specific areas of deficiency, students benefit.  It can be as simple as a teacher asking questions, identifying that a student doesn’t understand, then providing specific remediation on the concept.  It can be as complex as a teacher reviewing assessment results, designing instruction tailored to the results, and grouping students based on the design to improve learning.

When assessments are given with aligned items, UTIPS provides reports to do more than just give the student’s score.  Additional reports describe student performance on the standards and objectives tested, in addition to comparing student performance with others who took the same test and information describing how students perform on each question.  These results can be used to identify weak areas of student understanding both as a group and individually.  When this information is used as the basis of determining what instruction will occur, UTIPS becomes a formative assessment tool. 

USOE items are currently available for the grades and subjects required to administer criterion-referenced tests (CRTs).  Most of these items are multiple choice and available through a teacher’s UTIPS account.  However, performance tasks and pre-tests are also available on the USOE Science UTIPS website:  http://science.utips.org.  Science teachers are encouraged to incorporate these pre-tests and performance tasks into their classroom assessment system and use the results to guide their instruction. 

UTIPS is available through regionally located servers with training provided by each district or region. 

 

For more information concerning UTIPS, see the USOE UTIPS website at: http://schools.utah.gov/eval/info_UTIPS.asp, or contact Julie Quinn, USOE UTIPS/Accountability Specialist, at julie.quinn@schools.utah.gov, or Kevin King, USOE Science Assessment Specialist, at Kevin.king@schools.utah.gov.