The Early Season 2014/15 Qualitative Assessment Reporting Notebook (QARN) has now been published. The Early Season QARN reports per-school the average student rating and the average student attainment percentage of the CDL Debater Development Benchmarks after being assessed at either T1 or T2.
In qualitative assessment, students are assessed by experienced and trained evaluators to determine their development as academic debaters relative to a series of benchmarks (or learning objectives), carefully applying the appropriate in-round and out-of-round Qualitative Assessment Rubrics:
The average rating for a school aggregates all individual ratings, by experience level, for students from a school and divides by the number of ratings given.
Attainment of a benchmark is defined as a rating of 6 or higher. A “student attainment percentage” is the percentage of benchmarks that a given student attains (i.e., receives a rating of 6 or higher on). The “average student attainment percentage” “averages these student averages” for a school.
The Qualitative Assessment Reporting Notebook assists coaches to design coaching and teaching strategies to remediate student deficiencies and build on student strengths. The Qualitative Assessment Reporting Notebook is part of the central reporting process within the CDL and to CPS administrators (including principals) and CDC supporters.
The Late Season Report, which will be published after T6, additionally records the “Varsity Season Growth,” which measures late-season Qualitative Assessment Project ratings of four Varsity debaters per school versus these same debater’s early-season ratings. The CDL will assess eight debaters per school in the late season (T5 or T6), four JV and four Varsity debaters, or as close to eight as we could get.
The CDC has endorsed qualitative assessment and qualitative growth as crucial to the Chicago Debate League achieving its objectives of preparing Chicago public school students for success in college and career.The top 20 schools as determined by average rating of the best four debater scores assessed in the Late Season in the Qualitative Assessment Reporting Notebook will be given coach incentives by the Chicago Debate Commission.