Overview

Each formative assessment in this course was designed to prepare students for the larger summative assessment project. Specifically, this task guided students to learn about a bi/multingual student’s linguistic assets and practices, which later informed the design of their own assessment for the final project.

I used backward design to map out the steps and the components of this assignment. I started from the outcome I wanted students to reach and worked backward to an assessment method and scaffolding sequence that would help students complete the assignment successfully.

Design rationale

• Start from the objective. The course's core objective was for students to understand the multifaceted, context-dependent nature of language use (family, friends, community, school) and apply that understanding to assessment design. I chose an assessment method that would require students to encounter that complexity directly, rather than just read about it.

• Align the assessment structure to the objective's components. The reflection paper's four required elements map directly onto the assignment objective: describing the interviewee (grounding), analyzing language practices across contexts (the multifaceted-use objective), reflecting on challenges/advantages (deepening understanding), and applying insights to fair assessment design (the transfer objective). Students can't complete the paper without addressing every dimension of the objective.

• Scaffold toward assessment readiness. Because this was the first assignment of the course, and the cohort mixed undergraduate and graduate, pre-service and practicing teachers, I built a scaffolding sequence to help students build up their background understanding. I started with guided readings to establish shared theoretical grounding in bilingual/multilingual assessment, then small-group discussion to process that theory in a low-stakes context before applying it, and a collaborative brainstorm of possible interview questions so students entered the interview with tested, thoughtful prompts.

Materials Developed

• Full assignment description, including objective, instructions, and reflection paper prompts (embedded above).

• Scaffolding Activity 1: Theoretical Grounding (Readings)

  • Topics on the history of assessment and the multilingual turn, asset-based assessment frameworks.

  • Guided reading reflection (2–3 questions) due before class, asking students to identify one assumption about "correct" language use that the reading challenges.

• Scaffolding Activity 2: Small-Group Discussion Protocol

  • Groups of 3–4, mixed undergrad/grad if possible, to pool background knowledge

  • Discussion prompts: "What have you observed about how multilingual students use language differently across settings?" / "Where have you seen assessment fail to account for a student's full linguistic repertoire?"

  • Each group reports one key insight to the full class.

• Scaffolding Activity 3: Interview Question Brainstorm

  • Whole-class or small-group generation of candidate interview questions, organized by the four domains in the assignment (family, friends, community, school).

Outcome & Reflection

Designing this assessment required me to think about the big picture of the course progression, and the practice tasks students needed to be able to complete the final assessment. I worked backward from the objective, and this approach led me to an interview rather than a more conventional assessment like a case analysis or literature-based paper, which would not necessarily have tested whether they could recognize those concepts in a real person's language practices.