The Very Beginning
The very deepest roots of the RTD project is our old concern that goes back to the 1990’s — perhaps the 1980’s — about grade and numeric scores being reported about students, their work and learning. As Alexander was preparing to teach high school, these questions persisted. Yes, students need feedback on individual assignments and both students and others could make great use of more summative feedback about their performance. But the meaning of a singular grade or score seems quite questionable.
Though we both did well on standardized tests, it was not exactly clear what those tests were assessing. Certainly the meaning of the SATs…what do those scores even meeeeeaaaannnnn, man…?
The Beginnings of Our Professional Careers
Marjorie came to this work through scoring standardized tests’ student writing samples, working her way up to lead scoring teams. She saw how that sausage was made, and brought that knowledge and perspective to her work as a content development specialist.
Alexander continued his thinking and concerns about grades and scores and his skepticism of most standardized tests during his time as a high school teacher. He left the classroom in the relatively early days of the NCLB regime of testing.
Moving Towards a Joint Project
As Marjorie gained practical experience as a content development professional at multiple test development vendors and working on different states’ tests, Alexander was in graduate school studying psychometrics, measurement, organizational learning and education policy — it was the NCLB era, after all.
When we met, in the 2000’s, we brought these different perspectives and experiences with assessment. Our conversations included our respective work and the various ways that our understandings complemented each other.
The RTD Project
The RTD Project quickly grew out of those conversations, as we became more serious about what we were developing together. We found we had a common goal — finding a way to support the development of much better standardized tests. Marjorie made clear that item development is more like craft work than a true professionalized practice. Not only is there nowhere to study or gain credentials in how to develop high quality items, but even among professionals there are no real established best practices. Instead, some people enjoy it more, some people might be better at it, and people in different organizations might do it quite differently. Heck, even within a single organization, actual practice can vary widely — so long as it works within the collaborative multi-step workflows that rule test development.
The RTD Project is not merely about making us better or improving our own understanding. Rather, it is intended to provide resources to others who may wish to better understand content development and perhaps to improve their own practice.
The RTD Project includes the occasional conference paper and perhaps journal articles. But because its intended audience is aspiring and practicing content development professionals, we prefer to write rubrics, guides, packets, explanations and one-page cheat sheets.
In more recent years, we have worked with more and more collaborators and contributors, a growing roster who occasionally are listed as co-authors of various pieces of this work.
Who Controls This Work?
The RTD Project is jointly controlled by Dr. Alexander Hoffman and Ms. Marjorie Wine. They approve every packet, idea, framework and element. They jointly hold copyright to all of it, and hope that others will make use of it. Access to this website and use of the various ideas and downloads available here is free for everyone, though they maintain ownership. They request that all derivative work include credit to the RTD Project.