assessment.simple explanation

Intentions •  After today, you will be able to…

– Describe different types of Assessment and the purpose of each.

– Discuss various ways that Assessment directly influences teaching and learning

– Identify and describe specific strategies of AFL

– Know how to set and use criteria and rubrics with students

BC Ministry of Education Principles of Learning

Learning requires the active participation of the student.

People learn in a variety of ways and at different rates.

Learning is both an individual and a group process.

Learning is most effective when students reflect on the process of learning and set goals for improvement.

3 types of Assessment (IRP) •  Assessment FOR Learning

– Formative Assessment – Informs students and teachers

•  Assessment AS Learning – Student’s Metacognition

•  Assessment OF Learning – Summative/Final/Official Assessment – Evaluation of students by teachers

What Is Assessment for Learning?

Assessment for learning occurs throughout the learning process. It is designed to make each student’s understanding visible, so that teachers can decide what they can do to help students progress. Students learn in individual and idiosyncratic ways, yet, at the same time, there are predictable patterns of connections and preconceptions that some students may experience as they move along the continuum from emergent to proficient. In assessment for learning, teachers use assessment as an investigative tool to find out as much as they can about what their students know and can do, and what confusions, preconceptions, or gaps they might have.

The wide variety of information that teachers collect about their students’ learning processes provides the basis for determining what they need to do next to move student learning forward. It provides the basis for providing descriptive feedback for students and deciding on groupings, instructional strategies, and resources.

Rethinking Classroom Assessment with Purpose in Mind, Western and Northern Canadian Protocol (2006), p 29

DylanWiliam on Formative Assessment


What Is Assessment as Learning?

Assessment as learning focusses on students and emphasizes assessment as a process of metacognition (knowledge of one’s own thought processes) for students. Assessment as learning emerges from the idea that learning is not just a matter of transferring ideas from someone who is knowledgeable to someone who is not, but is an active process of cognitive restructuring that occurs when individuals interact with new ideas. Within this view of learning, students are the critical connectors between assessment and learning. For students to be actively engaged in creating their own understanding, they must learn to be critical assessors who make sense of information, relate it to prior knowledge, and use it for new learning. This is the regulatory process in metacognition; that is, students become adept at personally monitoring what they are learning, and use what they discover from the monitoring to make adjustments, adaptations, and even major changes in their thinking.


What Is Assessment of Learning?

Assessment of learning refers to strategies designed to confirm what students know, demonstrate whether or not they have met curriculum outcomes or the goals of their individualized programs, or to certify proficiency and make decisions about students’ future programs or placements. It is designed to provide evidence of achievement to parents, other educators, the students themselves, and sometimes to outside groups (e.g., employers, other educational institutions).

Assessment of learning is the assessment that becomes public and results in statements or symbols about how well students are learning. It often contributes to pivotal decisions that will affect students’ futures. It is important, then, that the underlying logic and measurement of assessment of learning be credible and defensible.

Some analogies

Damian Cooper

3 types of Assessment

3 types of Assessment

1 Rick Stiggins 2 Damian Cooper

Anne Davies, PhD

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/1340135/Assessment_For_Learning

www.wordle.net

“What is Assessment for Learning?”

http://www.annedavies.com

So what?

Visible Learning, John Hattie, (2009)

• 15 years research

• 1 synthesis

• 800 meta-analyses

• 50,000 previous studies

• 23 million students


•  Compelling (definitive?) evidence of what works and what doesn't: – What doesn't 'work' includes class

sizes, homework and school type – Top teaching influences are :

feedback, instructional quality, direct instruction, remediation feedback, class environment and challenge of goals.


Five areas covered in Hattie's latest book are;

Students to develop: a 'positive learning disposition' and to be 'open' to new learning. They need to develop 'engagement' with learning goals so as to become 'turned on' so as to gain worthwhile learning.

Homes to be helped develop 'positive parental expectations and aspirations' as 'positive parent alignment' with school is vital.

Schools to provide a positive, optimistic, invitational, trusting and safe learning climate. One that welcomes student errors and develops positive peer influences; that gives both teachers and learner's respect as learners.

Teachers who are seen by their students as quality teachers. Who provide clarity of expectations and a belief that all can learn. Teachers who are 'open' to new ideas, who develop positive learning climate, and who value the importance of student effort to improve.

A curriculum that is explicit to learners and that provides challenging in depth experiences.

Think, Pair, Share (#1) What, if anything, is your enduring understanding, “a-ha”, or topic/idea you want to know more about from

this section (“Types of Assessment”)?

Jot down your thoughts on the TPS slip for discussion in your next

inquiry session.

8 Big Ideas (Damian Cooper)

Big Idea #1

Assessment For Learning

AFL: Goal is to promote learning, not measure it.

AFL: Think “sports”; think “practice”, not “big game”

Big Idea #1

Assessment Of Learning

AFL: Goal is to measure learning

AFL: Think “sports”; think “big game”—points matter

Big Idea #2

Big Idea #2 “Backward Design” Program Planning

Stage 1: Identify targetted understandings (“key” ideas); desired results Stage 2: Determine appropriate assessment of those understandings; determine acceptable evidence Stage 3: Plan learning experiences and instruction that make such understanding possible;

Wiggins and McTighe, Understanding by Design

Big Idea #2 “Backward Design” Program Planning

Stage 1: Identify targetted understandings (“key” ideas); desired results

Think: MUST SHOULD COULD (Essential Desirable Extension)


Big Idea #2


Stage 2: Determine appropriate assessment of those understandings; determine acceptable evidence

We must ask...

What would we accept as evidence that students have attained the desired understandings and proficiencies - BEFORE - proceeding to plan teaching and learning experiences?

Big Idea #3

Big Idea #3 Students must experience a balance of:

write do say

Look at your assessment methods from a parent’s eyes, as if the student was your child.

Big Idea #3

Teachers, therefore, will need to:

mark observe listen

Big Idea #4

Big Idea #5

Big Idea #6

Big Idea #6

Assessment is NOT something we doTO students, it’s something we do WITH students.

e.g. conferences, checklists, teams

Wiggins: Root of word “assessment” ≠ evaluate, judge. It comes from “to sit beside”

Big Idea #6

…becomes Assessment AS Learning.

Develops students’: •  skills of metacognition •  critical thinking skills •  communication and interpersonal

skills

Big Idea #7

Big Idea #7 “Students have to know what

excellence looks like!”

3 ways of doing this: Rubrics

Rubrics Rubrics

“Most students can hit the target if they can see it clearly and it stays still for them.”

Rick Stiggins

Big Idea #8

Big Idea #8

•  Has little (nothing?) to do with teaching and learning!

•  Teacher as Accountant •  Do this infrequently, but

thoroughly!

Think, Pair, Share (#2)

What, if anything, is your enduring understanding, “a-ha”, or topic/idea you want to know more about from

this section (“8 Big Ideas”)?


inquiry session.

6 Strategies (Faye Brownlie)

•  Learning Intentions •  Criteria • Questions • Descriptive Feedback •  Peer & Self Assessment • Ownership

http://bcelc.insinc.com/webcastseries/20080416/archive.html 9 min

1. Learning Intentions

= clear statements of what students are expected to learn and be able to do.

Some thoughts on Learning Intentions

•  Select key outcomes from curriculum documents for students to learn

•  Keep the number small enough for the brain to handle (3-5 for a unit)

•  Talk with students about the importance of knowing the destination

Some thoughts on Learning Intentions

•  Record and post learning intentions •  Put each learning intention into a

bigger picture of “why” students might want to learn it

•  Keep bringing students’ focus back to the learning intentions during the lesson/task

Learning Intentions Some tricks

•  TSWBAT •  OLI the Owl •  Traffic lights •  Rubrics

– I don’t get it/can’t do it. – I need some help with it – I get it/can do it on my own.

•  “INTU”’s: “I need to understand…”

2. Criteria

•  Criteria is what’s important or what counts in an activity/task. Students of all ages need a clear understanding of the criteria by which AND the level to which their work will be assessed.

Some thoughts on Criteria

•  Talk with learners about what criteria is and what’s in it for them.

•  Limit the number of criteria so the brain can remember what’s important

•  Connect criteria to learning in order to get to “what counts”

Some thoughts on Criteria

•  Post criteria in the classroom and refer to it before, during, and/or after the task

•  Make criteria easier to understand by getting concrete (through language, through student work samples, through concrete objects)

Setting Criteria: Some tricks

•  Show samples from previous years at different levels of achievement/performance

•  Set criteria WITH the students. Lead a discussion where students: –  Rank the samples from best to worst –  Brainstorm what made each sample better/worse –  Generate criteria from this brainstorming on what

makes an “excellent” piece of work –  Create a rubric based on this.

Rubrics

Bot

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Eith

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Qua

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Nei

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Qua

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NO

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Con

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S

ophi

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4 3 2 1 Excellent NYM Fully Meeting Meeting

Content

Format

In each of BC’s IRP’s.

Some sample rubrics

Some sample rubrics

8

8

4

20

7

6

3.5

17.5

Some sample rubrics

It’s easy! •  RubiStar is a free tool to help the

teacher who wants to use rubrics, but does not have the time to develop them from scratch.

•  http://rubistar.4teachers.org •  Use 99999 as non-USA zip code

•  CAUTION: not precise. Use as a starting point (inspiration) for planning.

•  IRPs have GREAT samples and models.

“Unless we specify to students what the criteria for learning are, they will continue to be mystified as to what they are to do and what is is they are learning.”

Grant Wiggins, 1992

People perform better when they know the goal(s), see models, know how their performance compares to the criteria.

3. Questions

•  Can be used to find out what students know or to help them think.

• Ask more questions to help learners think.

•  Involve students more in asking their own questions.

Some thoughts on Questions

•  Talk with students about types of questions – Questions to find out what you know

(What? How? Why?) – Questions to help you learn (How?)

•  Give learners a brief time to think and/or talk with a peer before inviting responses (3-5 seconds; Most teachers give 1 second or less Wiliam).


•  Teach learners appropriate non-judgmental ways to build on, disagree, and support responses of peers so that questions lead to effective classroom discussion.

•  Use Bloom’s taxonomy; seek higher order questions where possible.

Bloom’s Taxonomy - revised

1956 2001

Bloom’s Taxonomy


•  Don’t answer for your students. •  Refrain from being the arbiter of

right & wrong •  Don’t repeat students’ responses

 Empower the students  Have them own it!  Make them work harder, not you!

Questions Some tricks

•  Use ideas such as “hands down” or “all write” to encourage participation

•  Popsicle sticks (nested cans) •  If a student says “I don’t know”, say

you’ll go back to them after 2 more people; if they say they still don’t know, ask them to state their favourite response from the others and tell why.

"Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right answers."

Josef Albers

4. Descriptive Feedback

•  Is non-judgmental given to the learner about: – What is working – What’s not working – What’s next

Descriptive Feedback

Must be: •  Specific •  Explicit •  Timely •  Focused on the skill not the product

– Direct student’s attention to their work, rather than to their mistakes

Some thoughts on Descriptive Feedback

•  Talk with students about the differences between descriptive (neutral, objective) and evaluative (subjective, judgmental) feedback

•  Give students oral and written descriptive feedback in relation to the agreed upon criteria

•  Give at least double the # of strengths before focussing on an area(s) of improvement

Some thoughts on Descriptive Feedback

•  Make specific suggestion(s) for next steps that are easy for students to understand

•  Give students time in class to use the descriptive feedback to make changes

•  Teach students to use multiple sources of descriptive feedback such as self, peer, student created rubrics, anonymous work samples, and immediate answers

Dylan Wiliam on Feedback

5. Peer and Self Assessment

•  Refers to students giving themselves and peers information or feedback to help support learning.

•  The feedback required is descriptive rather than evaluative.

•  Make students active players (BC Principle of Learning)

Some thoughts on Peer & Self Assessment

•  Talk with learners about the importance of receiving feedback from themselves and from their peers to support learning

•  Teach students to use words from the class-set criteria to offer descriptive feedback to peers and self

Some thoughts on Peer & Self Assessment

•  Make it very clear to learners that their role is to offer useful information rather than making judgments that rank and sort

•  Establish a pattern for peer feedback such as identify 2 or 3 strengths before giving one suggestion for improvement

6. Ownership

•  Is strongly connected to motivation and engagement.

• One way students demonstrate ownership is when they show and talk about their own learning with others.

Some thoughts on Ownership •  Give students clear information up

front about what it is they are supposed to learn so they can take a lead role in monitoring their own learning

•  Increase ownership by involving learners in the development of criteria

Some thoughts on Ownership •  Teach students self assessment skills so

they can take more responsibility for their own learning

•  Have students collect concrete examples of their own learning so they can see their growth over time

•  Establish times and routines where all students show and talk about their work with their families and other adults.

Dylan Wiliam on AFL Strategies

AFL: “Look fors” to see if you’re doing it:

1.  Do I routinely share learning goals with my students so they know where we are heading? Intentions

2.  Do I routinely communicate to students the standards they are aiming for before they begin work on a task? Criteria

3.  Do I routinely have students self and peer assess their work in ways that improve their learning? S & P

Damien Cooper

AFL: “Look fors” to see if you’re doing it:

4.  Does my questioning technique include all students and promote increased understanding? Questions

5.  Do I routinely provide individual feedback to students that informs them how to improve? Feedback

6.  Do I routinely provide opportunities for students to make use of this feedback to improve specific pieces of work? Ownership

(Can the student “re-submit” work? Allow them to do so provided they attach a note directing the teacher to what they did to improve it.)

Damien Cooper



this section (“6 Strategies”)?


inquiry session.

What does it all mean?

•  “Teaching” can only truly be called “teaching” when it results in learning. It is a means to an end.

•  What we often call “teaching” is merely a set of activities and strategies “teachers” choose to use to bring forth that learning.

Showing

Providing opportunities

Repeating

Giving Experiences

Sharing Feedback

Rehearsing

Modelling

Demonstrating Motivating

Telling

Practising

Inspiring

Activating prior knowledge

Engaging

Lecturing

Questioning

Coaching

Guiding

What does it all mean? •  Doing all these things does not

guarantee learning. •  The activities and strategies

chosen by the teacher must be determined by the needs of each learner.

•  The art of teaching is knowing which activities best suit the learner.

"We think too much about effective methods of teaching and not enough about effective methods of learning."

John Carolus S. J.

Concept Retention: What will a learner remember 24 hours later?

90%

80%

50%

20%

10% hear

see & hear

write/talk/sketch

teach/demonstrate

present

Debbie Walsh (1986), Conference on Critical Thinking

Coincidence?

Creating

Evaluating

Analyzing

Applying

Understanding

Remembering hear

see & hear

write/talk/sketch

teach/demonstrate

present

Always ask WHY?

•  Why are you teaching a given concept? (Purpose/Big idea) – Why am I asking the students to:

•  Spell correctly? •  Colour their work? •  Hand in work on time? •  Do homework?

•  Is it a key concept/enduring understanding or just an activity? (Intention)

Always ask Why?

• Are you “counting” homework? WHY?

– What is the purpose of homework? • Practice? • To complete an assignment?

Always ask Why?

• Are you “counting” effort? WHY?

– What about the student who does not seem to have to put forth much effort to fully demonstrate understanding of the PLOs?

– Judging effort is highly subjective.

Always ask Why?

• Are you “counting” attendance or participation? WHY?

– What about the student who can fully demonstrate understanding of the PLOs without even attending?

– Ask how participation is part of the PLOs.

Always ask Why?

• More on participation: – If students believe they are

being “marked” on everything they say or do in class, they may fear making mistakes and will stop making attempts or taking risks.

– They will shut down!

Then what have you done to their learning???



this section (“Teaching & Learning”)?


inquiry session.

2 Main Goals (Damian Cooper) 1.  Make sure assessment is good for kids

•  Relevant •  Meaningful •  Flexible •  Results in increased learning

2.  Make sure assessment is efficient and effective for the teacher

•  Examine your practice •  E.g. rubrics •  Cause the students to think (don’t do the work

for them) •  Work smarter, not harder

Effective teachers: •  Are self-reflective •  Put their students’ learning needs first •  Focus on the learning vs the teaching •  Are more concerned with learning than with marks •  Give lots of practice with lots of descriptive

feedback before “the big game” •  Leave their ego at the door (It’s not about you; it’s

about them !) •  Collaborate with colleagues to form Professional

Learning Communities •  Are open to changing their practice •  Are life-long learners •  Take risks •  Don’t give up! (Be resourceful & creative)

None of this is meaningful unless you do something with it.

Ask yourself, “So now what?”

What one thing will you actually do with what you have heard so far today?

“Who dares to teach must never cease to learn.”

John Cotton Dana

Resources •  “Rethinking Classroom Assessment with Purpose in

Mind” (Western and Northern Canadian Protocol) (http://www.wncp.ca/media/40539/rethink.pdf)

•  BC Ministry of Education –  Classroom Assessment and Student Reporting

(http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/classroom_assessment/) –  Performance Standards (

http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/perf_stands/) –  IRPs (http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/irp/irp.htm)

•  www.annedavies.com •  “Talk About Assessment: Strategies and Tools to

Improve Learning”, Damian Cooper, 2007, Nelson •  Learning About Learning video series. Learning and

Teaching Scotland, http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/learningaboutlearning/index.asp

Session Evaluation