embedded formative assessment with mike power launching into hyperdrive link ...

Embedded Formative Assessmentwith

Mike Power

Launching Into Hyperdrive Link

https://pusd.haikulearning.com/madelenebrooks/pusd-pddays13-14/cms_page/view/19372865?_u=4077349&nids=61394451&uids=61409665

EdCaliber Link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsCQG7bF1vE

My Primary Resource

• All of the information on EFA comes from Dylan Wiliam’s book, “Embedded Formative Assessment”.

• If you would like to learn more about specific strategies, I highly recommend aquiring this text (each participant at the PUSD conference was given a copy).

• In addition to establishing the rationale behind this technique, the book gives detailed descriptions of the reasearch methods used as well as the results of that research.

• Most importantly, the text includes 53 specific classroom strategies.

Some Promising Failures

• There is no proof that designing lessons to suit the learning styles of your students results in greater student achievement.

– There is some evidence of slight gains in students who were forced to try a learning style they are not comfortable with.

– Try crossing your arms… notice which arm is on top. Now try the opposite way… which way forced you to learn something?

• Improving the content knowledge of teachers has a minimal effect on student learning.

• Though there is a correlation between the experience level of the teacher and student learning, that advantage is greatly reduced after only a few years.

The Potential of Embedded Formative Assessment

• Embedded Formative Assessment (EFA) is showing impressive results in significantly raising student achievement.

• Dylan Wiliam’s book, Embedded Formative Assessment, documents specific experimental designs and research results for all aspects of EFA.

• When implementing new policies from school site and District leadership teams, we are often told that the newest mandates are, “research based”, but how often are we presented with the specific research?

The Potential of Embedded Formative Assessment

• At times it would appear that we throw programs at problems, with little follow through as to the effectiveness of these changes.

• It is my belief that most teachers are highly professional and logical creatures who are interested in improving student learning.

• I have met very few teachers in my 25 year career, that would refuse to implement a strategy if they were convinced that it was what was best for their students.

What is embedded formative assessment?

• Given the continual change in district wide testing in recent years, our current definition may be somewhat ambiguous– Benchmarks– DWAs – DIAs– Formative assessments– Summative assessments– Interim assessments


• Research has shown that the type of testing that has the most profound impact on improving student learning is “embedded formative assessment”.

• Embedded formative assessment is getting feedback AS you are in the process of teaching a lesson.– Its not a pre or post test– It very closely resembles, “checking for

understanding”.• unlike equity sticks, it makes all 35 of your

students accountable for every question.– The goal is to create a snapshot that is relevant

and clearly measurable.– After the snapshot, we use this data to clarify

and re-teach specific aspects of a lesson, as needed

– Basically, you are checking in to see if your kids are, “getting it”.


• There are 5 key strategies of Embedded Formative Assessment:

1. Clarifying, sharing and understanding learning intentions and criteria for success

2. Engineering effective classroom discussion, activities, and learning tasks that elicit evidence of learning

3. Providing feedback that moves learning forward

4. Activating learners as instructional resources for one another

5. Activating students as owners of their own learning

1. Clarifying, sharing and understanding learning intentions and criteria for success

• Teachers must make it clear what they want students to learn.

• Make sure students clearly understand what they are supposed to learn and what they are supposed to be doing to facilitate their own learning.

• Posting Objectives can help, if the student understands the objective, sees its relevance, and understand how they will demonstrate mastery.

• Rubrics can also play a role, especially if they are previewed in the anticipatory set.

2. Engineering effective classroom discussion, activities, and learning tasks that elicit evidence of learning

• Teachers need to ascertain where students are in their learning

• Careful attention needs to be given to the creation of questions that can effectively measure what students have learned in each phase of the lesson.

• Sometimes there is more value in exploring how a student arrived at an answer, as opposed to focusing on the correctness of the final response

• High functioning classes create high levels of student engagement. When examining answering patterns, it is important to note that calling on the eager kid makes the achievement gap worse.

3. Providing feedback that moves learning forward

• Feedback needs to be constructive and specific in order to be effective

• Just giving a score as a form of feedback may do more harm than good.

– It may create frustration– It may lower student confidence– Some students may get defensive or shut

down

• There is evidence that giving comments without scores results in higher levels of student achievement

• “Never grade students while they are still learning”– Alfred Kohn

4. Activating learners as instructional resources for one another

• There are 4 main reasons why well-designed cooperative learning activities substantially improve student achievement:

1. Motivation: Students must see that helping their peers is in their self interest.

2. Social Cohesion: Students help their peers because they care about the group.

3. Personalization: Students learn more because the more able students engage with those that are struggling with certain concepts.

4. Cognitive Elaboration: Being forced to teach a concept forces the helper student to clarify the idea in her own mind.

5. Activating students as owners of their own learning

• Teachers cannot create learning, only learners can.

• Teachers can create opportunities for students to learn for themselves.

• If teachers can’t force students to learn, then why are teachers, schools and districts sanctioned rather than students?

• Students can develop insights into their own learning in order to improve it.

• Both metacognition and motivation are required in order for students to become self regulated learners.

Read Aloud /Think Aloud: A practical EFA for improving reading skills

oThe Read Aloud/Think Aloud strategy is one that I picked up from WestEd’s Reading Apprenticeship Program.

oThere are two pillars of Reading Apprenticeship:

oExtensive in-class reading opportunities

oThe use of metacognition strategies

“Why should I teach reading?”

•It gives our students better access to the curriculum

•It improves reading levels

•Improved student comprehension ability

•Reading attack skills are transferable into several other areas

•It’s a vital academic skill that becomes more crucial as our students continue their education.

•It better prepares them for Common Core

A quick confession:

About half of my A.P.U.S.H. students refuse to read for homework.

Many of my A.P. kids read below grade level and a majority of my C.P. students are below grade level. As a result, at least half of my students in all of my classes may experience frustration with reading the assigned text.

I have often worked from the assumption that I have to compensate for their reluctance to read, by supplementing what they were supposed to have read with lecture and online video summaries.

Therefore, at the beginning of implementing this program, I had to establish the relevancy of reading for my current students.

Reading Questions

1. In what way does your school promote reading?2. Do you believe that your student’s generation

reads more or less than your own? Explain why3. In what ways is reading still a survival skill?4. What limits does illiteracy place on you?5. Are there historical examples of how keeping

people illiterate helped preserve the power of the oppressors?

6. How can good readers benefit from becoming better readers?

7. How many pages per week does a full time college student read?

8. In what way would increasing student reading levels improve their scores on summative assessments like DIAs, OARS and Smarter Balance Tests?

How to Bartle Puzballs

There are tork gooboos of puzballs, including laplies, mushos, and fushos. Even if you bartle the puzballs that tvo inny and onny of the pern, they do not grunto any lipples. In order to geemee a puzball that gruntos lipples, you should bartle the fusho who has rarckled the parshtootoos after her humply fluflu.

How to Bartle Puzballs

1. How many gooboos of puzballs are there?

2. What are the laplies, mushos, and fushos?

3. Even if you bartle the puzballs that tovo inny and onny of the pern, they still will not what?

4. How can you geemee a puzball that gruntos lipples?

O.A. How to Bartle Puzballs

1. How many gooboos of puzballs are there?A: There are tork gooboos of puzballs.

2. What are the laplies, mushos, and fushos?A: Laplies, mushos, and fushos are types of

puzballs3. Even if you bartle the puzballs that tovo inny

and onny of the pern, they still will not what?A: They will not grunto any lipples.4. How can you geemee a puzball that gruntos

lipples?A: You should bartle the fusho who has rarckled

her parshtootoos after her humply fluflu.

o Sadly, this is one way I have tried to assess whether or not my students comprehended the reading material.

o Students can receive a perfect score by figuring out the answers from context, but since the paragraph is gibberish, they have learned nothing!

o Reading is more than decoding letters, words or even deciphering, “correct” answers.

o Reading must include comprehension.

o To truly comprehend, the reader must engage in reading by turning on their internal dialogue with the text.

o Along with extensive in-class reading opportunities, becoming aware of that internal dialogue (metacognition) is one of the pillars of the Reading Apprenticeship program.

o This is an in-class technique I have used with every level of my U.S. History classes (CP, Honors and AP).

Facts in the text

Read Aloud/Think Aloud T-List

Shared out thoughts

Sample Text from Dylan Wiliam’s book Embedded Formative Assessment (p.3)

Why Educational Achievement Matters

“Educational achievement matters—more now than at any time in the past. It matters for individuals, and it matters for society. For individuals, higher levels of education mean higher earnings, better health, lower health care costs, lower criminal justice costs, and increased economic growth. In this chapter, we will explore why education is vital to the prosperity of every nation and why the vast majority of attempts by policymakers to improve the achievement of school students has failed.”

Using Plickers as an Embedded Formative Assessment Tool

https://plickers.com/

What are Plickers and how can they help us?

• Plickers technology very closely resembles the iclickers format

– You can create multiple choice questions to get immediate feedback on student understanding.

– You can vary the DOK level of your questions

– The data is arranged on a bar graph

• The advantage of Plickers:– You don’t need to check out iclickers

– Your students don’t need to bring any devices

– All you need is a computer and a smart phone, or wireless ipad or tablet

– The app is free, all you need to do is download it, create your class rosters and print one class set of plickers cards.

– There are great online tutorials

Let’s See it in Action

Limitations

• Synching your iphone or ipad to your computer can be a little tricky– Your phone or tablet need to be on the

same wireless network as your computer• As of this year, Plickers can’t do cumulative

totals for individual students– However, their site does include a link

where teachers can suggest improvements for the next version, and several teachers have already requested adding this feature.

Implications

• Its great for immediate feedback• It can be used for test review• It’s a quick way to re-teach the standards during

the embedded intervention period• It can be used for scoring group team review

competitions– Each group gets their own numbered card

– Teams can discretely post their answer without any other group knowing their response

• It can be used for polling– Good for gauging student interest when

forming groups for project based learning.