Formative-Assessment Practice Progressions: Lessons from

FAME

Amelia Wenk Gotwals, Dante Cisterna, Dawnmarie Ezzo, Joanne Philhower, and Edward Roeber"

#MSUEd"

FAME: Formative Assessment for Michigan Educators"

•  State-wide professional development focused on promoting formative assessment"

•  Formative assessment (assessment for learning)"

•  Locally-based/formed PLCs led by a facilitator (coach)"

#MSUEd"

Formative Assessment"“…process used by teachers and students during instruction that provides feedback to adjust ongoing teaching and learning to improve students’ achievement of intended instructional outcomes” (CCSSO, 2008, p.3)""What does this look like in different classrooms?"

Practice Progressions"•  Progressions: frameworks that describe

the successively more sophisticated ways of thinking about an idea (or development of a teaching practice) over a broad span of time (NRC, 2007) "

•  Development: Top-down & Bottom-up"

Validity Evidence for Progressions"

•  Compatibility with current research: Build on findings about learning and best practices à Literature Review"

•  Conceptual coherence: Logical story of how mastery develops in a domain à Sequencing of levels"

•  Empirical validation: Video evidence of practice"

Anderson,  2008  

3 Main Dimensions"1.  Use of learning targets: Where are we going?"

1.  Student-friendly learning targets (criterion, conditions, appropriateness)"

2.  Eliciting student understanding: Where am I now?"1.  Questioning (types, strategies, use)"2.  Self assessment"

3.  Closing the gap: How do we get there?"1.  Feedback (feedback loops, peer assessment)"2.  Instructional decisions (adjustments, data use,

activating prior knowledge)"

Sadler,  1989;  Ha4e  &  Temperley,  2007  **  Student  involvement  

Questioning Strategies"•  Level 1: Mainly “Guessing games” (Kennedy, 2005)"

•  Level 2: Mainly I-R-E (Cazden & Mehen, 1990) or I-R-R (Kennedy, 2005)"

•  Level 3: Mainly “funneling questions” (Wood, 1998)

but some higher or lower…"

•  Level 4: Mainly I-R-probes (Kennedy, 2005), reflective toss (van Zee & Minstrell, 1997) , focusing (Wood, 1998) "

Types of Questions"•  Level 1: Low Depth of Knowledge (DoK)

(Webb, 2005)/ Cognitive load; no push for explanation"

•  Level 2: Mainly low DoK, but some push for explanation"

•  Level 3: Mix of questions (middle to higher DoK)"

•  Level 4: Mix of questions, but mainly higher DoK; push students to explain"

Empirical Validation"

•  Elementary,  Middle  and  High-­‐School  teachers  •  MathemaFcs,  Science,  ELA,  Spanish,  Social  Studies,  Personal  RelaFons  

4th grade math"

A video clip of a 4th grade classroom!

Student Lens"•  Need to focus not only on teachers’ practices,

but also on students’ engagement with the teaching and the learning taking place"

•  Learning targets"•  Lower end: Students do not seem to be aware of

the learning target"•  Upper End: Student uses the language of the

learning target in discussing his/her performance OR Student asks for clarification of the learning target during a discussion "

Students and Learning Targets"

Video clips of students talking about learning targets!"

Lesson Learned"•  Challenges/Lessons learned à iterative design"•  Formative assessment vs. good instruction"•  Content/context-specific"

•  A “student lens”?"•  Critical piece"•  Methodological issues"

#MSUEd"

Next Steps"•  Practice Progressions – necessary, but

insufficient, tools for supporting teachers"•  Moving to a “teacher-friendly” version of the

progression"•  Grain size of progressions"

•  Embedded within a system of support"•  Consideration of the student lens""