k-12 classroom practices for using student-involved assessment bruce herzog & joni heutink grade...
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K-12 Classroom Practices for Using Student-Involved Assessment
Bruce Herzog & Joni Heutink
Grade 5 Teachers/Trainers/Consultants
Nooksack Elementary
Nooksack Valley School District
Some kids come to school to slay the dragon…
some come to be slain.
Student-involved assessment practices build student confidence and have the greatest impact on low-achieving students.
Why should I believe that there is a connection between student -involved assessment practices and student achievement?
Black & Wiliam (1998) International Research ReviewBlack & Wiliam (1998) International Research Review0.5 to 1.0 Standard Deviation Score Gain0.5 to 1.0 Standard Deviation Score GainLargest Gain for Low AchieversLargest Gain for Low Achievers
Bloom (1984) Mastery Learning ResearchBloom (1984) Mastery Learning Research1.0 to 2.0 S.D. Gain1.0 to 2.0 S.D. GainRivals Impact of One-on-One TutoringRivals Impact of One-on-One Tutoring
Rodriguez (2004)Rodriguez (2004)0.5 to 1.8 S.D. Gain0.5 to 1.8 S.D. Gain
Effect of Reducing Class SizeEffect of Reducing Class Size0.2 S.D. Gain0.2 S.D. Gain
1.0 Standard Deviation Equals:
35 Percentile Points on ITBS 35 Percentile Points on ITBS
2 to 4 Grade Equivalents2 to 4 Grade Equivalents
100 SAT Score Points100 SAT Score Points
5 ACT Score Points5 ACT Score Points
U.S. TIMMS Rank from 22 of 41 to Top 5U.S. TIMMS Rank from 22 of 41 to Top 5
Potential Elimination of Score GapsPotential Elimination of Score Gaps
Unprecedented Achievement GainsUnprecedented Achievement Gains
Key Element #1Establishing Clear Learning Targets:
Good assessment practices begin with students having a clear understanding of the specific learning targets they are expected to meet.
“Students can hit any target that is clear and that holds still for them.”
Rick Stiggins
The learning targets need to be clear to the teacher and to the students:
• What do students need to know/do?
• How well do they need to know/do it?
• How will you know they know?
• How will you get them there?
• What will you do when they fail?
Instruction should focus primarily on the Grade Level Expectations (GLEs).
Procedural directions are not the same thing as learning targets.
Understanding by Design (UbD) is a great model for developing clear learning targets.
• Essential Questions
• Enduring Understandings
• Vocabulary
• Activities
• Assessments (evidence of learning)
Probability (GLE 1.4.1)
Essential Questions:
• How do you determine the likelihood of an event?
• What is the difference between mathematical and experimental probability?
• What mathematical notation is used to to express probability?
• What makes a game fair or unfair?
Enduring Understandings:
• Probability is the chance that an event will occur out of all possible events.
• The actual outcome of an event may differ from its mathematical probability.
• Probability can be expressed as a fraction or as a number out of a total number.
• A game is fair if the outcome for all players has an equal mathematical probability.
Vocabulary:Certain More Likely/ProbableEqually Likely/Probable Less Likely/Probable ImpossiblePossible Outcomes Mathematical Probability Actual OutcomeExperimental Probability Experimental Outcome Fair/Unfair
Activities and Assessments
To clarify the learning target use:
• Examples and non-examples
• Models
• Rubrics
• Scoring guides
• Test specification guides
Grade 1 and 2
Grade 2 and 3 morning calendar
Grade 5 work examples
Grade 4 behavior targets
Do your students know what they
need to know and do they know
whether or not they know it?
Key Element #2Engaging Students in Formative
Assessment Activities:
Throughout a unit of instruction students engage in practice and risk-taking activities and receive feedback that will help them move toward meeting the learning targets.
Formative Assessment is individualized assessment FOR learning.
Formative Assessment tells a student what he or she needs to do next to improve.
Every student needs to be able to answer the question, “What do I need to do next to improve my own work?”
Students need to be given multiple “next” opportunities to practice, experiment, and, ultimately, show growth.
Good feedback is less like a
grade and more like advice.
NON-SPECIFIC FEEDBACK • produces no changes in learning
SPECIFIC FEEDBACK • produces positive changes in learning
SPECIFIC FEEDBACK & STUDENT SELF-EVALUATION
• produces the most positive changes in learning
What the Research Says:
• minimum 7% achievement gain (Lysakowski & Walberg, 1981)
• maximum 41% achievement gain (Kumar, 1991)
• average 35% achievement gain (nine studies, 1981-1999)
It’s OK to grade daily work or homework for the purpose of informing students of work quality or accuracy, but those grades should seldom, if ever, be used to determine a student’s grade in that subject.
The teacher frequently conferences individually with students about their work.
The teacher provides opportunities for students to assess anonymous samples of work, their own work, and each other’s work.
The teacher creates an atmosphere of trust within the classroom where students feel free to take risks.
Are you just giving feedback?
Or are you taking time to “feed forward?”
Key Element #3Using High Quality Summative
Assessments:
The teacher uses a variety of high quality assessments that best measures the learning of their students.
Summative Assessment is assessment OF learning that has already occurred.
Grades are always summative!
Tell students, in advance, how they will be assessed, when they will be assessed, how the assessment will be graded, and what the consequences for failing to meet the learning targets will be.
Never give a summative assessment without advance warning; no pop quizzes or “gotcha” tests.
Use summative assessments that reflect the stated learning targets (no surprises).
Good, teacher-created tests are better than commercially-produced tests because they can focus more precisely on the learning targets.
Give students the results of summative assessments in a timely manner.
What the Research Says:
• feedback immediately after item: 7% achievement gain
• feedback immediately after test: 26% achievement gain
• feedback delayed after test: 21% achievement gain
Discuss the results of summative assessments with students so they can use the results to plan and guide their own learning.
Every test should also be used as a learning activity.
Use summative assessments as opportunities for students to reflect on their own performance
The problem:My answer:The correct answer:What I did wrong:
What the Research Says:
• right/wrong answer: 3% loss in achievement
• correct answer: 9% achievement gain
• explanation: 20% achievement gain
Whenever possible, whenever any student fails to meet of any of the learning targets the teacher should provide opportunities for additional instruction and practice and should then reassess that student.
What do you teach that you
don’t want 100% of your
students to learn?
What the Research Says:
• when students repeat until correct: 20% achievement gain
Conducting frequent summative assessments:
• Lets students know how they’re doing.
• Identifies student misconceptions.
• Provides information for progress reports.
• Identifies students who need extra help.
• Minimizes the amount of content to reteach.
• Makes students accountable for learning.
Classroom assessments paint a more accurate picture of student achievement than district or state assessments:
• They occur more frequently.
• They cover a specific range of material.
• They are often more authentic.
• They use a greater variety of types of assessment.
• The assessor knows the students.
• They can be individualized.
Key Element #4Involving Students in Goal-
Setting and Reflection:
Students set goals and reflect on their learning as it progresses and communicate their understanding to others.
“Self assessment by pupils, far from being a luxury, is in fact an essential component of formative assessment.”
Black & Wiliam, 1998
Students must be taught how to set realistic goals.
A goal without a plan is just a wish.
Students must be held accountable for making progress toward meeting their goals.
What the Research Says:
• minimum 18% achievement gain (Walberg, 1999)
• maximum 41% achievement gain (Wise & Okey, 1983)
• average 24.5% achievement gain (three studies, 1983-1999)
A key premise is that, for students to be able to improve, they must have the capacity to monitor the quality of their own work during actual production.
Royce Sadler, Australia, 1989
Portfolios of student work allow students to monitor their progress over time.
A portfolio without student reflections is just a scrapbook.
Ruth Sutton
Key Element #5Communicating About Student
Achievement:
Students are the primary users of assessment information and, as such, they regularly communicate about their achievement.
When students keep portfolios with self reflections they can see the quality of their work change over time.
Result? Success is within reach.
When students lead or participate in parent/teacher conferences they gain a greater sense of responsibility and pride in their accomplishments.
Result? Greater achievement
Involving students in conferences sends a powerful message to students that they are responsible for their own learning.
Student-Involved Conferences
Don’t have to be student led.
Parents want to hear from the teacher.
Don’t take more time than traditional conferences.
Can look different in different classrooms.
Need to be by direction, not by invitation.
Provide an opportunity to model communication.
Allow teachers to “publicly” recognize students.
May require some system changes.
Key Element #6Using Fair Grading Practices:
Grades are based on ample evidence that accurately reflects a student’s level of achievement in specific subjects, performances, products, or skills.
Most computer grading programs convert scores to percents and then average those percents to arrive at a grade.
4 = 88% - 100% exceeding standard
5 = 75% - 87% meeting standard
6 = 62% - 74% not meeting standard
1 = 50% - 61% significantly below standard
The NVSD K-5 Grading Scale
Students need to understand classroom grading practices.
4 = 88% - 100% 18-2014-16 11-12
5 = 75% - 87% 15-1712-13 9-10
6 = 62% - 74% 13-1410-11 8
1 = 50% - 61% 10-12 8-9 6-7
Using Points and Percents
20 points 16 points 12 points
For all tests use the smallest sample possible that covers all aspects of the learning target.
Separate knowledge/comprehension application/analysis and synthesis/evaluation tests.
Creating Summative Assessments
2 1 2 3 2 3 4 3
Average = 2
Most-Recent Evidence = 3
It’s OK to use averaging to calculate a student’s grade, but only when averaging gives a result that accurately reflects achievement.
All grades must be justifiable.
(measurement theory says that you need at least 3 pieces of good evidence for triangulation)
There are no right grades - only justifiable grades
Teaching is like trying to row a boat across a lake with one student at a time.
• Some kids will help you row.
• Some kids will make you do all the rowing.
• Some kids will try and jump out.
Student-involved assessment practices force students to grab the oars!
In a standards based system grades are criterion referenced and not norm referenced.(student achievement is measured against a standard
- students are not compared to each other)
Nooksack’s K-8 Grading Scale:
4: exceeding grade level standards
3: meeting grade level standards
2: not meeting grade level standards
1: significantly below grade level standards
Grades are motivating for some students.
A student’s grades belong to that student.
Teach students the connection between effort and achievement.
A grade, by itself, cannot communicate the complexity of the learning that has occurred.
Grades, by themselves, give students LITTLE useful information and do LITTLE to improve student learning.
A grade should NOT reflect effort, improvement, extra credit, attitude, absences, or late or missing assignments.
(these should all be reported elsewhere)
Not everything needs to be graded.(everything counts, but everything
doesn’t need to go into the grade book)
Put grades into your gradebook in pencil - not in permanent ink.
DON’T grade pre-test, practice, risk-taking, or
formative tasks.
DON’T give group grades for cooperative work.
DON’T factor late work, effort, or improvement
into achievement grades.
DON’T give achievement grades for homework
or other work that you can’t be sure
was completed by the student alone.
Extra Credit
A student’s grade should not go up simply because that student has done extra work.
A student’s grade should go up if doing that extra work results in higher achievement.
Get rid of the zero score.
What does a “C” mean?
All grading is subjective.
GOOD PRACTICES REGARDING GRADING
• Use the most-recent evidence.
• Use the most-comprehensive forms of evidence.
• Use evidence that reflects the most important learning goals.
• Use only selective, representative grades.
When using any grading scale, the highest possible score needs to be within reach of all students.
(the “achievable” 4)
When using any grading
scale, all the scores on
the scale need to be
available to all students.
When using any grading scale, the divisions between grades need to be equal.
(a “fair” grading scale)
An adopted grading scale provides a consistent standard for determining grades, but ultimately it is the teacher who decides the grading standard for each assessment because it is the teacher who chooses how many questions to ask, what type of questions to include, the level of difficulty of the questions, and what constitutes “meeting the standard.”
(remember: all grading is subjective)
What standard do you set for your students?
…your airline pilot?
…your surgeon?
More importantly, what standard do your students set for themselves?
…your hairdresser?
The grading standards for each subject, performance, product, or skill should be consistent within and across grade levels.
Consistent standards can only be achieved through collaboration.
A student’s classroom grades should predict that student’s level of achievement on state and district assessments.
The grades a student receives can have a tremendous impact on that student’s life - especially in high school.
Good grading practices are important, but you don’t fatten a pig by weighing it!
Student-Involved Classroom Assessment:
Anything you do that helps students:
• Understand learning targets.
• Engage in self-assessment.
• Watch themselves grow.
• Talk about their growth.
• Plan the next steps in their learning.
Everyone Wins
• Students
• Teachers
• Parents
• Administrators
• More accurate assessments
• Stronger desire to learn
• Increased achievement
• Accountability for performance