Rethinking Classroom Assessment With Purpose in Mind

Lorna M. Earl, Ph.D.3219 Yonge St. Suite # 240 Toronto ON M4N 3S1

aporia@attglobal.nettel 4 1 6 . 6 8 6 . 2 2 7 9 fax 4 1 6 . 6 8 6 . 4 1 6 2

Assessment for Learning Assessment as Learning Assessment of Learning

Rethinking Classroom Assessment With Purpose in Mind

2006Western and Northern CanadianProtocol for Collaboration in Education

www.wncp.ca, classroom assessment

What is AfL?

In your own words, describe AfL.–

Write it on the sticky note on your table and stick it in the front of your packet.

Overview

Why Rethink Classroom Assessment?Assessment, Learning and Motivation Purposes of Classroom AssessmentMaking the ChangeGetting There

Why Change Classroom Assessment?

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Societal Changes–

Classroom Assessment, Learning and Motivation?

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Using Classroom Assessment for Differentiated Learning?

History of Assessment

Plato Trade Guilds Industrial Revolution and Legislated

Universal EducationHigh Quality Education for All

3 Powerful Insights about How People Learn (National Research Council)

•

People come to learning with preconceptions about how the world works. If their initial understanding is not engaged, they may fail to grasp the new concepts and information that are taught or may learn them superficially and revert to their preconceptions in real situations.

Assessment, Learning and Motivation

Jojo Story

3 Powerful Insights about How People Learn (National Research Council)

•

To develop competence in an area of inquiry, people must:•

have a deep foundation of factual knowledge

•

understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework

•

organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application

Using Assessment to Differentiate LearningFrom “Deficit” Explanations Of Diversity To “Inclusive”

Strategies For All

Deficit Paradigm Inclusion ParadigmWhat’s wrong with the child What’s wrong with the environmentFocus on deficits Focus on strategiesPrescriptive MalleableDiagnoses diversity Values diversityTolerates differences Embraces differencesReliance on external expert Teacher/parent/student as expert Professionalized Personalized

(adapted from Philpott et al., 2004)

Emergent Proficient

No practical experience. Dependent on rules.

Expects definitive answers. Some recognition of patterns. Limited experience. Still relies on rules.

Analytical. Locates and considers possible patterns. Has internalized the key dimensions so that they are automatic.

Uses analysis and synthesis. Sees the whole rather than aspects. Looks for links and patterns. Adjusts to adapt to the context.

Understands the context. Has a holistic grasp of relationships. Considers alternatives in an iterative way and integrates ideas into efficient solutions. Solves problems and makes ongoing adaptations automatically.

Stages in Growth from Emergent to Proficient

3 Powerful Insights about How People Learn (National Research Council)

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A “metacognitive”

approach to instruction can help people learn to take control of their own learning by defining learning goals and monitoring their own progress in achieving them.

BREAK

Purposes of Classroom Assessment

Assessment for learningAssessment as learningAssessment of learningBalance and Tensions in Assessment Purposes

FOR OF

FOR AS OF

Assessment For LearningAssessment for learning is designed to give teachers information to modify the teaching and learning activities in which students are engaged in order to differentiate and focus how individual students approach their learning. It suggests that students are all learning in individual and idiosyncratic ways, while recognizing that there are predictable patterns and pathways that many students go through. The emphasis is on teachers using the information from carefully-designed assessments to determine not only what students know, but also to gain insights into how, when, and whether students use what they know, so that they can streamline and target instruction and resources.

Assessment As LearningAssessment as learning emphasizes using assessment as a process of developing and supporting metacognition for students. Assessment as learning focuses on the role of the student as the critical connector between assessment and learning. Students, as active, engaged and critical assessors make sense of information, relate it to prior knowledge, and use it for new learning. This is the regulatory process in metacognition. It occurs when students personally monitor what they are learning and use the feedback from this monitoring to make adjustments, adaptations and even major changes in what they understand. When teachers focus on assessment as learning, they use classroom assessment as the vehicle for helping students develop, practice and become comfortable with reflection and with critical analysis of their own learning.

Assessment Of Learning

Assessment of learning is assessment used to confirm what students know, to demonstrate whether or not the students have met the standards and/or show how they are placed in relation to others. In assessment of learning, teachers concentrate on ensuring that they have used assessment to provide accurate and sound statements of proficiency or competence for students, so that the recipients of the information can use the information to make reasonable and defensible decisions.

Shifting the Balance Among Assessment Purposes

Task – What are the properties of AfL

Think of the last good lesson you gave or observedList the properties of that lesson that make you think it had good AfL practice?In your groups share your propertiesList shared properties on the chart paper

Properties of Assessment For Learning1.

Clarity of Purpose

2.2.

Explicit Learning ProgressionExplicit Learning Progression3.

Intended Transparency of Current Knowledge

4.

Pedagogical Next Steps Informed by Evidence5.

Students’

Next Steps as Informed by Evidence

6.

Assessment supports Meta-Cognition Development

7.7.

Multiplicity and IntentionalityMultiplicity and Intentionality8.

Assessment Differentiates

9.9.

IntegrationIntegration

Learning How to Swim

Saad's learning how to swim progression.

Glide

Floating, breathing,

comfortable in water

Glide & flutter kick

Gliding with a flutter kick &

breathing

Gliding with a flitter kick & breathing

Arms, kicking, breathing every

stroke

Full Front Crawl

Explicit Learning Progression: Description

There are explicit links to learning expectations that describe the road to proficiencyClear and explicit curriculum linksClear and explicit learning progressionStudents understand expectationsTeachers can target instructional supports

Multiplicity and Intentionality

Is this purple?

Multiplicity and Intentionality

Assessment for Learning activities are intentional and plannedStudents’ learning is made transparentAfL draws on multiple forms of

evidence

Integration

Assessment for learning is an integrated process rather than an isolated eventAssessment is seamless with teaching and learningThe properties are tightly correlatedIntegration is hard to see

Task - The Assessment Story

Guided Reading

Assessment As Learning – The Ultimate Purpose

We must constantly remind ourselves that the ultimate purpose of evaluation is to enable students to evaluate themselves. Educators may have been practicing this skill to the exclusion of the learners. We need to shift part of this responsibility to students. Fostering students’ ability to direct and redirect themselves must be a major goal—or what is education for?Costa (1989)

For students to be able to improve, they must develop the capacity to monitor the quality of their own work during actual production. This in turn requires that students possess an appreciation of what high quality work is, that they have the evaluative skill necessary for them to compare with some objectivity the quality of what they are producing in relation to the higher standard, and that they develop a store of tactics or moves which can be drawn upon to modify their own work.

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Sadler, 1989

Task – Assessment For Learning Guidelines

Individually, complete the Assessment for Learning Guidelines Task Sheet

Discuss the guidelines and your examples in your group

Levels of Learning

New learning for the adults in schools and beyond

Learning Imperatives for You

In groups:–

What Do WeWe

Need to Learn?

Making the ChangeChanging Minds–

Schools are for learning

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Assessment is a significant part of learning

Changing Practices–

Learning at the core

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Teaching each student “just in time”

to maximise learning and minimise misconceptions

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Feedback for learning–

Communication to ourselves, to students, to parents, to the community

Getting There

Think About What You Believe To Be TrueLearn About LearningKnow Your SubjectBe An Expert TeacherWork TogetherBe Gentle With Yourself; But, Don't Give upSelf-monitoring and Self-Development For You TooGet The Support You NeedPut it All Together

If you make a change and it feels comfortable, you haven’t made a change.

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Lee Trevino

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful and committed citizens can change the world. In fact, it has never happened any other way.

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Margaret Mead