presented by damian cooper and ken o connor · damian cooper • school teacher for more than 30...

Assessment and Grading for Student Achievement

Presented by Damian Cooper and Ken O’Connor

Introduction to Presenters

• Damian Cooper, author and educational consultant

• Ken O’Connor, author and educational consultant, Assess for Success Consulting

Course Goals

• To explore how assessment can improve learning for all students, not merely measure it

• Understand how the purposes of assessment and grading are shifting

• Understand the impact of these shifts for teachers, students, parents, and administrators

• To review current relevant research about assessment and grading

• To discover why students should be involved in their own assessment

• To discuss the critical role of setting and communicating standards

Course Goals, Cont’d

• To pursue clarity about the purpose of grades

• To understand how to develop grades that are accurate, consistent, meaningful, and supportive of learning

Unit 1: Rethinking Assessment for the 21st Century

Unit Objectives

• To consider how and why assessment needs to change to meet the demands of the 21st century

• To consider the two essential purposes of assessment• Assessment to improve learning• Assessment to measure learning

Damian Cooper

• School teacher for more than 30 years

• Runs his own consulting company• Runs parent sessions• A parent himself

The First of Two Goals

1. To do everything he can to make sure that assessment is good for students, i.e.,a. To promote learningb. To control for biasc. To be flexible

The Second of Two Goals

2. To help teachers be more efficient in their assessment practices

An Assessment

The Implications

• Engage students with something clever and relevant

• Invite small-group discussion to engage students in social learning and to share prior knowledge

Diagnostic Assessment

The Workshop’s Issues

• Time and time management• Differentiation of assessment• Whether and how to apply achievement levels to very

young children• Weighting • Grades as measures as progress, growth, or

achievement• Organizing assessment data• How much data is sufficient?• How to achieve consistency without undermining

autonomy

Why, in 2011, are we re-examining our assessment beliefs and practices? What

is our mission?

Mission: To Sift and Sort Students

Mean

Mission: Excellence from All

Range of Competent Achievement


Mean

Assessment for, of, and as Learning

Assessment for learning• Improves learning• Pre-, diagnostic, initial, and formative• Promotes learning

Assessment of learning• Measures learning• Summative, sometimes synonymous with evaluation

Assessment as learning• The students’ work

Assessment for Learning

“Assessment for learning is any assessment for which the first priority in its design and practice is to serve the purpose of promoting students’ learning. It thus differs from assessment designed primarily to serve the purposes of accountability, or of ranking, or of certifying competence.”

Black, Wiliam et al. 2004

Different Assessment Purposes

Assessment for Learning Assessment of Learning

Tryouts GamesPractices Playoffs

• Assessment for learning is like the coach giving feedback to athletes; it happens when students are trying out and practicing

• Assessment of learning is the game itself; but there must be enough games before evaluating the players

• Keep the scores off feedback

Assessment for Learning

“Assessment for learning is any assessment for which the first priority in its design and practice is to serve the purpose of promoting students’ learning. It thus differs from assessment designed primarily to serve the purposes of accountability, or of ranking, or of certifying competence.”


Assessment of Learning

“Assessment of learning includes those tasks that are designed to determine how much learning has occurred after a significant period of instruction. The data from such assessments is often used to determine report card grades.”


Formative Assessment = Assessment for Learning

• Greater impact than summative assessment on improving student learning

• Most effective when in the form of descriptive feedback, not marks or scores

Classroom Example: Formative Assessment

Working with Younger Students

• The emphasis on points and marks does not exist

• Young students never ask, “Does this count? For how much? Will this be on the test?”

• Can we—should we—turn our classrooms into centers of learning, as they often are in early childhood?

Professional Learning Communities

• How to ensure we are lifelong learners?

• How to ensure that our schools are professional learning communities?

Research on Effective Assessment

•The provision of effective feedback to students

•The active involvement of students in their own learning

•Adjusting teaching to take account of the results of assessment

•Recognition of the profound influence assessment has on motivation and self-esteem

•The need for students to be able to assess themselves and understand how to improve

Crooks, 1988; Black & Wiliam, 1998

Classroom Example: Assessment

The Big Ideas of Classroom Assessment

1. Assessment serves different purposes at different times: it may be used to find out what students already know and can do; it may be used to help students improve their learning; or it may be used to let students, and their parents, know how much they have learned within a prescribed period of time.

2. Assessment must be planned and purposeful.

3. Assessment must be balanced, including oral and performance as well as written tasks, and be flexible in order to improve learning for all students.


4. Assessment and instruction are inseparable because effective assessment informs learning.

5. For assessment to be helpful to students, it must inform them in words, not numerical scores or letter grades, what they have done well, what they have done poorly, and what they need to do next in order to improve.

6. Assessment is a collaborative process that is most effective when it involves self, peer, and teacher assessment.


7. Performance standards are an essential component of effective assessment.

8. Grading and reporting student achievement is a caring, sensitive process that requires teachers’ professional judgment.

presented by damian cooper and ken o connor · damian cooper • school teacher for more than 30...

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