talk about assessment: eight big ideas to improve learning for all students
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Talk About Assessment: Eight Big Ideas to Improve Learning for All Students. NESA Winter Training Institute New Delhi, January 30-31, 2010. Damian Cooper (905) 823-6298 [email protected]. Why, in 2010, are we re-examining our assessment beliefs and practices?. Changing Goals. Mean. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Talk About Assessment: Eight Big Ideas
to Improve Learning for All Students
Damian Cooper
(905) 823-6298
NESA Winter Training InstituteNew Delhi, January 30-31, 2010
If the new goal of education is success for all, then we have no choice but toDifferentiate Instruction & Assessment
Instruction Students bring different
knowledge & experience to school
Students learn at different rates
Students learn in different ways
Assessment Not all students are
able to demonstrate their learning in the same way
Not all students respond the same way to test pressure
Some students need more scaffolding than others
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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 6
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.
The Big Ideas of Classroom Assessment
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.
The Big Ideas of Classroom 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 judgement.
Time to Talk About Assessment
Review these Big Ideas with your colleagues.
Which one of the Big Ideas is currently LEAST evident in your classroom or school?
Which one of the Big Ideas is currently MOST evident in your classroom or school?
Let’s examine the data!
Four Conditions for Sustainable Improvement
Focus
Pressure and support
Collaboration
Stay the course
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.
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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
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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.
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When the classroom culture focuses on rewards, gold stars, grades, or class ranking, then (students) look for ways to obtain the best marks rather than to improve their learning. One reported consequence is that, when they have any choice, (students) avoid difficult tasks. They also spend time and energy looking for clues to the “right answer”. “Inside the Black Box”, Black & Wiliam, 1998
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“…assessment which is explicitly designed to promote learning is the single most powerful tool we have for both raising standards and empowering lifelong
learners.”
Assessment for Learning: Beyond the Black Box, 1999, University of Cambridge School of Education
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Time to Talk About Assessment
Discuss the distinction between assessment for learning” and “assessment of learning” as it relates to your current practice
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“Backward Design” Program Planning
Stage 1: Identify targeted understandings
Stage 2: Determine appropriate assessment of those understandings
Stage 3: Plan learning experiences and instruction that make such
understanding possible
Wiggins and McTighe, Understanding by Design
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Plan Backward from What’s Essential…
Worth being
familiar with
Important to know and do
Enduring understandings
Wiggins and McTighe,
Understanding by Design
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Plan Backward from What’s Essential…
Worth being
familiar with
Important to know and do
Enduring understandings
Adapted from Wiggins and McTighe,
Understanding by Design
Assessment Types
Traditional quizzes & tests
-paper/pencil
Performance Tasks & Projects
-open-ended
-complex
-authentic
Oral Assessments
-conferences
-interviews
-oral questionning 21
The Big Ideas of Classroom Assessment
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.
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Triangulation of Data: Classroom Assessment
Valid & Reliable Picture of Student
Achievement
Performance task
Oral defense/
conference
Written test data
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You Need to Ensure a Balance of Assessment Types
Students: write, do or say
Teachers: mark, observe or listen
Authenticity is key –
change a book report
into a book review!
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The Big Ideas of Classroom Assessment
4. Assessment and instruction are inseparable because effective assessment informs learning.
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The “zone of proximal development” Lev Vygotsky
What do students currently know and what can students currently do?
Where do I want them to get to? How big is the gap? How do I ensure the gap is just right to
challenge students in a way that maximizes learning?
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The Big Ideas of Classroom Assessment
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.
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Assessment for Learning: am I already doing it?
Do I routinely share learning goals with my students so they know where we are heading?
Do I routinely communicate to students the standards they are aiming for before they begin work on a task?
Do I routinely have students self and peer assess their work in ways that improve their learning?
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Math Class Learning Goal: You will demonstrate that you
understand the relationship between the numerator and the denominator in a fraction.
At the end of the lesson, Linda points to the poster on the classroom wall and asks her students: What did you learn in this lesson today?
Their exit slip is to answer on a “leaf” and post it on the “knowledge tree”
Linda told me that the most effective AFL strategy for her has been to write the learning goal for each day’s lesson on the board.
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Assessment for Learning:am I already doing it?
Does my questioning technique include all students and promote increased understanding?
Do I routinely provide individual feedback to students that informs them how to improve?
Do I routinely provide opportunities for students to make use of this feedback to improve specific pieces of work?
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The Big Ideas of Classroom Assessment
6. Assessment is a collaborative process that is most effective when it involves self, peer, and teacher assessment.
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Math Class Pete has his students use “Traffic Light” signs at
the start of a lesson on equivalent fractions, decimals and percentages to assess prior knowledge.
Teacher: Do you know what the word “equivalent” means?
Students show either the red or green side of the “traffic light” in response.
He orally checks a sample of the “green” responses to see if they do, in fact, understand the term.
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Why Involve Students in the Assessment Process?
Students: Develop understanding of what quality work
looks like Become independent monitors of their own
work Develop skills of metacognition Develop critical thinking skills Develop communication and interpersonal
skills
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The Big Ideas of Classroom Assessment
7. Performance standards are an essential component of effective assessment.
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Using Rubrics in the Classroom Use a rubric analytically to provide feedback
to students when conducting assessment for learning:
i.e. focus on the indicators and don’t worry about the overall level
Use a rubric holistically when conducting assessment of learning:
i.e. Ask, “What set of indicators best describes this student’s overall performance at this time?”
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The Big Ideas of Classroom Assessment
8. Grading and reporting student achievement is a caring, sensitive process that requires teachers’ professional judgement.
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Grading involves summarizing a large amount of assessment of learning data into a single letter or numerical score….it has little to do with teaching and learning!
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How much evidence is “enough” for reporting?
In other words…
How do teachers ensure that the body of evidence selected for evaluation and reporting in a given subject or course is a valid sample?
What are the requirements of a “valid sample”?
No diagnostic evidence
Includes a variety of modes to allow for differences in learning style (write, do, say)
Includes multiple (3+)pieces of evidence for each learning cluster
Provides evidence of the essential learning in the subject
Tasks represent polished work:– Not practices or early
tries– Feedback has occurred
previously and been implemented
Grade/course teams need to collaborate to… Identify the set of critical
assessment tasks
Agree upon the relative weighting of each task
Establish the criteria by which each task will be assessed
Develop common, high quality scoring tools that capture the essential indicators of quality performance
Periodically engage in moderation of student work
Collect banks of exemplars, several for each level, for each task
Case Study
Marsha is a student who seems mature beyond her years. She has a sister and brother at the junior school whom she must pick up immediately after school each day. Marsha is quick to answer, debate in class, and brings an insightful perspective to daily classroom discussions. Although her daily work reflects outstanding performance, Marsha rarely completes any assignments that demand persistence over time, nor does she study for tests. If work is handed in, it is always late. The 4 major assessment tasks you have marked are all level 4, but she still owes you 3 major tasks for this term.
What does Marsha’s report
card need to communicate
to her parents ?
Guidelines for Ensuring that Critical Tasks are Completed
identify for students and parents the tasks that are essential as proof of learning
operate on the understanding that all of these must be completed to meet the requirements of the subject or course
timelines for completion of these tasks must be communicated to students and parents to facilitate students’ and teacher’s workload
conduct frequent “process” checks provide plenty of in-class time to work on
essential tasks
Guidelines for Ensuring that Critical Tasks are Completed
identify strategies for addressing non-completion of essential tasks: e.g.-completion contract-supervised learning centre-method for tracking missed tasks
have a school-wide policy concerning interim and final grade determination: e.g.-use “Incomplete” on interim report card-consistency regarding what “Incomplete” becomes on the final report card
Reporting Student Achievement
Given that it’s a crude summary of lots of information, what do we want the report card grade to represent?
The recent trend in
a student’s
achievement.
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Report Card Comments… Purpose:
• strengths, weaknesses, next steps • invitation to further discussion
Audience: non-educators Focus on quality of work, not personality
of student. Differentiate between achievement
issues and behavioural issues.
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Communicating with Parents…
When describing achievement, reference appropriate standards:– NOT other students– NOT siblings– Provincial achievement standards
Avoid all labelling of students: there are NO “A” students or “Level 4” students, only “A” performances and “Level 4” performances.
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Commitment to Action
Spend a few moments reflecting on today …. What was your most significant learning? What specific actions do you plan to take
immediately and/or between now and June 2010? Who will be involved? What results would you like to see from these
actions? How will you assess the effectiveness of these
actions?
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Suggested Reading
1. Black, Paul and Wiliam, Dylan. “Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment”, Phi Delta Kappan, October, 1998 A seminal article on the value of formative assessment that summarizes effective assessment practices as described in 250 studies in the UK, the US, Australia, Switzerland, Hong Kong and Africa.
2. Cooper, Damian. Talk About Assessment: Strategies and Tools to Improve Teaching and Learning, Nelson Education, 2007.
3. Cooper, Damian. Talk About Assessment: High School Strategies and Tools,
Nelson Education, 2010 4. Davies, Anne. Making Classroom Assessment Work, Connections Publishing,
2000 A short and very useful overview of the basics of assessment in today’s classrooms, with particular relevance to elementary schools.
5. Marzano, Robert J. Transforming Classroom Grading, ASCD, 2000
An excellent examination of past and present trends in classroom grading practice.
6. O’Connor, Ken. How to Grade for Learning 3rd. Edition, Skylight, 2009
A solid treatment of the grading dilemmas that arise in intermediate and senior grades.
7. Stiggins. Richard. Classroom Assessment for Student Learning, Assessment
Training Institute, 2004. An in-depth “textbook” for students of assessment, organized according to principles of assessment, assessment methods, and communication.
8. Wiggins, Grant. Educative Assessment, Jossey Bass, 1998
A comprehensive publication from a true expert in the field, this work provides all the background to Wiggins” approach to classroom assessment.
9. Wiggins, Grant and McTighe, Jay. Understanding By Design, ASCD, 1998
A concise and very readable guide to designing program from an assessment point of view.