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

Why, in 2010, are we re examining our assessment beliefs and practices?

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Changing Goals

Mean 3

Changing Goals

Range of Competent Achievement 4

If the new goal of education is success for all, then we have no choice but to Differentiate 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 5

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 6 Crooks, 1988; Black & Wiliam, 1998

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 13

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 15

“…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 16

Time to

Talk About Assessment

 Discuss the distinction between assessment

for

learning” and “assessment

of

learning” as it relates to your current practice 17

The Big Ideas of Classroom Assessment

2. Assessment must be planned and purposeful.

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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 19

Plan Backward from What’s Essential…

Worth being familiar with Important to know and do Enduring understandings

Wiggins and McTighe, Understanding by Design 20

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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Grade 1.

Ensuring a Balance of “Write”, “Do”, and “Say” 24

Triangulation of Data: Classroom Assessment

Performance task Written test data Valid & Reliable Picture of Student Achievement Oral defense/ conference 25

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. 29

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 36

The Big Ideas of Classroom Assessment

7. Performance standards are an essential component of effective assessment. 37

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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 at this time?”

of

learning: i.e. Ask, “What set of indicators best describes this student’s overall performance 41

Assessment for Learning

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Assessment of Learning

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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. 44

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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From Rubrics to Grades

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  Provides evidence of the essential learning in the subject  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  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  Develop common, high quality scoring tools that capture the essential indicators of quality performance  Establish the criteria by which each task will be assessed  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 2.

effective assessment practices as described in 250 studies in the UK, the US, Australia, Switzerland, Hong Kong and Africa. 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.

7.

O’Connor, Ken.

How to Grade for Learning 3 rd . Edition

, Skylight, 2009 A solid treatment of the grading dilemmas that arise in intermediate and senior grades. 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.