Transcript Slide 1

Building Assessment
Literacy in Michigan
through Quality Common
Assessment Development
Our Mission
…is to improve student learning and achievement
through a system of coherent curriculum,
balanced assessment and effective instruction.
We do this by collaboratively:
 Promoting assessment knowledge and
practice.
 Providing professional development.
 Providing and sharing assessment tools
and products.
The Trick
…create a balanced assessment system
A Balanced Assessment System
Assessment of…
 Summative
 Norm referenced,
standardized, often teacher
created
 A snapshot in time
Assessment for…
 Formative
 Teacher-created
 A ongoing picture
 Informs classroom
practice continually
Essential Question:
What have students already
learned?
Essential Question:
How can we help students
learn more?
Our Beliefs
We believe…
 Collaboratives and consortia advance the work
 Balanced assessment is a valued enterprise
 Students are the most important users of
classroom assessment data
 Teachers and administrators must engage
students in the assessment process
Our Beliefs
We believe…
 All educators can learn to implement a balanced
assessment system
 Teachers and principals and central office must
be assessment literate
 Development and use of a coherent system (CIA)
ensures quality for each student
 An effective assessment system includes a
balance of school, district, and state measures
and uses a variety of methods
MAISA
Instructional Services Committee
2012-13 Assessment Goal
"In cooperation with the Michigan Assessment
Consortium and other statewide related projects,
contribute to a high quality, comprehensive
assessment system in the state of Michigan."
Assessment for Learning…
…when done well, is one of the most powerful,
high-leverage strategies for improving
student learning that we know of.
Educators collectively become more skilled and
focused at assessing, disaggregating, and using
student achievement as a tool for ongoing
improvement.
~ Michael Fullan
Accurate assessments
+
Appropriate uses resulting in
productive reactions
STUDENT SUCCESS
Vision of Excellence in
Assessment
Balanced Assessment System
 There is a balance of formative and summative
assessments.
 The assessments are of high quality.
 Students are actively engaged in the assessment
process.
Common Assessment
Development Series
What is a
Common Assessment?
Common Assessment
Module Content
1. Introduction and Overview of the MAC
CADS Series
2. What Are Common Assessments?
3. Determining the Outcome of
Assessment
4. Determining the Targets of Assessment
5. Matching the Assessment Methods to
the Learning Targets
6. Assessing Students with Special Needs
7. Writing the Test Blueprint
8. Writing the Selected-Response Items
9. Writing Constructed Response Items
10. Writing Performance Assessment Items
11. Using Portfolios to Assess Students
12. Developing and Using Scoring Guides
and Rubrics
13. Editing the Draft Assessment Items
14. Detecting and Eliminating Bias and
Distortion
15. Assembling the Assessment
Instrument
16. Field Testing
17. Looking at Field Test Data
18. Reliability
19. Test Validity
20. Assembling the Final Common
Assessment
21. Assessment Administration,
Scoring and Reporting
22. Standard Setting
23. Presenting the Results
24. Using Data to Improve Instruction
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St. Joseph County
Common
Assessment Project
Beginning at the Beginning
Why did we begin this journey?
 LEA’s desire to:
 conduct Professional Learning Communities
(PLC’s)
 implement a multi-tiered system of support (RtI)
 provide effective feedback to students around
learning goals
 fully implement a standards-based model of
instruction/assessment
Beginning at the Beginning
Our challenges:
 “Faulty” data at PLC’s
 Ineffective data to target the interventions for RtI
 Ineffective feedback practices around
data/grading and reporting
 Assessments not designed for a standards
based system
The “Vision”
Began simply….
 Just pick the items from the CD with our text and
use that!
 Just find the best one and use it countywide!
 Someone has to have one to buy!
 There’s lots of software that has items we can
use! Let’s just get that.
 Teachers can just go online and find one to use!
 Let’s just wait for Smarter Balanced!
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Critical First Step
Do you have a clear and appropriate
purpose(s) for your assessment?
 How will the assessment be used?
 Who will use the results?
 Which partners will help you?
 What learning targets will you measure?
 Local
 State
 Other
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What Makes an Assessment
“Common”?
 It is more than an assessment given by
one teacher
 This is an insufficient definition
 It is a method for creating a
community of shared practice in a
school, district, across districts, even
across the state
The Power of the
Common Assessment
The use of common assessment results by
two or more teachers in a PLC…
 Provides data to inform interventions
 Allows teachers to see how changes in
instructional practice can lead to higher
achievement
 Look deeply at their own and others’ practice to
ultimately improve student achievement
Common Assessments
 are built on the same learning targets/goals,
whether they were developed at the school,
district or state levels
 these targets needed to be those contained
within the mathematics common core
standards for Algebra I and Algebra II
This was the first challenge –
could they agree???
The Decisions
 Create benchmark assessments (25 – 30 per
course)
 Use the traditional Algebra I and II course
“outline” defined in the CC
 Build the assessments by “standards cluster” –
explicitly key each item
 “Unpack” each standard within a cluster to
determine appropriate cognitive demand and
ensure alignment
CONTENT
INSTRUCTION
ASSESSMENT
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Unpacked Document
 Identification of key vocabulary within each
standard
 Determination of learning goals in the format of:
 I know statements
 I can statements
 These statements determined the types of items to
include on each assessment
 Direct link to standards
 Prerequisite skills yet to be filled in
Vetting of Content
 Teams of 2-3 unpacked
 Another team reviewed
 An outside math consultant
reviewed/edited
 Final was used to develop assessment
items
 Assessments assess only one cluster
and no more than 2 – 3 standards
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CONTENT
INSTRUCTION
ASSESSMENT
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Cognitive Demand
 It is critical to be sure that assessments
measure the correct cognitive demand of the
learning goals represented in the standards.
 It is critical that whoever is ‘building
assessments’ understands this concept
process and applies it in their work
 The majority of classroom teachers have not
received sufficient training in assessment
design
Target/Method Match
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The Outcomes of
Quality Assessments
 Clear, concise data being used in
collaborative groups
 Powerful data to provide feedback to
teachers and students and parents
 The ability to accurately inform
curriculum and instructional changes
 Closer alignment between grades/scores
and actual proficiency levels of the
students
The Pilot Test – 2012 / 2013
Agreements for Pilot Teachers
 Assessments are to remain “intact”
 Assessments assess only one cluster and no more
than 2 – 3 standards and will be given whenever
that content has been taught
 Data is not to be used to determine grades or for
teacher evaluation. These are draft!
 Item level data will be collected and analyzed to
determine edits needed at follow up sessions next
year
Lessons Learned
 This work takes a team!
 Content area specialists
 Assessment specialists
 Data specialists
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This work takes time!
This work takes commitment!
This work takes patience!
This work takes trust!
This work will help increase achievement if done
well.
Thank you!