A Professional
Review of Assessment Practices
Professional Development for Diocese of St. Petersburg Teachers
Thursday February 5, 2015
Higgins Hall, St. Lawrence
Standards - are the driving force in assessment
Summative Assessment
-Purpose: to
measure students’ depth of knowledge
-When: @ end,
periodically throughout the unit
-How teachers
use: to evaluate grades, promotion, programs
-How students
use: long-term growth, improvement toward standards
Formative
-Purpose:
measure progress, provide feedback
-When:
all-the-time
-How teachers
use: impact instruction
-How students
use: gauge progress, what still needs to be learned or relearned
Striking a balance between formative and
summative assessment:
-Current
balance of time (realistically):
-Formative: probably around 50%
-Summative: probably around 50%
-Ideal balance
of time:
-Formative: 80%
-Summative: 20%
Grading formative assessment is
dangerous
-misinterprets the learning process
– making errors is cause for punishment rather than opportunity to learn
-focuses more on grades than
learning
-makes classroom unsafe for some
students
(Carol Ann Tomlinson and Tonya Moon,
2013)
-the issue of motivation for students still lingers – will
they do the formative work if it’s
not graded in some way – how can teachers ensure that students provide work on
which teachers can provide feedback to students
-effort and learning-to-learn skills can play a role in
“marking” students on formative assessment
–give a scaled mark for effort
-separate learning-to-learn skills
/ approaches to learning into a separate grade
Four Core
Considerations for the Quality of Assessment Tasks
-Alignment – does the task require students to engage with
objectives / standards
-Complexity – what DOK level is the task? What level of
mastery will the assessment allow students to demonstrate?
-Evidence – must students provide enough work, reasons,
interpretation, etc. to give you ample evidence of their strengths and needs?
-Clarity – are the directions as clear as possible?
Complexity of
Assessment – Quality of Assessment
Norman Webb
Depth of Knowledge (DOK) Level 1: Recollection and
reproduction – something that can be learned through practice
DOK Level 2: Application of Skills / Concepts – a change of
context requiring a choice of procedure, a simple decision, a straightforward
problem, organization or interpretation
DOK Level 3: Strategic thinking – both abstract, complex or
non-routine contexts as well as a degree of reason, conclusion, argument,
decision or planning
DOK Level 4: Extended thinking – deep investigation,
research, integration of knowledge, multiple conditions, a great deal of
insight or problem solving
Evidence of
Learning – Quality of Assessment
Multiple choice and other similar assessment types don’t
necessarily give students enough opportunity to demonstrate evidence of their
learning
-in some cases, this would mean
they are asked to justify their answers or thinking, not just give a response
Assessment Formats
vs. Types of Learning
Olivia, Gordon, Verlag (2012) conducted research which
demonstrated the strength of the following types of assessment format for just
about any type of learning:
-performance tasks
-student self –assessment
In other words, these assessment formats elicit the best
evidence of student learning
Forced choice formats (multiple choice, matching, labeling),
and short response formats provide the lowest amount of evidence of student
learning
Metacognition is a key component to eliciting student
learning – finding ways to incorporate metacognition (self-assessment,
justification of processes / lines of thinking) into assessment is an effective
way to promote learning
This research also demonstrates that multiple choice formats
for assessments are grossly ineffective at gauging student learning
Self-assessment helps students to see their own progress and
gaps more clearly
-realize
that they need to relearn something and join the teacher on that path
-fill in gaps of teacher
assessments of what students know and don’t know (as any form of assessment
will only allow a partial view of what students know / don’t know)
-help teachers gauge the quality of
their assessments
Performance tasks
–align to the standards
-engage
students at appropriate DOK levels
-elicit ample evidence of whether
students have learned, including whether they can transfer this knowledge
-provide clear directions,
including a rubric of defining how work will be evaluated
-design PA’s before teaching
-balance them with other
assessments – building up to the PA
-solicit student input – what do
students want to do – allow for choice
-clarify who can/cannot help –
parents, other students, other teachers
-offer strategic support
-allow revision
John Hattie – feedback is key to promoting student learning
and growth
-feedback considerations:
-how has the assessment evidence
been interpreted?
-be specific about strengths and
needs
-pick your battles – what is the
most important (1-3 things) area(s) on which to focus
-take into consideration who the
kids are
-consider the time / timing of the
feedback
-communicate feedback clearly
-consider the format – written,
oral, 1-to-1, small group
-build trust – student must feel
safe – social-emotional learning
-provoke student action – what
should they do with the feedback?
Teachers should also be open to receiving quality and
relevant feedback from students – synchronizing the education within the
classroom – what do students know, what are their struggles, what do they need
to spend more time on, what is working – and incorporate that into how teachers
move forward instructionally
Ways to collect and analyze data quickly and effectively
-paper fan – class – at – a – glance – take all of their
work and fan them across a table – look for consistent mistakes /
misunderstandings – papers can be quickly grouped into differentiated groups
-white boards – each student offers a response and you can give
immediate feedback
-technology based assessments – SurveyMonkey.com
-gallery walk – allow students to put work or responses around
room and allow students to comment
-class debate / discussions – allow students to talk it out
with classmates
-comparative presentations – allow students to talk about
their approach vs. others
-table of data – similar to a grade book format but allows
for collection of the data that is accumulated – use in conjunction with any of
the above so that data can be stored and analyzed over time
-assessment involves and requires a relationship
-presented by Dennis
Desormier, via Catapult Learning
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