Formative Assessment: An Enabler of Learning

Margaret HeritageCRESST/UCLA

Formative Assessment: An Enabler of Learning

OAKLAND SCHOOLS

Waterford, MI | February 28, 2014

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9:00 Presentation10:30 Break10:45 Presentation continues12:00 Lunch 1:00 Team discussion 2:00 Q & A and closing remarks 3:00 End

Agenda

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Overview

Setting the ContextAssessments Within the SystemFormative AssessmentFeedbackLearning Progressions for Formative Assessment

SETTING THE CONTEXT:NEXT-GENERATION STANDARDS

AND ASSESSMENTS

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• Reading: Engage with complex texts to build knowledge across the curriculum

• Writing: Use evidence to inform, argue and analyze

• Speaking and Listening: Work collaboratively, understand multiple perspectives, and present ideas

• Language: Develop and use the linguistic resources to do all of the above

(Bunch, Kibler & Pimental, 2012)

ELA CCSS

7 (Heritage, Walqui, & Linquanti, 2013)

Shifts in Perspective for ELLsIndividual process

Linear building of structures and vocabulary aimed at correctness and fluency

Teaching language per se

Socially engaged process

Non-linear and complex developmental process aimed at comprehension and communication

Supporting participation in activities that simultaneously develop conceptual understanding and language use

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Annual Assessments

• Smarter Balanced ELA Summative Assessments o 43% DOK3o 25% DOK4

• Reflect a dramatic increase in rigor

(Herman & Linn, 2013)

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• DOK1: Recall of a fact, term, concept, or procedure; basic comprehension.

• DOK2: Application of concepts and/or procedures involving some mental processing.

• DOK3: Applications requiring abstract thinking, reasoning, and/or more complex inferences.

• DOK4: Extended analysis or investigation that requires synthesis and analysis across multiple contexts and non-routine applications.

(Web et al., 2005)

Depth of Knowledge

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Not Speeding to Superficial Learning

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Substantive insights along the way to support deep learning

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Ongoing formative assessment by teachers can provide guidance to students which supports and extends their learning, encouraging deeper learning and the development of transferable competencies (p. 188)

National Research Council (2012)

ASSESSMENTS IN THE SYSTEM

14(Adapted from Herman & Heritage, 2007)

standards

minute by minute daily

weeklyunit

quarterlyannually

student

Assessments in the System

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• Extended periods of instruction

• Long-term goals• Sampling of learning

Assessment Cycles

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• Interim goals• Progress monitoring• What has been

learned

Assessment Cycles

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• Short-term goals• Informing immediate

teaching and learning

Assessment Cycles

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Different Levels of Detail for Different Purposes

Interim Assessments

Annual Assessments

Minute-by-minute, Daily, Weekly Assessment

End-of-Unit Assessments

19(Adapted from Herman & Heritage, 2007)

standards

minute by minute daily

weeklyunit

quarterlyannually

student

Assessments in the System

InstructionalAdjustments

InstructionalFeedback

StudentInvolvement

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT

Discussion

Review handout 1 and with a partner decide which statements about formative are true and which are false

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Formative Assessment: True or False?

Formative assessment is a good idea, but there is no research to say it works

Formative assessment is integrated into instruction

Formative assessment helps teachers keep students learning on track to meet lesson goals

In formative assessment teachers give oral and written feedback to their students

Formative assessment is used to give grades

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Formative Assessment: True or False?

Formative assessment is a specific type of test

In formative assessment, students are involved in the assessment process

Student metacognition is part of formative assessment

In formative assessment, students give feedback to peers

Instructional tasks can be used as formative assessment

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Formative Assessment…

• A test or instrument• More frequent use of tests• A score• A one-time event• Something that happens at

the end of a period of learning

• Something only teachers do

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Formative Assessment…

…….. a planned process that takes place continuously during the course of teaching and learning to provide teachers and students with feedback to close the gap between current learning and desired goals.

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Clear learning goals & success criteria1

2 Eliciting evidence of learning

3 Evidence–based adjustments to teaching

Feedback to students4

5 Student involvement – peer and self-assessment

Main Features

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Where is the learner going? (in this lesson)

Where is the learner now? (in this lesson)

Where to next? (in this or the next lesson)

?

?

?

Guiding Questions for Teachers

? How to get there?

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Where am I going? (in this lesson)

Where am I now? (in this lesson)

Where to next? (in this or the next lesson)

?

?

?

Guiding Questions for Students

? How to get there?

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What squares with your thinking?

What is circling around?

So Far

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT IN ACTION

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What features of formative assessment do you see in this video?

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What features of formative assessment do you see in this video?

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What features of formative assessment do you see in this video?

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What features of formative assessment do you see in this video?

FEEDBACK

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Feedback

“One of the most important roles in assessment is the provision of timely and informative feedback to students during instruction and learning…”

(NRC, 2001, p.87)

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• Be related to learning goals and success criteria

• Be specific and clear• Provide the learner with

suggestions, hints or cues for how to improve rather than correct answers

• Focus on the task and not on the student

• Be given when students have responded to initial instruction

Feedback Should…

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Feedback• Feedback is only formative if it

is USED by students

• Teachers must allow TIME for students to use feedback

• Using feedback helps students develop LEARNING STRATEGIES

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Grades ≠ Feedback

• Grades do not meet any of the criteria of effective feedback

• Grading is not part of the process of formative assessment

Learning intention: To write an opening paragraph which introduces the “problem” and uses

contrasts. It was a bitter night in Birmingham. The old, grey walls glistened in the moonlight. There was a blanket of frost covering the whole car park, it was as if the whole place was a crystal. Max and Jenny had escaped from their beds to catch the culprit – Mr. Pedding. Abruptly, a blood curdling screech invaded the still quietness. Max spun around to see a huge bird, bigger than an eagle, bigger even than a full grown human being. It’s dark shadowy figure came lumbering towards them, getting closer and closer. Before they knew it, the creature had snatched Jenny and sped off with her, while Max watched in horror, speechless and motionless.

Could you have inserted a contrast- bird = huge children? This would have served to emphasize how big the bird was (big in size and power over the children) in comparison to the children.

Student’s improvement Max spun around to see a huge bird, bigger than an eagle, dwarfing the delicate children, making them seem inadequate.

(Clarke, 2005)

Discussion

Review the opinion piece on Handout 4

What written feedback would you give this student?

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What squares with your thinking?

What is circling around?

So Far….

LEARNING PROGRESSIONS FOR FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT

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Learning Progressions

• Descriptions of how students’ learning of important concepts and skills in a domain develops

• Rudimentary to increasingly sophisticated forms over a period of schooling – cognitive moves

• Articulate the changes in the level of understanding that accrue with each successive step

• Provide a connected pathway • Based on research and are empirically validated

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Why Progressions?

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K-8 Continuum for Assessing Opinion Writing - TCRWP

• Level 1: Several unrelated pictures, may or may not be representational, with oral commentary.

• Structure/genre• Elaboration/development• Concept of writing (craft by Gr. 4)• Meaning/significance or purpose • Level 10:An argument piece that supports a clear claim

with reasons and relevant evidence, develops a point of view and often a counterclaim, and couches the argument in a larger theme or context.

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Teacher-Developed Progressions

• Work with colleagues• Time consuming but

deepens content knowledge

• Progression for at least one grade level below and one above

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• Step 1: Start with some initial information and create a framework or model that you think is an accurate representation of how things really are

• Step 2: Validate the framework or model

Teacher-Developed Progressions

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• Are the major building blocks in the learning progression addressed?

• Do the building blocks make apparent the cognitive moves across the progression?

• Do these moves make sense in terms of the demands to move from one cognitive state to another?

• Overall, is this a realistic representation, based on the knowledge we have so far, about how students learn this concept or skill in this domain?

Use the responses to these questions to make refinements to the initial model.

Initial Validation

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• Step 3: Test those predictions by seeing if what your model predicts is what happens in actuality.

• Step 4: Use that new information about how well your model worked to further refine the parameters of your model.

• Step 5: Validate and adjust parameters again

Teacher-Developed Progressions

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Intermediate Steps Between Standards

From Heritage, 2013.

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Why Progressions?

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Reflection

• Review your elevator speech

• What would you add/subtract?

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Changes in Practice

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“…should be regarded as a key professional skill for teachers. Teachers require the professional knowledge and skills to: plan for assessment; observe learning; analyze and interpret evidence of learning; give feedback to learners and support learners in self-assessment. Teachers should be supported in developing these skills through initial and continuing professional development.”

(Assessment Reform Group, 2002)

A Key Professional Skill

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“Formative assessment has not only changed me as a teacher but I believe it has changed the students as

learners.”

Heritage, 2010, p. 5

Sharon

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• I used to do a lot of explaining, but now I do a lot of questioning.

• I used to do a lot of talking, but now I do a lot of listening.

• I use to think about teaching the curriculum, but now I think about teaching the student.

Heritage, 2010, p. 4

Shawn

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Summing Up

• Formative assessment is a process that involves teachers and students

• Formative assessment is a key professional skill

• Formative assessment can assist students to engage in deep learning and supports 21st century competencies for all students

mheritag@ucla.edu