Assessment Literacy – An Issue

• Research suggests that teachers spend from one-quarter to one-third of their professional time on assessment-related activities. Almost all do so without the benefit of having learned the principles of sound assessment (Stiggins, 2007).

Plan, Teach, Assess

• For too many years and in far too many classrooms there is a continuing disconnect between planning, teaching and assessment.

• While we know a lot about the potential of formative assessment and its importance (NMAP, 2008; Black and Wiliam, 2010; NCTM, 2014), what is surprising is how few teachers actually use the process (Popham, 2013).

• As noted in Principles to Action (NCTM, 2014) we must find a way to leverage assessment opportunities to improve teaching and learning at the classroom and school level.

We actually know a lot about formative assessment…

• The term formative assessment has been with us for close to 50 years…

• Regular use of classroom formative assessment would raise student achievement by 0.4 to 0.7 standard deviations – enough to raise the U.S. into the top five countries in the international rankings for mathematics (Natriello, 1987; Crooks, 1998; Black and Wiliam, 1998).

BUT, Aside from teacher-made classroom tests, the integration of assessment and learning as an interacting system has been too little explored.

Glaser & Silver, 1994

Formative Assessment

We know it is more informative to observe a student during a mathematical activity than to grade his papers.

Freudenthal, 1973

Formative assessment is:

• Students and teachers,• Using evidence of learning,• To adapt teaching and learning,• To meet immediate learning needs,• Minute-to-minute and day-by-day.

Thompson and William, 2007

Love this…

What we have done…

Distilled formative assessment techniques – Pathways.

Formative Assessment Techniques Pathways

• Observations

• Interviews• Show Me

• Hinge Questions

• Exit Tasks

Observations

• What would you hope to observe?

• How would you know it if you saw it?

• How might you record/note the observation?

• What misconceptions might you observe?

Observation Tool

Interviews

• What would make you decide to work 1:1 with a student or small group?

• What questions might you ask? How might the questions be different?

• What are you anticipating from students? (Consider understandings AND possible misconceptions.)

• What follow-up questions might you ask?

Interview Prompt

Show Me

1. Think about a “show me” prompt that you might use for a concept/skill appropriate for teachers you may work with…

2. What might you want a student or students to say as they describe their “show me” example?

3. How is this (the show me activity) different from an interview or observation?

Hinge Questions• Hinge questions provide a check for

understanding/proficiency at a ‘hinge-point’ in a lesson, or stated differently, success of the lesson hinges on responses to such questions as they provide an indication of whether the teacher can move from one important idea/concept/skill to the another (or not). Such responses impact both planning and instruction.

Hinge Question Planning

Exit Tasks

• The exit task is designed to provide a capstone problem or exercise that captures the major focus of the lesson of the day. This is a class assessment tool, and like the hinge question, student responses to the exit task help in identifying needs and in the planning for the next day’s lesson.

Pathways Activity

• Examine posted student work

• Identify possible Pathways

• Sharing

Connecting back to Principles to Actions

See page 91

These are daily considerations

• Observations – to guide what’s going on…

• Interview – As needed 1-1 or small group

• Show me – Math notebooks, daily link to Language Arts, more than vocabulary!

• Hinge Questions – Deal breakers! See next slide.

• Exit Task – Hinge Question + Exit task (next day’s plan!)

Reflect – How could teachers develop better formative assessments?

Let’s DiscussAssessment – formative and summative in your classroom/school

– What’s going on?– Use of formative assessments - regularly?– Role of assessments and grading?– What works?

Assessment – formative and summative in your PD opportunities– What’s going on?– What works?

Remember!

• High Stakes are for tomatoes – Susan Ohanian

• Tests are thermometers, not cures. At best, they sample where we are and hazard a guess as to what a rise or fall might mean.

- Meier, Nov. 2002, Phi Delta Kappan, p. 198

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