Better Learning, Better Teaching, Better Schools

Using formative assessment and feedback to engage students and

ensure success!A collaboration between TCBOE & the

Alabama Best Practices Center

Overarching Goal

Students in Talladega County are engaged in learning at high levels so that all students are well-prepared for the next grade level, college, and/or

career.

Overview of Year

• August - Student engagement & introduction to formative assessment & feedback for both adults and students.

• September - Formative Assessment in Action: Update progress and make connections to best practice.

• November - Role of formative feedback for adults & students. Connection to Instructional Rounds.

Overview of Year (cont.)

• January - “Speed bump!” Taking stock & making adjustments.

• February - How does formative assessment and feedback relate to high stakes testing?

• April - Reflecting on the year. Commiting to next steps.

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Learning Outcomes for Today

• Reflect on and deepen your personal understanding of student engagement, and begin to create a vision for what this would look like in every classroom in your school and district.

• Understand the purposes and powerful potential of formative assessment & feedback for the learning of both students & adults.

• Explore the connection between formative assessment & feedback and EducateAlabama.

Norms

• Listen Actively

• Be open to ideas from others

• Encourage balanced participation

• Avoid side conversations

• Cell phones on vibrate

• Take care of your creature comforts!

• Other?

"Leadership effects on student learning occur largely because

leadership strengthens professional community; teachers’ engagement in

professional community, in turn, fosters the use of instructional

practices that are associated with student achievement."

Investigating the Links to Improved Student Learning: Executive Summary of Research Findings, July 2010, p. 10.

Remember Professional Learning Communities (PLC)?

• Focus on Learning

• Collaborative Culture

• Results Orientation

PLC: 4 Key Questions

1. What is it we want students to know and be able to do?

2. How are we going to know if they have learned it?

3. What will we do if they don’t learn it?

4. What will we do if they do learn it?

Activity #1: Where is Your School?

1. With your colleague(s), look over the previous two slides and identify evidence of an operating PLC in your school.

2. Using Activity Sheet #1,Brainstorm and record additional steps you could take to better address the four PLC questions.

Activity #2: A Vision of Effective

Teaching & Student Engagement • Imagine your students are

engaged in high levels of cognitive activities.

• What is the teacher doing?

• How are the students interacting with one another, the teacher, and the content?

Deep Sea Fishing?

Mountain Climbing?

Scuba Diving?

White water rafting?

Choose one.

Activity #3: To Which of these Similies is Your View of Effective Teaching and Student Engagement/Learning Similar?

• Introduce yourselves to others in the group.

• Identify a recorder.• Brainstorm ways that this

classroom is like your selected metaphor. Write each idea on the easel paper provided.

Move to the corner where your simile is posted

• Think about the process of reflecting on teaching effectiveness and student engagement—and then selecting a metaphor and sharing with others. What was the value? What did you learn?

• How might you use this reflection tool with your faculty and your students? What would you hope to accomplish? How would you modify it?

Reflection and Application Four-Corner Synectics

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Activity #4a: Go Deeper with Student Engagement

• Select a card from the middle of your table. Each card is numbered. Turn to Activity Sheet #4, and read the article that matches your number.

• As you read, highlight key points that you will want to share with others who are reading your same article.

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Activity #4b: Expert Tables

• Facilitators will direct you to expert tables where those who read the SAME article will meet and discuss (2 tables/ article).

• At your table, discuss key findings from your article. Be sure to take notes that you can use when you return to your home table and report on your article.

Activity #4c: Home Table Sharing

1. Select a table facilitator, a timer, and someone who will agree to start first.

2. Everyone at the table will briefly share major insights from their article. Timers should allow no more than 3 minutes per person.

3. So you will be prepared for the next step, be sure to record key insights/ideas on your notes.

Activity #5: Affinity Mapping

• Think about main ideas, themes, insights that you’ve gleaned from the article review.

• Using sticky-notes, write down ONE idea/insight per note.

• Try to create at least 4 sticky notes per person.

• When finished, begin placing your notes on the easel paper provided at your table.

• Please do this quietly … no talking until everyone is finished.

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Affinity Mapping (continued)

• Take a few minutes to group similar ideas/insights. When all the sticky notes are grouped into categories, name those categories.

• You may talk during this part of Affinity Mapping!

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• Return to your Activity #2 sheet.• Based on your new learnings, silently and

individually, make any additions or changes to your vision.

• With your table teams, share your individual visions for student engagement.

• As a table team, develop a vision for student engagement.

• Write your collective vision on chart paper.

Revisiting Your Vision of Effective Teaching and Student Engagement

Moving toward a Common Vision of Effective Teaching and Student

Engagement• When directed, take your chart paper to the assigned

corner of the room.• Choose a facilitator, recorder and timekeeper.• Post the three visions in a nearby space.• Take turns allowing each group to share their vision.• Circle the phrases or thoughts that are similar.• Discuss the phrases or thoughts that are different.• Collaboratively, develop a vision for student

engagement that represents your three table groups.• Write the new vision on a clean sheet of chart paper.

• Think about the process of moving from an individual vision of student engagement to a common vision. What was the value? What did you learn?

• Was this process different from the way we have introduced expectations in the past? How?

Reflection and Application

Now What?

• Turning today’s training around to your faculty

• Greater participation produces ownership

• Ownership precedes action

Slow is fast and fast is slow!

TCBOE & Student Engagement: Common Understanding/Definition

• Involve your school and faculty• Options:

– Repeat article review/affinity mapping– Share the four combined definitions for

input and discussion

• Be ready to report on insights/reactions from your school at our next gathering (Sept. 27)

Taking It HomeOutcome Activities When will you facilitate

with faculty?Who will be responsible?

Personal Vision of Teaching Effectiveness and Student Engagement

Individual ReflectionFour Corner Synectic

Discussion of Teaching Effectiveness and Student Engagement Literature

Article DiscussionExpert Tables

Developing a Common Understanding of Teaching Effectiveness and Student Engagement (1)

Affinity MappingTable Charts

Developing a Common Understanding of Teaching Effectiveness and Student Engagement (2)

Collapsing of individual table charts

LUNCH!

Formative Assessment is not an end in itself; rather, it is the means to improve teaching practices, increased student engagement and improved

student learning.

What is Formative Assessment?

“Formative assessment is a process used by teachers and students during instruction that provides feedback to adjust ongoing teaching and learning to improve students’ achievement of intended instructional outcomes.” (Definition by Council of Chief State School Officers, 2006, reported in Popham, 2008, p. 5)

AssessmentFOR

Learning

“Formative assessments— ongoing assessments designed to make students’ thinking visible to both teachers and students—are essential. They permit

teachers to grasp the students’ preconceptions, understand where students are in the “developmental corridor” from informal to formal thinking, and design instruction accordingly. In the assessment-centered classroom environment, formative assessments help

both teachers and students monitor progress.”

– National Research Council, How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School, pp. 24-25.

Formative Assessment in Assessment-Centered

Classrooms

1. What is formative assessment?

2. How is formative assessment different from summative assessment?

3. Why is formative assessment important to teaching and learning?

Turn and talk with a partner. Together, formulate your “best” answers to the

following questions. Jot down your responses.

Characteristics

Formative Assessment(Assessment FOR Learning)

Purpose: To improve instruction and provide feedback

Occurs during instruction while learning is in progress – day to day, minute by minute

Focused on checking for understanding and the learning progress

Promotes self monitoring

Collaborative

Fluid – an ongoing process

Use of evidence to make adjustments for continual improvement

Summative Assessment(Assessment OF Learning)

Purpose: To measure competency

Occurs after instruction – end of unit or course test

Focused on the products of learning

Measurement against externally determined criteria

Directed

Rigid – an unchanging measure

Use of results to determine success or failure

Activity #6: Formative Assessmentor Summative Assessment

• Number off 1-5 at your table.• Read the corresponding vignette silently and

determine whether it is formative or summative. • Be able to explain your rationale.• When directed, each individual should read their

vignette aloud.• The other participants should indicate whether they

think it is formative or summative by using a “Thumbs up” or “Thumbs down.”

• Share your rationale.

Formative Assessment Informs Teaching and Learning

Why is Formative Assessment Important?

Many studies demonstrate that when formative assessment is used to improve learning

during instruction, student achievement improves. “The effect of assessment for

learning on student achievement is some four to five times greater than the effect of

reduced class size…Few interventions in education come close to having the same

level of impact as assessment for learning.”Stiggins et al, 2006, p. 37

What about Formative Assessment for Teachers and

Administrators?

The Alabama Continuum for Teacher Development was designed to support formative assessment,

including self-assessments, and to identify strengths as well as areas for

growth.

Alabama Quality Teaching Standards

Alabama Quality Teaching Standards

Standard 2: Teaching and Learning – Organization and Management of Learning

Environment

– Using Instructional Strategies to Engage Learners

–Assessment of Learning

Standard 2: Teaching and Learning

Standard 2: Teaching and Learning

Indicator 2.8 Uses formative assessments to provide specific and timely feedback to assist learners in meeting learning targets and to adjust instruction

Indicator 2.9 Uses summative assessments to measure learner attainment of specified learning targets

Indicator 2.10 Maintains evidence and records of learning performance to communicate progress

Indicator 2.11 Analyzes and uses disaggregated standardized assessment results to inform planning for individual learners and classes

Activity #7: Self-Assessment of Indicator 2.8

• Review the practices associated with Indicator 2.8.

• Select the practices you think should be strengthened over the course of this year.

• Identify one of these practices to share with your table team. Be prepared to (1) describe this practice in your own words, (2) tell why you selected it; that is, why you think strengthening this practice would improve student learning, and (3) identify possible evidences of these practices.

Professional Learning Plan (PLP)• Should reflect the areas of growth

identified on the self assessment

• Should include opportunities for teacher learning

• Should include actions/strategies for implementation of teacher learning

• Should include possible evidences of implementation and impact on student learning

Goal(s)Standard/Indicator(s)

Teacher Learning Timeline

Proposed Actions/Strategies for Implementation of Teacher Learning

Possible evidence of implementation of actions and strategies and impact on student learning Date(s)

_____________________________________ ______________________________________Educator Signature/Date Evaluator Signature/

Professional Learning Plan (PLP)School Year 20__ - 20__

Educator: __________________________________ Position: ______________________Directions: The Jefferson County School System promotes continuous professional growth for all educators. This PLP should be used as an ongoing document to plan and reflect on professional growth. The actions and strategies should reflect the Continuum for Teacher Development and AQTS.

• Formative assessment is a reflective process that promotes self-awareness by highlighting strengths to build upon and identifying opportunities for professional growth.

• Formative assessment describes multiple dimensions of one’s practice.

• Formative Assessment is supported by descriptive observations such as those used in Instructional Rounds.

• Formative assessment relies on a two-way communication process between the observer and the person whose practice is being assessed.

• Formative assessment is used to improve practice rather than to assign a performance level or grade from an outside evaluator.

In your opinion:• How might formative assessment support teacher

learning and development?

• What conditions and factors might increase teacher acceptance of—and demand for—meaningful formative assessments?

Formative Assessment and Improvement of Practice

Taking It HomeOutcome Activities When will you

facilitate with faculty?Who will be responsible?

Understanding of Differences between Formative and Summative Assessment

Vignettes

Reflection on use of formative assessment

Self Assessment using Indicator 2.8 from Continuum

Identifying Learning Goals and Strategies for Formative Assessment

Develop draft goal and strategies for 2.8 and update PLPs