Seven Strategies for Formative Assessment

HAMBLEN COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION SUMMER 2012HAMBLEN COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION SUMMER 2012

Seven Strategies for Formative

Assessment


Housekeeping

Restroom

Breaks

Use of the library

Lunch

Questions


Poll

Take out your cellphones!


Information

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Learning Target

I can recognize formative assessment techniques and plan for their use in effective classroom instruction.


Introduction


Formative Assessment

Formal and informal processes teachers and students use to gather evidence for the purpose of improving learning.


Summative Assessment

Assessments that provide evidence of student achievement for the purpose of making a judgement about student competence or program effectiveness.


Conditions Required of Formative Assessment

Aligns directly with the content standards to be learned.

Tasks match what has been or will be taught.

Provides information of sufficient detail to pinpoint specific problems, such as misunderstandings, so that teachers can make good decisions about what actions to take, and with whom.

The results are available in time to take action with the students who generated them.

Teachers and students do indeed take action based on the results.


Activity 1:

Is It Formative Assessment?

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are needed to see this picture.


Benefits of Formative Assessment

Who is and is not understanding the lesson.

What are this student's strengths and needs?

What misconceptions do I need to address?

What feedback should I give students?

What adjustments do I need to make to instruction?

How should I group students?

What differentiation do I need to prepare?

Student becomes self-directed.

Students develop the capacity to monitor the quality of their own work during production.


Strategies

Provide students with a clear and understandable vision of the learning target.

Use examples and models of strong and weak work.


Seven Strategies of Assessment for Learning

Where Am I Going?

Strategy 1: Provide students with a clear and understandable vision of the learning target.

Strategy 2: Use examples and models of strong and weak work.

Where Am I Now?

Strategy 3: Offer regular descriptive feedback.

Strategy 4: Teach students to self-assess and set goals.

How Can I Close the Gap?

Strategy 5: Design lessons to focus on learning target or aspect of quality at a time.

Strategy 6: Teach students focused revision.

Strategy 7: Engage students in self-reflection, and let them keep track of and share their learning


Poll Results


Where am I Going?

Strategy 1:

Clear Learning Targets


Video


Learning Targets

By the end of this section I want you to be able to understand:

How to give students a clear vision of what you want them to know at the end of the lesson.

How to use examples and models of strong and weak work.


Performance Goals that focus on task completion.

Learning goals - goals that describe the intended learning.


Learning Goals

Research by Black and Wiliam shows that when students are given learning goals, goals that describe the intended learning, they perform significantly better than students who are given performance goals, goals that focus on task completion.


I Can!

We want to make sure our learning goals are written so the students understand them!! It is best to put them in “I Can statements, or My goal is…. or We are learning to…”


How to Make Target Clear to Students

Identify the word(s) an/or phrase(s) needing clarification. Which terms will students struggle with? Imagine stating the target in its original form to your class. Then envision the degree of understanding reflected on faces throughout the room. At which word did they lose meaning?

Define the term(s) you have identified. Use a dictionary, your textbook, your state content standards document, or other reference materials specific to your subject. If you are working with a colleague, come to agreement on definitions.

Convert the definition(s) into language your students are likely to understand.

Turn the student-friendly definition into an “I” or a “We” statement: “I am learning to _________”; or “We are learning to ________.” Run it by a colleague for feedback.

Try the definition out with students. Note their response. Refine as needed.

Let students have a go at this procedure occasionally, using learning targets you think they could successfully define and paraphrase. Make sure the definition they concoct is congruent with your vision of the target.


Student-Friendly Language: Inference

1. Learning target: “Make inferences from informational/ expository and literary/narrative text” (Grade 2)

2. Word to be defined: inference

3. Definition: conclusion drawn based on evidence and logic

4. Student-friendly definition: a guess based on clues

5. Student-friendly target: I can make inferences from what I read. This means that I can make guesses based on clues when reading.

Notice that for second graders, you may not want to define informational/expository and literary/narrative text in the statement. If you want to define those terms, you may want to create separate statements, e.g., “I can read informational text. This means I can read books and articles that tell me facts.” And, “I can read literary text. That means that I can read stories.”


ACTIVITY 2:

CREATING A CLEAR LEARNING TARGET


Activity 2: Create a Learning Target

Now we are going to do one. Using the standards I have provided, pick one and make a clear learning target as a group.

Record the standard and learning target on the chart paper.




Rubrics


Formative Assessment

Studies Black and Wiliam (1998) cite as evidence of the impact of formative assessment on student achievement include the practice of teaching students the criteria by which their work would be judged.


A good assessment for learning rubric answers for students the question, “Where am I going?”


Student-Friendly Rubric

Arter and Chappuis, 2006 suggest this process for developing a student-friendly rubric:

1. Identify the words and phrases in the adult version that your students might not understand.

2. Look these words up in the dictionary or in textbooks. Discuss with colleagues the best phrasing choices for your students.

3. Convert the definitions into wording your students will understand. Sometimes you need to convert one word into one or more phrases or sentences.

4. Phrase the student-friendly version in the first person.

5. Try the rubric out with students. Ask for their feedback.

6. Revise as needed.


Match to Targets

The content of your rubric should match your learning targets. When you are considering a rubric for possible use, ask yourself if it includes the dimensions you will be teaching. If not, revise the rubric or find a different one that matches the elements of quality you and your district or state believe are important.



Student Work

“The features of excellent work should be so transparent that students can learn to evaluate their own work in the same way that their teachers would.”

Frederikksen & Collins, 1989, quoted in Shepard, 2001, p 1092


Examples and Models of Strong and Weak Work

Samples should be:

Anonymous

Find on state or provincial websites

Ask students for permission to use their work as a teaching example and save it for the next year.

Create your own example, inserting errors students typically make.


Table Protocol for Analyzing Sample Papers

Students working in small groups can follow this protocol to work through the process of analyzing samples for one or more criteria (traits) on the scoring rubric. They can take turns around the table acting as moderator.

1. Everyone reads the scoring guide for __________ (specify trait) in this order: The highest level, the lowest level, and then the middle level or levels.

2. The moderator reads the sample paper aloud.

3. Everyone else thinks, “Strong or weak for _____________ (specified trait)/”

4. Everyone (including the moderator) silently and independently reads the high or low level of the rubric corresponding to their own judgments of strong or weak. If the high or low level doesn’t describe the sample well, then read the middle level (or progressing toward the middle) until you find the phrases that accurately describe the quality of the sample. Everyone writes down his or her score.

5. When all are ready, the moderator conducts the vote and tallies the scores.

6. The moderator conducts the discussion- “What did you give it and why?” – encouraging the use of the scoring rubric’s language and concepts.


Table Talk: Reflecting on Strategies 1 and 2

How do you plan on communicating the intended learning of a lesson, activity, task, project, or unit to students?

How would you explain the difference between a learning goal and a performance goal?


Conclusion

By making the learning targets or goals clear to students from the outset, we build student confidence and increase the chances that students will reach the target.


By the end of this section I wanted you to be able to understand:

How to give students a clear vision of what you want them to know at the end of the lesson.

How to use examples and models of strong and weak work.

Did we achieve our goal?


Break



When you return from break, find a partner from a different grade level and a different

school.


Break Activity: Think, Pair, Share

Please find a partner from a different school and different grade level that you teach and discuss the following questions:

When do students in my class receive feedback on their progress?

What forms does feedback take in my classroom?

What do I expect students to do with feedback information?




Effective Feedback

Where am I now?


“Feedback is effective when it consists of information about progress, and/or about how to proceed.”

Hattie and Timperley, 2007, p. 89


The presence of feedback does not improve learning. It is the quality that determines its effectiveness.


Characteristics of Effective Feedback


What is the purpose of intervention feedback?




Intervention feedback

Identifying areas in need of improvement and providing enough information so that the student understands what to do next


Although many students enjoy praise, if the praise is directed to characteristics of the learner rather than to characteristics of the work or the process used, it appears to be less effective both as a motivator and an agent for improved achievement.


Human Barometer:

Grades are essential to teaching and learning.


“Assigning grades practice work inhibited further learning and that students ignored comments when they were accompanied by grades.”

Butler, 1988


Effective Feedback

Effective feedback occurs during learning.


We cultivate this mindset when we offer feedback with opportunities to improve during the learning.

Feedback is most effective in improving achievement if it is delivered while there is still time to act on it, which means before the graded event.


Effective Feedback

Effective feedback does not do the thinking for the student.


Effective Feedback

Suggestions for offering feedback


Activity 3: Feedback Practice

Using the Student Work Sample Book, choose a student work sample. Use Stars and Stairs or That’s Good! Now this for practicing effective feedback.




Peer Feedback

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Conclusion

Self-feedback


Poll

Take out your cell phones!


Lunch

Enjoy your lunch! See you in one hour.


Activity

Discuss strengths/challenges from pre-lunch poll.


Where Am I Now?

Strategy 4:

Teach students to self-assess and set goals.


Key Ideas

Understanding the impact of self-assessment on student achievement

Teaching students to self-assess with a focus on learning targets

Teaching students to create specific and challenging goals


Points to Ponder

Self-assessment takes time -- why might you ask a student to do it?

What do students need to know and be able to do in order to self-assess accurately?

What problems do students have with setting goals that are likely to help them improve?


Formative assessment requires that students (pupils) have a central part in it. Unless they come to understand their strengths and weaknesses, ant how they might deal with them, they will not make progress.

Harlen & James (1997).


When students are involved in self-assessment, they provide themselves with regular and immediate descriptive feedback to guide their learning. They become more actively involved in a curriculum that other can seem unrelated to their lives and personal experiences.

Gregory, Cameron, & Davis, (2000).


“When students self-assess and set goals they develop an internal sense of control over the conditions of their success and greater ownership of the responsibility for improving.”

Black & Wiliam (1998)


Peer Feedback + Self-Assessment = Significantly Higher Learning Levels


What’s the first thing the student looks at when you return a paper to him?

How can we, as teachers, enable students to understand their academic strengths and weaknesses?


Formative assessment requires that pupils have a central part in it. Unless they come to understand their strengths and weaknesses, and how they might deal with, they will not make progress.


Self-Assessment Activity Ideas

Table Talk


Self-Assessment and Goal Setting with Selected Response and Constructed Response Tasks

Using Pretest Results

Highlighting Targets

Ranking with a Scale

Human Bar Graph


Before - Self-assessment with Pretest Results


Before - Ranking With a Scale


Before


During


During


After - Reviewing My Results

I AM GOOD AT THESE!Learning Targets I got right:

I AM PRETTY GOOD AT THESE, BUT NEED TO DO A LITTLE REVIEWLearning targets I got wrong because of a simple mistake:

What I can do to keep this from happening again:

I NEED TO KEEP LEARNING THESELearning targets I got wrong and I’m not sure what to do to correct them:

What I can do to get better at them:



Goal Setting

“Hard goals work to focus attention, mobilize effort, and increase persistence at a task. By contras, do-one’s-best goals often turn out to be not much more effective than no goals at all.”

- Sadler, 1989


Goal Setting Key Elements


Goal Setting


Four Corners

Activity 4: Four Corners



Strategies 5 and 6


The Operative Question

When students go sideways on a learning target, what are the typical problems?


Strategies 5 and 6

Strategy Five targets instruction to the learning gaps.

Select or design lessons to teach students how to recognize and avoid particular problems.

Strategy Six engages students in focused revision.

Both strategies work together: focused instruction followed by focused practice


Learning Gaps

Incomplete understanding

Misconceptions

Partially developed skills


Identifying Errors in Learning

Make a list of major conceptual understandings prior to teaching a lesson.

Make a list of errors while observing learning.

Make a list of errors from student work samples.


Selected-Response Tasks

Tasks should be short and focused for easy manageability by both the teacher and the student.


Scaffolding Ideas

Short, constructed response items

Selected response items

Performance assessment tasks

Rubrics


Short-Constructed Response


Selected-Response


Using Multiple-Choice Items

Wrong answers should represent faulty reasoning, misconceptions, or partial understanding.

Fix common misconception errors

Wrong answers should help students understand correct answer

Wrong answers should be plausible and reflect a potential learning gap.


Creating Multiple-Choice Items

When addressing a knowledge target insert incorrect knowledge as the distractors.

When addressing reasoning targets, frame the target as a fill-in-the-blank or open-ended question first.

Identify the typical errors or misconceptions in the answers and write a description for each.

These descriptions become your distractor formulas.


Example

Learning Target = Makes a generalization

Ask students to read a short text about how meat-eating plants function.

Pose the question: What generalization can you make from this passage about how these plants lure prey?


Example (continued)

Possible wrong answers...

overgeneralizing

no generalizing

incorrect interpretation of the evidence

Now write distractors around the three descriptions

Use the descriptions to create a variety of short, focused multiple-choice lessons.

Figure 5.5 is another example


Activity

Look at a student work sample for your level and subject area.

Identify one or two instances incomplete understandings, misconceptions, or partially developed skills.

Create a short constructed-response or selected-response item for the errors identified.





Strategy 7:

Offer regular descriptive feedback.


“When students track progress, reflect on their learning processes and growth, and share observations about achievement or about

themselves as learners, it helps anchor their learning in long-term memory.”


Recording Progress

ASSIGNMENT

DATE TARGET SCORESTAR/STAIR


Collecting Samples of Work

Learning Portfolios: A selected samples of their work in a portfolio, or an intentional collection of artifacts that tell a predetermined story.


Table Talk

Discuss which type of portfolio you think would be most beneficial to your students and why. How do you think you could implement one of these types of learning portfolios?


Student Reflection

A collection of work does not guarantee reflection will occur.


Student Reflection

Reflecting on Growth

Reflecting on a Project

Reflecting on Achievement


Samples

Weekly Reflection

Week of_______________________________Three interesting things that I learned this week are: 1. 2. 3.

One thing I am proudest of in my student notebook this week is:

One thing that I want to improve on next week is:

Next week I want my teacher to do the following:



Activity 6: Tracking, Collecting, and Reflecting

Students tracking progress, collecting work, and completing personal reflections all deepen learning by increasing metacognition and moving information to permanent memory. How could you implement these three practices in an organized, effective manner in your class or grade level? Which types of recording keeping, tracking, and reflections do you feel would most benefit your students? How can students then share their learning following these processes?


Evaluations and Certificates

Documents

Seven Strategies for Formative Assessment