Scaling up formative assessment with teacher learning communities

Dylan Wiliam

AAIA ConferenceSeptember 2010

www.dylanwiliam.net

Overview

Making the case for formative assessment Definitional issues Scaling up

The argument for change

Design

Science

We need to improve student achievement This requires improving teacher quality Improving the quality of entrants takes too long So we have to make the teachers we have better

We can change teachers in a range of ways Some will benefit students, and some will not. Those that do involve changes in teacher practice

Changing practice requires new kinds of teacher learning

And new models of professional development.

Raising achievement matters…

For individuals• Increased lifetime salary (13% for a degree)• Improved health (half the number of disabled years)• Longer life (1.7 years of life per extra year of schooling)

For society• Lower criminal justice costs• Lower health-care costs• Increased economic growth (Hanushek & Wößman, 2010)o Present value to UK of raising PISA scores by 25 points: £4trno Present value of ensuring all students score 400 on PISA: £5trn

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Below upper secondary educationUpper secondary educationTertiary education

Percentage

Impact of education on health

Proportion of adults reporting good health, by level of education (OECD, 2010)

Which of the following categories of skill is disappearing from the work-place most rapidly?

1. Routine manual2. Non-routine manual3. Routine cognitive4. Complex communication5. Expert thinking/problem-solving

…but what is learned matters too…

Autor, Levy & Murnane, 2003

…now more than ever…

$0.00

$5.00

$10.00

$15.00

$20.00

$25.00

$30.00

$35.00

1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005

DropoutHS DiplomaSome CollegeBA/BScProf Degree

Source: Economic Policy Institute

Beyond Leitch (Patel et al., 2009)

In fact low skill jobs are vanishing…

Over the last eight years, the UK economy has shed 400 no-qualification jobs every day

Beyond Leitch (Patel et al., 2009)

…and recessions accelerate the trend…

The world’s leading manufacturers

Country Manufacturing value 2008 ($bn)National total ($bn) Per person ($)

United States 1831 5926China 1794 1342Japan 1045 8197Germany 767 9384Italy 381 6322United Kingdom 323 5206France 306 4680Russian Federation 256 1805Brazil 237 1232Republic of Korea 231 4636

Where’s the solution? Structure

• Smaller/larger high schools• K-8 schools/”All-through” schools

Alignment• Curriculum reform• National strategies

Governance• Charter schools and private schools• Specialist schools and academies

Technology• Computers• Interactive white-boards

Workforce reforms• Classroom assistants

LuxembourgJapan

ItalySwitzerland

FinlandDenmarkCzech Repub-

licSwedenHungary

AustriaPortugal

United StatesNetherlandsSlovak

RepublicKoreaIreland

SpainCanadaMexico

New ZealandGermany OECD averageUnited

Kingdom

0 20 40 60 80 100

Government schoolsGovernment dependent privateGovernment independent private

-150 -100 -50 0 50 100

Private schools perform better

Public schools perform better

%

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960 1000 1040 1080School contextualized value-added (CVA) score

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CVA and raw results in England

Differences in CVA are often insignificant…

(Wilson & Piebalga, 2008)

Middle 50%: differences in CVA not significantly different from average

…are transient…

(Leckie & Goldstein, 2009)

Future school effects for the 2014 cohort based on 2007 data with 95% confidence intervals

…and are small

Proportion of 16-year olds gaining 5 GCSE grades at grade C or higher

• 7% of the variability in the proportion achieving this is attributable to the school, so

• 93% of the variability in the proportion achieving this is nothing to do with the school

So, if 15 students in a class get 5 A*-C in the average school:• 17 students will do so at a “good” school (1sd above mean)• 13 students will do so at a “bad” school (1sd below mean)

Information for parents

Choosing schools on the basis of school performance data (Allen & Burgess, 2010)• Compared with random choice, the use of information

increases the chance of getting the best school by:o Best CVA: 33%o Best % 5A*-C: 92%o Best capped GCSE points: 104%

Impact of getting the best school over the average:• One grade higher in 3 subjects out of 8• 10% of students will cross a “threshold” such as 5xA*-C

It’s the classroom…

In the UK, variability at the classroom level is at least 4 times that at school level

• It doesn’t matter very much which school you go to• But it matters very much which classrooms you are in…

It’s not class sizeIt’s not the between-class grouping strategyIt’s not the within-class grouping strategy

Impact of background on development

(Feinstein, 2003)

Meaningful differences

Hour-long samples of family talk in 42 US families Number of words spoken to children by adults by the

age of 36 months• In professional families: 35 million• In other working-class families: 20 million• In families on welfare: 10 million

Kinds of reinforcements:positive negative

• professional 500,000 50,000• working-class 200,000 100,000• welfare 100,000 200,000

(Hart & Risley, 1995)

… and specifically, it’s the teacher…

Barber & Mourshed, 2007

Teacher quality and student learning

Subject Correlation

Woodhead All 0*

Hanushek, Rivkin & Kain (2005) Reading >0.10

Hanushek, Rivkin & Kain (2005) Mathematics >0.11

Rockoff (2003) Reading 0.20

Rockoff (2003) Mathematics 0.25

Teachers make the difference The commodification of teachers has received widespread

support:• From teacher unions (who understandably resist performance-

related pay)• From politicians (who are happy that the focus is on teacher

supply, rather than teacher quality) But has resulted in the pursuit of policies with poor benefit

to cost To see how big the difference is, take a group of 50 teachers

• Students taught by the best teacher learn twice as fast as average• Students taught by the worst teacher learn half as fast average

And in the classrooms of the best teachers• Students with behavioral difficulties learn as much as those

without• Students from disadvantaged backgrounds do as well as those

from advantaged backgrounds

…so we have two choices…

A classic labour force issue with 2 (non-exclusive) solutions• Replace existing teachers with better ones• Improve the effectiveness of existing teachers

20-25%Total “explained” difference

<5%Further professional qualifications (MA, NBPTS)

10-15%Pedagogical content knowledge

<5%Advanced content matter knowledge

The ‘dark matter’ of teacher quality

Teachers make a difference But what makes the difference in teachers?

Impact on achievement

If every TeachFirst teacher is as good as the average Finnish teacher, the net impact on GCSE would be one-four-hundredth of a grade in each subject.

If we could replace the least effective 15,000 teachers with average teachers, the net impact on student achievement at GCSE would be an increase of one-fortieth of a grade in each subject.

Raising the bar for entry into the profession so that we no longer recruit the lowest performing 30% of teachers would increase achievement at GCSE by one grade—by 2030.

Or make the teachers we have better…

Improve the effectiveness of existing teachers• The “love the one you’re with” strategy• It can be doneo Provided we focus rigorously on the things that mattero Even when they’re hard to do

A case study in one district Cannington

• Urban school district serving ~20,000 students• Approximately 20% of the population non-white• No schools under threat of re-constitution, but all under

pressure to improve test scores Funding for a project on “better learning through

smarter teaching”• Focus on mathematics, science and modern foreign

languages (MFL)• Commitment from principals in November 2007• Initial workshops in July 2008

Progress of TLCs in Cannington

Maths Science MFLAsh 1 — 1 — 0 —Cedar 5 ▮ 1 ▮ 3 ▮ ▮Hawthorne 4 ▮ ▮ 10 ▮ ▮ 5 ▮ ▮ ▮ ▮Hazel 7 — 12 — 2 —Larch 1 ▮ ▮ ▮ ▮ 0 ▮ 0 ▮Mallow 6 ▮ ▮ ▮ 7 ▮ 3 ▮ ▮Poplar 11 ▮ 3 ▮ ▮ ▮ 1 ▮ ▮ ▮Spruce 7 ▮ ▮ ▮ ▮ 8 ▮ ▮ ▮ 5 ▮ ▮ ▮Willow 2 ▮ 5 ▮ 2 ▮ ▮ ▮ ▮Totals 44 47 21

Black nos. show teachers attending launch event; blue bars show progress of TLC

Educational productivity 1996-2008

Source: Office for National Statistics

Pareto analysis

Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923)• Economist, philosopher, etc., associated with

the 80:20 rule Pareto improvement

• A change that can make at least one person (e.g., a student) better off without making anyone else (e.g., a teacher) worse off.

Pareto efficiency/Pareto optimality• An allocation (e.g., of resources) is Pareto

efficient or Pareto optimal when there are no more Pareto improvements

Schools are rarely Pareto optimal

Examples of Pareto improvements • Less time on marking to spend more time on planning

questions to use in lessons• Larger classes with reduced teacher contact time• Larger classes with increased teacher salaries

Obstacles to Pareto improvements• The political economy of reform• In professional settings, it is incredibly hard to stop people

doing valuable things in order to give them time to do even more valuable thingso e.g., “Are you saying what I am doing is no good?”o e.g., “I care about my kids”.

The essence of effective leadership is stopping people doing good things—to give them time to do better things

Learning power environments

Key concept:• Teachers do not create learning• Learners create learning

Teaching as engineering learning environments Key features:

• Create student engagement (pedagogies of engagement)• Well-regulated (pedagogies of contingency)• Develops habits of mind (pedagogies of formation)

Medicine Hat Tigers

A major junior (ice) hockey team playing in the Central Division of the Eastern Conference of the Western Hockey League in Canada

Players are aged from 15 to 20• 15 year olds are only allowed to play five games until their

own season has ended• Each team is allowed only three 20 year olds• Total roster 25 players

35

Stats on the ‘Medicine Hat Tigers’

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Dates of birth of the 2003 Medicine Hat Tigers hockey team

Why pedagogies of engagement?

Intelligence is partly inherited• So what?

Intelligence is partly environmental• Environment creates intelligence• Intelligence creates environment

Learning environments• High cognitive demand• Inclusive• Obligatory

Motivation: cause or effect?

competence

challenge

Flow

apathyboredom

relaxation

arousalanxiety

worry control

high

lowlow high

(Csikszentmihalyi, 1990)

Why pedagogies of contingency?

1993-1998• Reviewing research on formative assessment

1998-2003• Face-to-face implementations with small groups of teachers• Effect sizes ~0.3 standard deviations (equivalent to a 70%

increase in rate of learning) 2003-2008

• Attempts to produce faithful implementations at scale

The formative assessment hi-jack…

Long-cycle• Span: across units, terms• Length: four weeks to one year• Impact: Student monitoring; curriculum alignment

Medium-cycle• Span: within and between teaching units• Length: one to four weeks• Impact: Improved, student-involved, assessment; teacher

cognition about learning Short-cycle

• Span: within and between lessons• Length:o day-by-day: 24 to 48 hourso minute-by-minute: 5 seconds to 2 hours

• Impact: classroom practice; student engagement

Definitions of formative assessmentWe use the general term assessment to refer to all those activities undertaken by teachers—and by their students in assessing themselves—that provide information to be used as feedback to modify teaching and learning activities. Such assessment becomes formative assessment when the evidence is actually used to adapt the teaching to meet student needs” (Black & Wiliam, 1998 p. 140)

“the process used by teachers and students to recognise and respond to student learning in order to enhance that learning, during the learning” (Cowie & Bell, 1999 p. 32)

“assessment carried out during the instructional process for the purpose of improving teaching or learning” (Shepard et al., 2005 p. 275)

“Formative assessment refers to frequent, interactive assessments of students’ progress and understanding to identify learning needs and adjust teaching appropriately” (Looney, 2005, p. 21)

“A formative assessment is a tool that teachers use to measure student grasp of specific topics and skills they are teaching. It’s a ‘midstream’ tool to identify specific student misconceptions and mistakes while the material is being taught” (Kahl, 2005 p. 11)

“Assessment for Learning is the process of seeking and interpreting evidence for use by learners and their teachers to decide where the learners are in their learning, where they need to go and how best to get there” (Broadfoot et al., 2002 pp. 2-3)

Assessment for learning is any assessment for which the first priority in its design and practice is to serve the purpose of promoting students’ learning. It thus differs from assessment designed primarily to serve the purposes of accountability, or of ranking, or of certifying competence. An assessment activity can help learning if it provides information that teachers and their students can use as feedback in assessing themselves and one another and in modifying the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged. Such assessment becomes “formative assessment” when the evidence is actually used to adapt the teaching work to meet learning needs. (Black et al., 2004 p. 10)

Which of these are formative?

A. LA science adviser using test results to plan professional development workshops for teachers

B. Teachers doing item-by-item analysis of key stage 2 maths tests to review their Y6 curriculum

C. A school tests students every 10 weeks to predict which students are “on course” for GCSE Cs

D. Three quarters of the way through a unit testE. Exit pass question: “What is the difference between

mass and weight?”F. “Sketch the graph of y equals one over one plus x

squared on your mini-white boards.”

Formative assessment: a new definition

“An assessment functions formatively to the extent that evidence about student achievement elicited by the assessment is interpreted and used to make decisions about the next steps in instruction that are likely to be better, or better founded, than the decisions that would have been taken in the absence of that evidence.”

Formative assessment therefore involves the creation of, and capitalization upon, moments of contingency (short, medium and long cycle) in instruction with a view to regulating learning (proactive, interactive, and retroactive).” (Wiliam, 2009)

Unpacking assessment for learning

Key processes• Establishing where the learners are in their learning• Establishing where they are going• Working out how to get there

Participants• Teachers• Peers• Learners

Aspects of assessment for learning

Where the learner is going Where the learner is How to get there

Teacher Clarify and share learning intentions

Engineering effective discussions, tasks and

activities that elicit evidence of learning

Providing feedback that moves learners

forward

PeerUnderstand and share learning

intentionsActivating students as learning

resources for one another

Learner Understand learning intentions

Activating students as ownersof their own learning

Five “key strategies”…

Clarifying, understanding, and sharing learning intentions• curriculum philosophy

Engineering effective classroom discussions, tasks and activities that elicit evidence of learning• classroom discourse, interactive whole-class teaching

Providing feedback that moves learners forward• feedback

Activating students as learning resources for one another• collaborative learning, reciprocal teaching, peer-assessment

Activating students as owners of their own learning• metacognition, motivation, interest, attribution, self-assessment

(Wiliam & Thompson, 2007)

…and one big idea

Use evidence about learning to adapt teaching and learning to meet student needs

Keeping learning on track

A good teacher• Establishes where the students are in their learning• Identifies the learning destination• Carefully plans a route• Begins the learning journey• Makes regular checks on progress on the way• Makes adjustments to the course as conditions dictate

Supporting change with teacher learning communities

The Pack

A model for teacher learning

Content, then process

Content (what we want teachers to change)• Evidence• Ideas (strategies and techniques)

Process (how to go about change)• Choice• Flexibility• Small steps• Accountability• Support

Choice

Belbin inventory (Management teams: why they succeed or fail)• Eight team roles (defined as “A tendency to behave,

contribute and interrelate with others in a particular way.”)o Company worker; Innovator; Shaper; Chairperson; Resource

investigator; Monitor/evaluator; Completer/finisher; Team worker• Key ideaso Each role has strengths and allowable weaknesseso People rarely sustain “out of role” behavior, especially under stress

Each teacher’s personal approach to teaching is similar• Some teachers’ weaknesses require immediate attention• For most, however, students benefit more by developing

teachers’ strengths

Flexibility

Two opposing factors in any school reform• Need for flexibility to adapt to local constraints and affordanceso Implies there is appropriate flexibility built into the reform

• Need to maintain fidelity to the theory of action of the reform, to minimise “lethal mutations”o So you have to have a clearly articulated theory of action

Different innovations have different approaches to flexibility• Some reforms are too loose (e.g., ‘Effective schools’ movement)• Others are too tight (e.g., Montessori Schools)

The “tight but loose” formulation:• … combines an obsessive adherence to central design principles (the “tight”

part) with accommodations to the needs, resources, constraints, and affordances that occur in any school or district (the “loose” part), but only where these do not conflict with the theory of action of the intervention.

Strategies and techniques

Distinction between strategies and techniques• Strategies define the territory of formative assessment

(no brainers)• Teachers are responsible for choice of techniqueso Allows for customization/ caters for local contexto Creates ownershipo Shares responsibility

Key requirements of techniques• embodiment of deep cognitive/affective principles • relevance• feasibility• acceptability

Design and intervention

Our design process

Teachers’ implementation process

cognitive/affectiveinsights

synergy/comprehensiveness

set ofcomponents

set ofcomponents

synergy/comprehensiveness

cognitive/affectiveinsights

Small steps

According to Berliner (1994), experts• excel mainly in their own domain.• often develop automaticity for the repetitive operations that are needed

to accomplish their goals.• are more sensitive to the task demands and social situation when

solving problems.• are more opportunistic and flexible in their teaching than novices.• represent problems in qualitatively different ways than novices.• have fast and accurate pattern recognition capabilities. Novices cannot

always make sense of what they experience.• perceive meaningful patterns in the domain in which they are

experienced.• begin to solve problems slower but bring richer and more personal

sources of information to bear on the problem that they are trying to solve.

Example: CPR (Klein & Klein, 1981)

Six video extracts of a person delivering cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR)• 5 of the video extracts are students• 1 of the video extracts is an expert

Videos shown to three groups: students, experts, instructors

Success rate in identifying the expert:• Experts: 90%• Students: 50%• Instructors: 30%

Looking at the wrong knowledge…

The most powerful teacher knowledge is not explicit• That’s why telling teachers what to do doesn’t work• What we know is more than we can say• And that is why most professional development has been

relatively ineffective Improving practice involves changing habits, not adding

knowledge• That’s why it’s hardo And the hardest bit is not getting new ideas into people’s headso It’s getting the old one’s out

• That’s why it takes time But it doesn’t happen naturally

• If it did, the most experienced teachers would be the most productive, and that’s not true (Hanushek, 2005)

We need to create time and space for teachers to reflect on their practice in a structured way, and to learn from mistakes(Bransford, Brown & Cocking, 1999)

“Always make new mistakes”(Esther Dyson)

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”(Samuel Beckett, Worstward Ho)

Sensory capacity (Nørretranders, 1998)

Sensory system Total bandwidth(in bits/second)

Conscious bandwidth(in bits/second)

Eyes 10,000,000 40

Ears 100,000 30

Skin 1,000,000 5

Taste 1,000 1

Smell 100,000 1

Hand hygiene in hospitals (Pittet, 2001)Study Focus Compliance rate

Preston, Larson & Stamm (1981) Open ward 16%

ICU 30%

Albert & Condie (1981) ICU 28% to 41%

Larson (1983) All wards 45%

Donowitz (1987) Pediatric ICU 30%

Graham (1990) ICU 32%

Dubbert (1990) ICU 81%

Pettinger & Nettleman (1991) Surgical ICU 51%

Larson et al. (1992) Neonatal ICU 29%

Doebbeling et al. (1992) ICU 40%

Zimakoff et al. (1992) ICU 40%

Meengs et al. (1994) ER (Casualty) 32%

Pittet, Mourouga & Perneger (1999) All wards 48%

ICU 36%

Support

What is needed from teachers• A commitment to:o the continuous improvement of practice

• focus on those things that make a difference to student outcomes

What is needed from leaders• A commitment to:o creating expectations for the continuous improvement of practiceo ensuring that the the focus stays on those things that make a

difference to student outcomeso providing the time, space, dispensation and support for innovationo supporting risk-taking

A case study in risk

Transposition of the great arteries (TGA)• A rare, but extremely serious, congenital condition in newborn

babies (~25 per 100,000 live births) in whicho the aorta emerges from the right ventricle and so receives oxygen-poor

blood, which is carried back to the body without receiving more oxygeno the pulmonary artery emerges from the left ventricle and so receives the

oxygen-rich blood, which is carried back to the lungs• Traditional treatment: the ‘Senning’ procedure which involves:o the creation of a ‘tunnel’ between the ventricles, ando the insertion of a ‘baffle’ to divert oxygen-rich blood from the left

ventricle (where it shouldn’t be) to the right ventricle (where it should)• Prognosiso Early death rate (first 30 days): 12%o Life expectancy: 46.6 years

Senning Transitional Switch

Early death rateSenning 12%Transitional 25% Bull, et al (2000). BMJ, 320, 1168-1173.

The introduction of the ‘switch’ procedure

Life expectancy:Senning: 46.6 yearsSwitch: 62.6 years

Impact on life expectancy

Making a commitment…

Action planning• Forces teachers to make their ideas concrete and creates a record• Makes the teacher accountable for doing what they promised• Requires each teacher to focus on a small number of changes• Requires the teacher to identify what they will give up or reduce

A good action plan• Does not try to change everything at once• Spells out specific changes in teaching practice• Relates to the five “key strategies” of AfL• Is achievable within a reasonable period of time• Identifies something that the teacher will no longer do or will do

less of

…and being held to it

I think specifically what was helpful was the ridiculous NCR forms. I thought that was the dumbest thing, but I’m sitting with my friends and on the NCR form I write down what I am going to do next month.

Well, it turns out to be a sort of “I’m telling my friends I’m going to do this” and I really actually did it and it was because of that. It was because I wrote it down

I was surprised at how strong an incentive that was to do actually do something different … that idea of writing down what you are going to do and then because when they come by the next month you better take out that piece of paper and say “Did I do that?” … Just the idea of sitting in a group, working out something, and making a commitment… I was impressed about how that actually made me do stuff. (Tim, Spruce Central High School)

Supporting change with teacher learning communities

Designing teacher learning at scale

A single model for the whole school• Scalable• Enables a ‘single conversation’ with students

A model that honors the specificities of subject and age-range

A model that acknowledges the realities• Affordable• Feasible

Teacher learning communities

Plan that the TLC will run for two years Identify 10 to 12 interested colleagues

• Compositiono Similar assignments (e.g. early years, math/sci)o Mixed-subject/mixed-phaseo Hybrid

Secure institutional support for:• Monthly meetings (75 - 120 minutes each, inside or outside

school time)• Time between meetings (2 hrs per month in school time)o Collaborative planningo Peer observation

• Any necessary waivers from school policies

A ‘signature pedagogy’ for teacher learning

Every monthly TLC meeting should follows the same structure and sequence of activities• Activity 1: Introduction (5 minutes)• Activity 2: Starter activity (5 minutes)• Activity 3: Feedback (25-50 minutes)• Activity 4: New learning about formative assessment (20-40

minutes)• Activity 5: Personal action planning (15 minutes)• Activity 6: Review of learning (5 minutes)

Every TLC needs a leader

The job of the TLC leader(s)• To remind participants about the next meeting• To book a room for the meeting• To ensure that all necessary resources (including

refreshments!) are available at meetings• To ensure that the agenda is followed• To maintain a collegial and supportive environment

But most important of all…• not to be the formative assessment “expert”

Peer observation

Run to the agenda of the observed, not the observer• Observed teacher specifies focus of observationo e.g., teacher wants to increase wait-time

• Observed teacher specifies what counts as evidenceo provides observer with a stop-watch to log wait-times

• Observed teacher owns any notes made during the observation

Impact at Edmonton County School

The story so far…

1993-1998• Review of research on formative assessment

1998-2003• Face-to-face implementations with small groups of teachers• Effect sizes ~0.3 standard deviations (equivalent to a 70%

increase in rate of learning) 2003-2008

• Attempts to produce faithful implementations at scale 2008-2013

• Creating the conditions for implementations at scale

Comments?

Questions?