talk about assessment: eight big ideas to improve learning for all students damian cooper (905)...
TRANSCRIPT
Talk About Assessment: Eight Big Ideas
to Improve Learning for All Students
Damian Cooper
(905) 823-6298
NESA Spring Educators Conference Keynote
April 5, 2011
Session Outcomes Understand how the purposes of
assessment and grading are changing Learn about 8 Big Ideas that should
guide our practices Explore assessment strategies related to
the Big Ideas in the context of our own schools and classrooms
Begin to develop a plan to improve our own practices
Why, in 2011, are we re-examining our assessment beliefs and practices?
Mission: to sift and sort students
Mean
Mission: excellence from ALL
Range of Competent Achievement
If the new goal of education is success for all, then we have no choice but toDifferentiate Instruction & Assessment
Instruction Students bring different
knowledge & experience to school
Students learn at different rates
Students learn in different ways
Assessment Not all students are
able to demonstrate their learning in the same way
Not all students respond the same way to test pressure
Some students need more scaffolding than others
Research on Effective Assessment
•The provision of effective feedback to students
•The active involvement of students in their own learning
•Adjusting teaching to take account of the results of assessment
•Recognition of the profound influence assessment has on motivation and self-esteem
•The need for students to be able to assess themselves and understand how to improve
Crooks, 1988; Black & Wiliam, 1998
The Big Ideas of Classroom Assessment
1. Assessment serves different purposes at different times: it may be used to find out what students already know and can do; it may be used to help students improve their learning; or it may be used to let students, and their parents, know how much they have learned within a prescribed period of time.
2. Assessment must be planned and purposeful.
3. Assessment must be balanced, including oral and performance as well as written tasks, and be flexible in order to improve learning for all students.
The Big Ideas of Classroom Assessment
4. Assessment and instruction are inseparable because effective assessment informs learning.
5. For assessment to be helpful to students, it must inform them in words, not numerical scores or letter grades, what they have done well, what they have done poorly, and what they need to do next in order to improve.
6. Assessment is a collaborative process that is most effective when it involves self, peer, and teacher assessment.
The Big Ideas of Classroom Assessment
7. Performance standards are an essential component of effective assessment.
8. Grading and reporting student achievement is a caring, sensitive process that requires teachers’ professional judgement.
The Big Ideas of Classroom Assessment
1. Assessment serves different purposes at different times: it may be used to find out what students already know and can do; it may be used to help students improve their learning; or it may be used to let students, and their parents, know how much they have learned within a prescribed period of time.
Assessment for Learning“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.” Black, Wiliam et al. 2004
Assessment of Learning
“Assessment of learning includes those tasks that are designed to determine how much learning has occurred after a significant period of instruction. The data from such assessments is often used to determine report card grades.
The Big Ideas of Classroom Assessment
2. Assessment must be planned and purposeful.
“Backward Design” Program Planning
Stage 1: Identify targeted understandings
Stage 2: Determine appropriate assessment of those understandings
Stage 3: Plan learning experiences and instruction that make such
understanding possible
Wiggins and McTighe, Understanding by Design
Plan Backward from What’s Essential…
Worth being
familiar with
Important to know and do
Enduring understandings
Wiggins and McTighe,
Understanding by Design
Grade 4 – Pulleys and GearsSample learning outcomes:
Describe how rotary motion in one system is transferred to rotary motion in another
Describe how gears operate in one plane(e.g. spur gears, idle gears) and in two planes (e.g. crown, bevel, or worm gears)
Why do we need pulleys and gears?
Topic INTU…
Testing Consumer Products on Animals I need to understand both sides of the debate concerning whether it is right to test consumer products on animals.
Video Gaming I need to understand whether video gaming is helpful or harmful to learning for teenagers.
Downloading Music I need to understand the arguments for and against downloading music made by consumers, record companies and artists.
Topics Compared to Essential Questions
Consider how these “topics” differ from the corresponding INTU questions:
The Big Ideas of Classroom Assessment
3. Assessment must be balanced, including oral and performance as well as written tasks, and be flexible in order to improve learning for all students.
Plan Backward from What’s Essential…
Worth being
familiar with
Important to know and do
Enduring understandings
Adapted from Wiggins and McTighe,
Understanding by Design
Assessment Types
Traditional quizzes & tests
-paper/pencil
Performance Tasks & Projects
-open-ended
-complex
-authentic
Oral Assessments
-conferences
-interviews
-oral questionning
Triangulation of Data: Classroom Assessment
Valid & Reliable Picture of Student
Achievement
Performance task
Oral defense/
conference
Written test data
You Need to Ensure a Balance of Assessment Types
Students: write, do or say
Teachers: mark, observe or listen
Authenticity is key –
change a book report
into a book review!
The Big Ideas of Classroom Assessment
4. Assessment and instruction are inseparable because effective assessment informs learning.
The “zone of proximal development” Lev Vygotsky
What do students currently know and what can students currently do?
Where do I want them to get to? How big is the gap? How do I ensure the gap is just right to
challenge students in a way that maximizes learning?
Differentiating Instruction
To develop skills, simplify the content e.g. Simpler texts, less depth/breadth, etc.
To master content, present using a different mode suited to student’s strengths e.g. Graphics, audio, video, manipulatives, etc.
Differentiating Assessment Content standards:
learning outcomes
Performance standards: rubrics/checklists
Student products & performances
Assessment conditions
Must be within student’s “ZPD”
Keep consistent for all students
May be adapted to be within student’s “ZPD”
Reporting to Parents
Grade level at which student is working
Achievement level at which student is performing
Degree of support provided
Learning outcomes
(incl. IEP ref. if applicable)
Rubric levels
Anecdotal comments
The Big Ideas of Classroom Assessment
5. For assessment to be helpful to students, it must inform them in words, not numerical scores or letter grades, what they have done well, what they have done poorly, and what they need to do next in order to improve.
When the classroom culture focuses on rewards, gold stars, grades, or class ranking, then (students) look for ways to obtain the best marks rather than to improve their learning. One reported consequence is that, when they have any choice, (students) avoid difficult tasks. They also spend time and energy looking for clues to the “right answer”. “Inside the Black Box”, Black & Wiliam, 1998
“…assessment which is explicitly designed to promote learning is the single most powerful tool we have for both raising standards and empowering lifelong
learners.”
Assessment for Learning: Beyond the Black Box, 1999, University of Cambridge School of Education
The Big Ideas of Classroom Assessment
6. Assessment is a collaborative process that is most effective when it involves self, peer, and teacher assessment.
Math Class Pete has his students use “Traffic Light” signs at
the start of a lesson on equivalent fractions, decimals and percentages to assess prior knowledge.
Teacher: Do you know what the word “equivalent” means?
Students show either the red or green side of the “traffic light” in response.
He orally checks a sample of the “green” responses to see if they do, in fact, understand the term.
Self and Peer Assessment Assessment for learning ONLY
Requires training and modelling
Focus assessment on what was taught
Begin with short sessions
Needs to be part of your routine
The Big Ideas of Classroom Assessment
7. Performance standards are an essential component of effective assessment.
Most students can hit the target if they can see it clearly and it stays still for them.
Rick Stiggins
Clear Targets
Clarity of curriculum standards High quality assessment tasks Rubrics to describe what quality looks
like Anchors to show students what quality
looks like Checklists to enable students to monitor
their own progress
The Big Ideas of Classroom Assessment
8. Grading and reporting student achievement is a caring, sensitive process that requires teachers’ professional judgement.
Grading involves summarizing a large amount of assessment of learning data into a single letter or numerical score….it has little to do with teaching and learning!
How much evidence is “enough” for reporting?
In other words…
How do we ensure that the body of evidence selected for evaluation and reporting in a given subject or course is a valid sample?
What are the requirements of a “valid sample”?
No diagnostic evidence
Includes a variety of modes to allow for differences in learning style (write, do, say)
Includes multiple (3+)pieces of evidence for each learning cluster
Provides evidence of the essential learning in the subject
Tasks represent polished work:– Not practices or early
tries– Feedback has occurred
previously and been implemented
How do I currently try to ensure that students complete the set of assessment tasks that comprise evidence of essential learning?
Guidelines for Ensuring that Critical Tasks are Completed
identify for students and parents the tasks that are essential as proof of learning
operate on the understanding that all of these must be completed to meet the requirements of the subject or course
timelines for completion of these tasks must be communicated to students and parents to facilitate students’ and teacher’s workload
conduct frequent “process” checks provide plenty of in-class time to work on
essential tasks
Guidelines for Ensuring that Critical Tasks are Completed
identify strategies for addressing non-completion of essential tasks: e.g.-completion contract-supervised learning centre-”Recovery Week” & “Just Do It!”
have a school-wide policy concerning interim and final grade determination: e.g.-use “Incomplete” on interim report card-consistency regarding what “Incomplete” becomes on the final report card
Reporting Student Achievement
Given that it’s a crude summary of lots of information, what do we want the report card grade to represent?
The recent trend in
a student’s
achievement.
Report Card Comments… Purpose:
• strengths, weaknesses, next steps • invitation to further discussion
Audience: non-educators Focus on quality of work, not personality
of student. Differentiate between achievement
issues and behavioural issues.
Communicating with Parents…
When describing achievement, reference appropriate standards:– NOT other students– NOT siblings– Provincial achievement standards
Avoid all labelling of students: there are NO “A” students or “Level 4” students, only “A” performances and “Level 4” performances.
Commitment to Action
Spend a few moments reflecting on the 8 Big Ideas of Assessment ….
What was your most significant learning? What specific actions do you plan to take
immediately and/or between now and June 2011? What results would you like to see from these
actions? How will you assess the effectiveness of these
actions?
50
Suggested Reading
1. Black, Paul and Wiliam, Dylan. “Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment”, Phi Delta Kappan, October, 1998 A seminal article on the value of formative assessment that summarizes effective assessment practices as described in 250 studies in the UK, the US, Australia, Switzerland, Hong Kong and Africa.
2. Cooper, Damian. Talk About Assessment: Strategies and Tools to Improve Teaching and Learning, Nelson Education, 2007.
3. Cooper, Damian. Talk About Assessment: High School Strategies and Tools,
Nelson Education, 2010 4. Davies, Anne. Making Classroom Assessment Work, Connections Publishing,
2000 A short and very useful overview of the basics of assessment in today’s classrooms, with particular relevance to elementary schools.
5. Marzano, Robert J. Transforming Classroom Grading, ASCD, 2000
An excellent examination of past and present trends in classroom grading practice.
6. O’Connor, Ken. How to Grade for Learning 3rd. Edition, Skylight, 2009
A solid treatment of the grading dilemmas that arise in intermediate and senior grades.
7. Stiggins. Richard. Classroom Assessment for Student Learning, Assessment
Training Institute, 2004. An in-depth “textbook” for students of assessment, organized according to principles of assessment, assessment methods, and communication.
8. Wiggins, Grant. Educative Assessment, Jossey Bass, 1998
A comprehensive publication from a true expert in the field, this work provides all the background to Wiggins” approach to classroom assessment.
9. Wiggins, Grant and McTighe, Jay. Understanding By Design, ASCD, 1998
A concise and very readable guide to designing program from an assessment point of view.