Formative Assessments

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Formative Assessments
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How will we know if they learned it?

• The power of common assessments
• Schools with the greatest improvements in
  student achievement consistently used common
  assessments. D Reeves
• What are common assessments?
• Not standardized tests, but rather teacher
  created, teacher owned assessments that are
  collaboratively scored and that provide immediate
  feedback to students and teachers.
• 
  D Reeves

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Assessment Terminology

• Summative
• Assessment of learning
• Assessment of unit, quarter, semester, grade
  level, or course study
• Provides status report on degree of student
  proficiency or mastery relative to targeted
  standards
• Answers question Have students achieved the
  goals defined by a given standard or group of
  standards?

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Common Formative

• Assessment for Learning given to all students in
  a grade level or course several a times during
  semester, trimester or year.
• Design as matching pre and post assessments to
  ensure same assessment to same assessment
  comparison of student growth.
• Diagnostic intended to be used as a guide to
  improve teaching and learning
• Items collectively designed by participating
  teachers
• Items should represent priority standards only
• Results analyzed in data teams in order to
  differentiate instruction
• Provides information for instructional planning
  and delivery
• Similar in design and format to district and
  state assessments

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Formative Assessment Research

• Research suggests that if done well, genuine
  assessments for learning can produce among the
  largest achievement gains ever reported for
  educational interventions. Education Week May 2,
  2007 p.22
• In other words, formative assessment, effectively
  implemented, can do as much or more to improve
  student achievement than any type of the most
  powerful instructional interventions (such as)
  intensive reading instruction, one on one
  tutoring and the like. L Darling-Hammond and J
  Branford, Preparing Teachers for a Changing
  World, 2005, p277.

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Formative Assessment Research

• In reviewing 250 studies from around the world,
  published between 1987 and 1998, we found that a
  focus by teachers on assessment for learning, as
  opposed to assessment of learning, produced a
  substantial increase in students achievement.
  Black and Wiliam, Assessment and Classroom
  Learning, Assessment in Education Principles,
  Policy, and Practice. 1998, pp 7-73

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Formative Assessment Research

• Reviews of research in this area by Natriello
  (1987) and Crooks ( 1988) were updated by Black
  and Wiliam (1998)who concluded that regular use
  of classroom formative assessment would raise
  student achievement by 0.4 to 0.7 standard
  deviations enough to raise the United States to
  the top five in international rankings.
• Wiliam, content Then Process Teaching
  Learning communities in the Service of Formative
  Assessment, Unpublished Manuscript, 2007

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Criteria for Formative Assessments

• 1. Identify the four to five power indicators to
  assess, they represent the big idea of your
  units.
• 2. Design a minimum of 4 questions for each power
  indicator for students to demonstrate their
  understanding of the key concepts.
• Item response
• Constructed response
• Extended response
• 3. Limit the total number of items
• 4. Design scoring guides and rubrics

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10 Steps for Designing
Common Formative Assessments

• Laying the standards foundations Steps 1-6
• Choose important topic
• Identify matching priority standards
• Unwrap matching priority standards
• Create a graphic organizer (New Bloom)
• Determine the big ideas
• Write the essential questions

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Creating the assessments steps 7-10

• 7. Write selected response items
• 8. Write constructed response items (extended or
  short)
• 9. Write essential question big idea directions
  
• 10. Create scoring guides for constructed items

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Where to start

• Determine purpose of the assessment
• Select assessment types consider what students
  are demonstrating understanding of
• Write first draft items
• Create answer keys and scoring guides
• Review and revise common assessment items

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Assessment is Inference Making

• Teachers use assessment information and results
  to reach instructional decisions
• The purpose of the formative assessment is to
  evaluate your students understanding of the
  power standards
• What kind of assessment will provide the best
  evidence as to whether students have met this
  singular purpose.

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General Guide for Effective Item Writing

• Reflect higher order instructional objectives
• Students should not be able to answer solely from
  memory must apply knowledge not just recall
• Be clear and brief
• Include correct standard terminology

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Selected response

• Students select from a provided list
• Types include multiple choice, true or false,
  matching, fill in blank
• Criteria
• Ask a question with only one best answer
• Eliminate clues leading to correct answer
• Avoid choices that are obviously wrong

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Constructed Response

• Includes short and extended response
• Students will demonstrate through writing,
  speaking, or performance their integrated
  understanding of the unwrapped concepts and
  skills
• Link to Blooms levels
• Level 4 Draw inferences, conclusions,
  generalizations
• Level 5 - Support inferences, conclusions, with
  text evidence, prior knowledge
• May ask students to respond in writing to your
  essential questions with their own big ideas.
• Ask students to explain their thinking using the
  unwrapped concept vocabulary terms
• Requires a rubric for scoring

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Value of Pre-Assessment

• Pre-assessments decide where to aim early
  instruction
• Pre-assessments indicate what sorts of skills,
  knowledge, or attitudes student have or do not
  have
• Pre-assessments determine enabling sub skills
  necessary for the unit

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Design matching Assessments

• A pretest/post-test design provides a matching
  set of bookend assessments that are either the
  same or alternate forms of the same assessment
• The improvement between the pre and post
  assessment constitutes credible evidence of
  learning

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Designing a rubric

• Do proficient first and than exemplary
• Proficient - States answer choice provides 3
  reasons for answer choice supports each reason
  with examples from text, writes one or more
  paragraphs
• Exemplary -all of the proficient plus includes
  reasons why one choice is better than another
  includes real life connections in support it was
  the expectation for success was with over and
  above work

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• Progressing
• Meets two or three