Assessment

1. Assessment

2. AssessmentPracticesinaBalancedAssessmentSystem West Virginia Institute For 21st Century Leadership

3. Common Language? Formative Assessment Summative Assessment Assessment FOR Learning Benchmark Assessments Assessment OF Learning Formative Classroom Assessments For Learning

4. A Productive Multi-Level Assessment System • Is needed to be sure that all instructional decisions are informed and well made • Is needed to meet the informational needs of all users at all levels • State • District • School • Classroom (teachers and students)

5. A Balanced Assessment System • Summative Assessment • An event after learning • Benchmark Assessment • An event after learning • Formative Assessment • A process during learning • Classroom Assessment For Learning • A process during learning

6. State Summative and Local Benchmark Assessments • Who are the primary users? • What are the typical uses? • What is being assessed? • What methods are being used? • When do we assess?

8. Benchmark Assessments • Administer a “cumulative” district/school-wide benchmark assessment two or three times a year. • Identify CSOs not yet being mastered early enough to enable teachers to make adjustments to promote greater success. • Identify students who are not progressing appropriately so support services can be provided.

9. District/School Benchmark Assessments • Effective Data Management (accumulate, summarize, analyze and report assessment results) • Track student progress over time and translate results into conclusions about program improvements • Intended users of this system include teachers and school/district leaders.

10. Formative Assessment A Process During Learning • Who are the primary users? • What are the typical uses? • What is being assessed? • What methods are being used? • When do we assess?

11. Formative Assessment

12. Learning Targets • Learning targets are explicit statements of intended learning derived from instructional objectives that have been broken down into component parts. Explicit learning targets enable students to build toward mastery of the instructional objectives.

13. Learning Targets • If I have not mastered an objective (summative/benchmark), how will I improve if I don’t know which specific learning targets are keeping me from mastery? • Clear learning targets can be written by asking the following questions: • What knowledge do I need to demonstrate the intended learning? • What patterns of reasoning do I need to master? • What skills are required, if any? • What product development capabilities must I acquire?

14. Classroom Assessment FOR Learning The only difference in Formative Assessment (as described above) and Classroom Assessment For Learning is the student involvement component.

16. What is the Student Involvement Component? • Classroom Assessment For Learning acknowledges the critical importance of the instructional decisions made by students and their teachers working as a team. • Continuous descriptive (rather than evaluative) feedback is provided strategically in amounts that students can address effectively, in amounts that do not overwhelm them.

17. What is the Student Involvement Component? • Assessments become far more than one-time events attached to the end of teaching. They become part of the learning process by keeping students posted on their progress and confident enough to continue to strive. • Students become consumers of assessment information, using evidence of their own progress to understand what comes next for them and to set goals.

18. What is the Student Involvement Component? • Students collaborate with teachers in creating and using assessments like those they will be held accountable for later. • Students become partners in the accumulation of growth portfolios that reveal the changes in their own achievement as it is happening.

19. What is the Student Involvement Component? • Students become partners in communicating about their own learning success as they rely on concrete evidence from their portfolios presented in student-led conferences.

20. A Process in Support of Learning Support Verify Learning Learning “Teachers involve their students in classroom assessment, record-keeping, and communication during learning. But, when it’s time for students to be accountable for what they have learned, the teacher takes the lead in conducting assessments OF learning.” -Richard J. Stiggins

21. Formative /Classroom Assessments For Learning • Happen while learning is still underway • Are not high-stakes • Are not for accountability • Are not for report card grades • Are in support of motivation and learning “If everything is for a grade, there’s never time to practice – get better.” -Rick Stiggins

22. Assessment For Learning means more than just assessing students more often, more than providing the teacher with assessment results to revise instruction. In assessment for learning, both teacher and student use classroom assessment information to modify teaching and learning activities.

23. When consistently carried out as a matter of routine within and across classrooms, this set of practices has been linked to profound gains in student achievement, especially for low achievers. Benjamin Bloom, "The Search for Methods of Group Instruction as Effective as One-on-One Tutoring," Educational Leadership, May 1984 Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam, "Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment," Phi Delta Kappan, October 1998