Good Morning!

1. Good Morning! Please find your school’s “What is learning” poster and hang it on a wall near your table.

2. Building leadership teams (BLT)February 9, 2010secondary buildings Learning Assessment Process: Educators Engaged in Responsive Teaching Using Formative Assessments to “Form” Instruction

3. Session’s Learning Targets and Indicators of Success: • Learning Targets: • To deepen understanding regarding the Learning-Assessment Process • To gain clarity regarding making instructional adjustments based on the use of formative assessments • Indicators of Success: • Summarize understandings and points of uncertainty regarding the Learning-Assessment Process • Express applications of instructional adjustments for one’s work

4. Celebrations • Our Growth and Success – Sharing Experiences: • Vonnie Houchin– Southwest MS • Audra Nesland – North MS • John Julius/Jocelyn Hafner – Stevens HS

5. Discuss: • What have you seen, experienced, or done regarding growth in formative assessments? 4 3 2 1 0 5 min.

7. The Nature of Learning • Learning: • is active, not passive • involves conceptual changes of increasing complexity • is subjective, personal, and must be internalized • is contextualized and involves meaningful, real-world tasks • is social • is affective and is influenced by self awareness, beliefs about one’s abilities, and motivation • is impacted by the learning task, and difficulty, relevancy, authenticity, and novelty effect learning • is influenced by the learner’s development (ZPD) • involves reflection about learning. Constructivism

8. Forming a Partnership with Students in the Learning-Assessment Process • The Rationale: • Significant learning gains • Students put forth more effort • Greater sense of ownership • Increased commitment to learning • More engagement in learning • Fewer discipline problems • Increased student achievement References: Black & Wiliam, 1998; Harlen & Deakin-Crick, 2003; Marzano, 1992, 2005; Sadler, 1989 • Expanding formative assessment practices to systematically involve students acknowledges students’ contributions to their own success and gives them the opportunity and structure to become active partners in improving their learning (Chappuis, 2005).

9. Connections

10. Clarification: • Time Frame • Formative Assessment tool/strategy

11. A question to consider • What’s the connection between the types of learning tasks the teacher plans and designs and the principles of constructivism?

12. Gaining Clarity • On the front of the index card please record your key understandings of the Learning Assessment Process model • On the back of the index card list any points of uncertainty you still have with regard to the model • Share points of uncertainty with team members and begin to build clarity • The trust group will be modeling this process. They will be identifying each component as they are presenting. 10 min. 1 8 6 4 2 0

13. So what? • I’ve assessed my students’ learning. “So what?”

14. Instructional adjustments • “When the cook tastes the soup, that’s formative; when the guests taste the soup, that’s summative.” Robert Stake • “Formative assessment is not an end in itself, but the beginning of better instruction.” Carol Ann Tomlinson, 2008

17. Implementation Ideas for March 5 • Discuss your building’s celebrations • Revisit how we learn and what is learning • Introduce the principles of Constructivism • Emphasize the importance of the partnership between the teacher & student and the active role students’ play in their own learning (see slide # 8) • Introduce the expanded Learning Assessment Process • Identify connections between the orange and the expanded blue-green model

18. Implementation Ideas – Con’t. • Watch the video from the November BLT looking through a “new” lens – making instructional adjustments • Use the effective instructional adjustments handout to promote collaboration and sharing of various strategies • Model the Learning Assessment Process • Plan for the development of Constructivism and the Learning Assessment Process on an ongoing basis (see slide 19)

19. Additional Resources Improving educators’ knowledge, skills, and practices requires collaborative opportunities to discuss, plan, study, inquire, reflect, and experiment. Since this cannot occur during a few BLT sessions, a number of resources are provided to assist in the development of Constructivism and the Learning-Assessment Process on an ongoing basis: • Springing into Active Learning by Zmuda (2008) - This article supports constructivist principles and surfaces many issues about learning. Reflection and conversations about these issues can shift the definition of what learning looks like, sounds like, and feels like in secondary schools. • Assessment Through the Student’s Eyes byStiggins (2007) - This article builds understanding of the emotional dynamics of the assessment experience from the student’s perspective. Stiggins contends that the goal of formative assessment is to keep failure from becoming chronic and inevitable in the mind of the learner. The article has implications for issues associated with motivation, attendance, and drop outs. • Learning Targets and Indicators of Success - This one-page summary provides rationale and clarity about how to establish clear learning targets and indicators of success. • Assessment For Learning: Help Students Turn Failure into Success - This scenario illustrates how a teacher used assessment for learning in mathematics to help a struggling student find the path to recovery from a chronic sense of failure. The tool students use to learn from their performance is also provided. • Since we know that just handing out an article doesn’t further learning, a number of strategies for how to engage staff in comprehending text are provided.

20. Intentional Power • Just as a windmill intentionally harnesses the power of moving air to generate energy, the learning-assessment process helps students intentionally harness the workings of their own minds to generate motivation to learn. • A synthesis of more than 4,000 research studies concluded that when implemented well, the learning-assessment process can effectively double the speed of student learning (Wiliam, 2007).