Common Formative Assessment

1. Common Formative Assessment Terry L. Price, Ed.S. Director of Elementary Education Bullitt County Public Schools 2009-2010

2. Common Assessment Common assessment is one of the most powerful, high-leverage strategies for improving student learning…..and it is available to all schools.

3. Why such a powerful strategy? It is frequent, common, high-quality formative assessment designed by teachers who are collaboratively working to help a group of students develop agreed-upon knowledge and skills

4. Formative Assessments……. are assessments FOR learning that measure a few things frequently. - DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, et.al

5. How can we create common assessments to monitor and promote student learning?

6. The Development of Common Assessments: A Design Overview • Define Purpose…What Do I Want to Assess? Why? • Identify “Fair Game” in Terms of Standards or Content Strands. • Design a Representative Balance of Assessment Items. • Develop an Assessment Blueprint. What is the Instructional Process or Plan to Prepare Students? Actually, the Lesson Planning Phase. • Select / Develop Assessment Items. • Administer, Score, and Analyze the Assessment Results. • Determine What You are Going to Do with the Data……. • Make Necessary Instructional Changes.

7. Criteria for Identifying Essential Common Outcomes • Remember to separate the ESSENTIAL from the PERIPHERAL…apply the 3 criteria to each standard as described below: • Endurance: Are students expected to retain the skills / knowledge / concepts / standards long after the assessment is completed? • Leverage: Is this skill / knowledge / concept / standard applicable to many academic disciplines? Cross Curricular Tie…… • Readiness for the Next Level of Learning: Is this skill / knowledge / concept / standard preparing the student for the next level of learning. Essential: What must be learned. Peripheral: All of the other “stuff”.

8. Data Analysis • Item Analysis: After each assessment is completed, teachers conduct item analysis to analyze student proficiency. A good tool: CATS Calculator. Any question that does not have 80% mastery must be re-taught and assessed. • Narrative Analysis: In-depth Self Reflection. Goal: Total teacher reflection. Teachers must detail their corrective instructional strategies for their students.

9. Characteristics of Quality Common Assessments • Teacher / team generated, not textbook generated. • All students take the same content assessment regardless of who their teacher may be. • Assessments should follow the ratio of 12 / 1, 24 / 2…to be able to be CATS calculated. Bottom line: Consistency • Item analysis occurs at the end of every assessment. • Narrative summary / analysis using the data. What’s the next step? Cute Kid…Huh? Cute Kid…Huh?

10. A formative assessment, like a physical examination, can provide both the “doctor” and the “patient” with timely information regarding the patient’s well-being and can help with a prescription for an ailing person or assist a healthy person to become even stronger. - DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, et. al

11. Clearly defined goals related to learning and assessment help teachers provide descriptive feedback to students and provides students with concrete information in how to improve. This feedback is due to in-depth analysis of the results. The growth they experience helps build confidence as learners.

12. If all students are expected to demonstrate the same knowledge and skills, regardless of the teacher to which they are assigned, it only makes sense that teachers must work together in a collaborative effort to assess student learning. - DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, et. al

13. Common formative assessments represent the most effective strategies for determining whether the guaranteed curriculum is being taught…….. and more importantly, learned !!!!

14. Common, team-developed formative assessments are such a powerful tool in school improvement that no team of teachers should be allowed to opt out of creating them. - DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, et. al

15. Common formative assessments inform the practice of individual teachers. They provide teachers with a basis of comparison as they learn, skill by skill, how the performance of their students is similar to and different from other students who took the assessment. - DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, et. al

16. Questions to Ponder • As a teacher – How do you respond when a student doesn’t learn? • As a team – How do you respond when a student doesn’t learn? • As a school – How do you respond when a student doesn’t learn?

17. Common formative assessments help identify groups of students who need additional support and time to ensure their learning. • Everything students might SAY, DO, or CREATE has the potential to be formative because it can provide information about how much they understand and helps the teacher plan the next steps of instruction.

18. Challenges Time ? Time must not be allowed to be a factor. Challenge the "Yeah, but..." Standing on your principles...why not step all over them? Scheduling ? Are you kidding me? Credits: Richard and Becky DuFour, Robert Eaker, Rick Stiggins, and Mike Schmoker. Information from these authors was used in the development of this presentation.