Assessment for the Differentiated Classroom

1. Assessment for the Differentiated Classroom Based on the work of Tomlinson & McTighe and Wormeli

2. Activity: Your Assessment Concerns I Jot down answers to these questions on your worksheet. • What are your concerns about assessment in a differentiated classroom? • What specific problems do you have?

3. Why do we grade students? THINK about the reasons you grade students. PAIR up with someone near you. Discuss and compare your reasons. SHARE these together with the entire group

4. Grading vs. Assessment • Grading • Predetermined • Specific • Symbolic • Should not drive instruction • Assessment • Ongoing • Continuous • Drives instruction

5. Successful Assessment in the Differentiated Classroom • Focus on the Need to Know and Want to Know • Standards or other • Determine Student Readiness • Know your audience! • Design Assessments • Pre-, Formative, Summative • Authentic Assessment • Real world application • How students are/have been learning • Assessment drives planning

6. Activity:The Continuum of Assessment • The next three slides contain information about the continuum of assessment in a classroom. • As the group discusses each part of the continuum, jot down ideas on your worksheet about: • Specific examples of this type of assessment. • What actions does this type of assessment drive you to take? How does it drive instruction?

7. The Continuum of AssessmentPre-Assessment 1. Pre-Assessment • Before unit or lesson • Formal or informal • Indicates readiness • Other general pre-assessments can include interest inventories and learning profiles, which can give teachers useful information in unit planning (good information for students, too!) • Assessments result in action.

8. The Continuum of Assessment:Formative Assessment 2. Formative • Ongoing, en route checkpoints • “Can you hear me now?” • Informal, sometimes formal • Assessments result in action

9. The Continuum of Assessment:Summative Assessment 3. Summative • Gauges mastery of Essential Knowledge • Formal • After learning occurs • Gradable • Assessments result in action

10. Know What You Are Assessing When you take off content points or lower grades for late work, student not putting his name on the paper or poor penmanship is you are not assessing content or skills. You are assessing work habits. DO assess work habits, just assess them separately.

11. Three assessments that support differentiation • Portfolios • Ongoing snapshot of student work. • Rubrics • Teacher/student created, with specific goal levels that can be stretched to include higher level work. • Student Self-Assessment • Make first/last assessment tasks the same and ask students to analyze their own growth.

12. Tiering Assessments • Every student is expected to demonstrate mastery of the standard. • The standard will have subsets of skills and content. Listing these can give great ideas for tiering. • Usually, but not always 3 tiers. • Not Yet Ready • Ready to Go • Ready to Go Further You don’t have to tier every aspect of every lesson.

13. Ten assessment approaches to avoid . . . • Including nonacademic factors into the final grade • Penalizing multiple attempts at mastery • Grading practice (homework) • Withholding assistance when it is needed • Assessing in ways that do not accurately indicate their mastery From Fair isn’t always equal by Rick Wormeli

14. Ten assessment approaches to avoid. • Allowing extra credit or bonus points • Group grades • Grading on a (bell) curve • Recording zeros for work not done • Norm-referenced terms to describe criterion referenced attributes From Fair isn’t always equal by Rick Wormeli

15. The Grade card • Traditional grade cards do not support a differentiated curriculum. • The differentiated grade card considers: • Achievement of goals/mastery of standards (basic, proficient, advanced) • Progress toward goals • Work habits • How can you use the above information with your current grading system to reflect your differentiation?

16. Activities: The Differentiated Grade card • Create a differentiated report card based on what you know about differentiation right now. • Create a system of using your current report card to reflect differentiation for all learners. What do you need to add or attach?

17. Activity: Discuss with Colleagues: • Should we hold students accountable for everything? • How do we assign equitable grades when different tierings are used? • Do we let all students try the complex assessments if they want to? • Do we let advanced students ‘get by’ by doing less complex work occasionally?

18. Activity: Your Assessment Concerns 2 Revisit your answers to these questions. • What are your concerns about assessment in a differentiated classroom? • What specific problems do you have? What suggestions do you have to answer some of these concerns now?

19. Resources • Tomlinson, C.A. & McTighe, J. (2006). Integrating differentiated instruction + understanding by design. ASCD: Alexandria, VA. • Wormeli, R. (2006). Fair isn’t always equal. Stenhouse: Portland, ME.