Common Formative Assessments

1. Common Formative Assessments Whittier City School District

2. Agenda • Part 1: Introduction to Common Formative Assessments • Part 2: Laying the Standards Foundation • Part 3: Assessment Formats and Item Writing Guidelines • Part 4: Writing First-Draft Assessment Items • Part 5: Creating Scoring Guides • Part 6: Tools for Checking Item Quality

3. Critical Questions of a PLC • What do our students need to know and be able to do? • How will we know if each student has learned it? • How will we respond when some students do not learn? • How will we extend and enrich the learning for all students who are already proficient?

4. Learning Objective • Understand how common formative assessments are the centerpiece of an integrated standards and assessment system.

5. Terms • Common Formative Assessments • Unwrapping Standards

6. Essential Questions • What are common formative assessments? • How do they connect to powerful instruction and assessment practices?

7. What the research says… • “The biggest effects on student learning occur when _______ become_______of their own teaching and when ________ become their own ________.” Hattie, 2008 teachers learners students teachers

8. Putting the Pieces of the Puzzle Together Standards and Assessment Data-Driven Decision Making Effective Teaching Strategies Accountability for Learning

9. Standards and Assessment Leverage Endurance Success State Test

10. Data Driven Decision Making Data Teams structured process • Collect and chart data • Analyze to prioritize needs • Set SMART goals • Select effective teaching strategies • Determine results indicators

11. Effective Teaching Strategies “The single most important influence on student learning is the quality of teaching.” -Charlotte Danielson, 2007 • ADD PICTURE

12. Accountability for Learning Antecedents/Cause (Adult Actions) Effects/Results

13. Putting the Pieces of the Puzzle Together Standards and Assessment Data-Driven Decision Making Effective Teaching Strategies Accountability for Learning

14. If the state standards and the state tests are the “book-ends”…. …how would you arrange these powerful practices in between?

15. Common Formative Assessments The Centerpiece of an Integrated Standards-Based Assessment System Ainsworth & Viegut, 2006

16. What we’ve done…. Standards- Assessment Alignment Grid

17. Talk It Over • What benefits do you see in deliberately aligning powerful instruction and assessment practices to improve student learning?

19. Assessment of Learning Assessment for Learning

20. Formative/ Assessment for LearningSummative/ Assessment of Learning

21. Final Thoughts

22. What are Common Formative Assessments (CFAs)? • Administered to all students • Items collaboratively designed by teachers • Items represent Priority Standards ONLY • Items are aligned to district and state tests • Results are analyzed in Data Teams in order to differentiate instruction

23. On Your Own • Please review the research on formative assessments. • Select three key words that resonate with you.

24. Key Word Box Notes

25. Priority Standards

26. Selecting Priority Standards to Unwrap & Assess • Analyze CST or Benchmark Data • Review District Priority Standards Pacing Guide & District Benchmarks

27. Agenda • Part 1: Introduction to Common Formative Assessments • Part 2: Laying the Standards Foundation • Part 3: Assessment Formats and Item Writing Guidelines • Part 4: Writing First-Draft Assessment Items • Part 5: Creating Scoring Guides • Part 6: Tools for Checking Item Quality

28. Essential Questions • What are common formative assessments? • How do they connect to powerful instruction and assessment practices?

29. Part 2 Laying the Standards Foundation

30. Laying the FoundationSteps 1-4 Step 1: “Unwrap” the Priority Standards Step 2: Create a Graphic Organizer Step 3: Determine the Big Ideas Step 4: Write the Essential Questions

31. Step 1:“Unwrap” Selected Priority Standards • Identify the key concepts (important nouns or noun phrases) by underlining them • Identify the skills (verbs) by circling them or making them ALL CAPS

32. Step 1: “Unwrap” Matching Priority Standards Example 5.2.3 RECOGNIZE main ideas presented in texts and PROVIDE evidence that supports those ideas. 5.2.4 DRAW inferences, conclusions, or generalizations about text and SUPPORT them with textual evidence and prior knowledge. 5.2.5 CONTRAST facts, supported inferences, and opinions in text.

33. Step 1 Activity“Unwrap” Your Priority Standards • Analyze the wording of your priority standards to determine exactly what students must know and be able to do. • Identify the key concepts (important nouns or noun phrases). • Circle the skills (verbs).

34. Step 2:Create a Graphic Organizer • Represent each of the “unwrapped” concepts and skills clearly • Reveals all the learning targets (concepts and skills) • Focuses instruction and assessment

35. Step 2:Create a Graphic Organizer • Choose the type of organizer that works best for you: • Outline • Bulleted List • Concept Map • T-chart • Other

36. Step 2: Reading Comprehension Examples Concepts: Need to KNOW Skills: Be able to DO (2) RECOGNIZE (main idea and concepts) (1) IDENTIFY (supporting evidence) (5) ASSESS (supporting evidence) (4) DRAW (inferences, conclusions or generalizations) (5) SUPPORT (inferences/conclusions with text evidence and prior knowledge) • Main Idea • Supporting Evidence • Inferences • Conclusions • Generalizations • Text Evidence • Prior Knowledge

37. Step 2 Activity • Using the T-chart, or a graphic organizer of your choice, list all “unwrapped” concepts and skills from matching priority standards. • List each skill with its related concept(s) in parentheses. • Identify the approximate level of each skill according to Bloom’s Taxonomy

38. Step 3:Determine the Big Ideas • What do you want your students to discover on their own. • Represent the main ideas, conclusions or generalizations about the “unwrapped” concepts and skills

39. Big Idea Key Points • Open-ended • Enduring • Can apply to more than one area of study (broad) … OR • Integrated understanding of the Priority Standard (topical)

40. Broader Big Ideas • Broader Big Ideas are the generalizations derived for one area of study that connect to and can be found in several subject matter areas. Main ideas must be supported with evidence from the text and supporting details.

41. Topical Big Ideas • Topical Big Ideas relate primarily to the inherent understanding in a particular course of study or section of the standard Mathematical formulas and estimates both provide shortcuts for determining needed mathematical information.

42. Big Ideas Don’t worry about getting it right, just get it down!

44. Examples • Writers express their ideas and imagination in different formats depending on their purpose and personal choice • Geographic, political, cultural, and other structures work together to ensure the survival and advancement of all civilizations. • Reading music allows you to participate and communicate in the language of musicians.

45. Additional Examples • Using story clues (picture clues, context clues, predictions) helps us understand a story. • All narratives need sequential story elements that focus on conflict and resolution. • The motion of objects can be approximated by using Newton’s laws.

46. Step 3 Activity • Review your “unwrapped” concepts/skills on your graphic organizer. • Decide the main or essential understandings you want your students to realize on their own. We draw conclusions and make generalizations from what we read and from our own experience.

47. Step 4: Essential Questions Questions, Not Statements Will stimulate Student Curiosity to Find the Answers

48. Guidelines for Writing Essential Questions • Write engaging questions that lead your students to discover the Big Ideas on their own. • Make essential questions open-ended. • Write questions that take students beyond who, what, where and when to how and why.

49. Essential Questions to Guide Instruction & Assessment What are literary devices? Why do authors use them? (Big Idea: Literary devices enhance and deepen fiction’s impact upon the reader.) This is an example of a “one-two punch” questions.

50. Examples of Big Ideas with Essential Questions