Assessment Best Practices

1. Assessment Best Practices

2. Essential Questions • What is the process for developing common formative assessments? • How do we develop high quality common assessments items? • How do we increase student involvement in assessment?

3. Essential Question #1 What is the process for developing common assessments?

4. Process for Common Assessment Intervention Assessment

5. Common Assessments are typically addressed in PLCs Working as a team, PLCs typically: • Develop common assessments. • Develop common rubrics. • Examine student work. • Analyze assessment data. • Strategize common interventions. • Provide objective feedback to one another. • Use student results to revise assessment instruments.

6. Examples of Common Assessments • Short quizzes • Unit tests • Mid-terms • Finals • Focus area assessments • Reading • Writing • Math Concepts • Commercially designed assessments

7. How Often Should Common Assessments be Given? • Common assessments are designed to give teachers feedback about how students are doing. • Giving common assessments two or three times per year is helpful, but doesn’t provide teachers enough feedback. • Once per instructional unit? • Begin small (1-2) and add new each year.

8. Developing an Assessment Plan • Determine the objectives for the unit you will be teaching. • Deconstruct the objectives as needed. • Write the learning targets into the plan. • Determine which assessment method(s) will be used to assess the targets. • Decide on the percent importance of each target (or group of targets). • Develop assessment(s) based on plan. Stiggins, 2006

9. Knowledge/Understanding • The facts and concepts we want students to know. Some to be learned outright; some to be retrieved using reference materials. • Key words: explain, understand, describe, identify, tell, name, list, define, label, match, choose, recall, recognize, select, know • Example: L3.2.1 Know and use the terms of basic logic.

10. Reasoning • Students use what they know to reason and solve problems, make decisions, plan, etc. • Key Words – analyze, compare/contrast, synthesize, classify, infer, evaluate, etc. • Example: L3.1.1 Distinguish between inductive and deductive reasoning, identifying and providing examples of each.

11. Skills • Students use their knowledge and reasoning to act skillfully; where the doing is what is important. • Key words – observe, listen, perform, do, question, conduct, work, read, speak, use, demonstrate, explore, etc. • Example: A3.1.2 Graph lines (including those of the form x = h and y = k) given appropriate information.

12. Products • Students use their knowledge, reasoning, and skills to create a concrete product. • Key words – design, produce, create, develop, make, write, draw, represent, display, model, construct, etc. • Example – S6.3 Carry out (large sample) significance tests for one proportion and the difference of two proportions, with emphasis on proper interpretation of results.

13. Selected Written Response • Students select the correct or best response. • Multiple choice • True/false • Matching • Fill-in-the-blank • Evaluated with an answer key

14. Extended Written Response (constructed response, essay) • Students construct a written answer at least several sentences in length in response to a question or task. • Evaluated with a checklist or rubric.

15. Performance Assessment • Assessment based on observation and judgment • Consists of a task (what students do) and scoring criteria (how you will judge quality).

16. Test Plan Sample Stiggins, 2006

17. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel, but you do need to kick the tires.

18. Use your professional filters • Questions for common assessments may be taken from textbooks, black-line masters, sample test banks, or previously administered classroom tests.

19. Developing Assessment Plan Practice • As a team, pick a Unit for which you would develop a common assessment. • Take a look at the targets (I can….statements) that you developed last time we met. • Determine what types of targets you developed and what types of assessments you need to develop for these targets.

21. You have a plan - now what?

22. Essential Question #2 How do we develop high quality common assessments items?

23. Best Test/Worst Test • Find someone from another table. • Talk about the best test you have ever taken. • Then talk about the worst test you have ever taken. • What was it about the assessment that made it best or worst?

24. Developing Quality Items

26. Selected Response

27. Test Item Quality Checklist • Take a couple of minutes to read through the checklist. • As you read through the checklist, mark all the items that you do as you develop assessments. • Now give yourselves a pat on the back if most or all of the items were checked off.

29. Extended Written Response

30. Sample Extended Written Response Question During the term, we have discussed both the evolution of Spanish literature and the changing political climate in Spain during the 21st century. (Context) Analyze these two dimensions of life in Spain, citing instances where literature and politics may have influenced each other: Describe those influences in specific terms. (Reasoning) In planning your response, think about what we learned about prominent novelists, political satirists, and prominent political figures of Spain. (5 points per instances, total = 15 points). (Point the Way)

31. Mathematics example • Over the last few days, we have worked with proofs by mathematical induction. We have completed several proofs together, and you have tried three of them for homework. Below is another induction proof, but it’s already done for you! Your job is to explain the steps to a classmate. Pretend they were absent the day we first learned about proofs by induction (poor them!) and you want to help them understand. The steps are numbered, so you may refer to them in your response. Be sure to include why the proof is important. To help you see the value of the proof, think about answering the question “what does this proof tell you about each partial sum?”

32. Literature Example • During the study of the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, we have discussed several different themes and how they impact the culture in the novel and how they transcend to culture today. Explain and analyze three themes from the novel and show (with detail) how they impact both cultures. In planning your response, take one theme at a time and state, define, and show the impact using details. Think about specific characters and plot developments that we have discussed in relation to each of themes that you could use in your response.

33. Performance Assessment

34. Evaluating Your Performance Assessment • Did your assessment tool take into account whether learners were engaged in a real-world task or application? • Did your assessment allow students an equal opportunity to perform? • Did your assessment allow students to use higher-level thinking and problem-solving skills? • Did your assessment allow students to achieve one criteria while advancing to another? • Did you create a rubric to evaluate the students' progress throughout the task? • Did you allow the students to help develop goals and criteria for the evaluation of the task?

35. Science Example Your Two Cents • The Scene: What is there to know about pennies, besides that they’re worth one cent? (Can you name what’s on each side of a penny, without looking?!) The U.S. Mint is the branch of the government responsible for producing paper and coin money. They want to put together a collection of reports that can tell U.S. citizens everything they could possibly want to know about pennies. In order to be accepted, the author of each report must be able to insure that the information provided in the collection of reports is accurate. • Your Job: Your goal in this exercise is to choose one thing about pennies to study, conduct a well-designed experiment, and produce a report of your experiment that convinces U.S. citizens that your results are accurate and trustworthy. You may choose anything about pennies to study. • Your final product will be a well-written lab report. See Mr. Bridle’s example of a well-written report. • We will be working on this task for several days as outlined below. • Section 1: Posing a Question and Doing Background Research (1 day) • Section 2: Hypothesis, Materials, Controlled Variables, Sample Size, Writing a Procedure and Data Table. (1 day) • Section 3: Performing the Experiment, Collecting Data, Building a Graph. (1day) • Section 4: Drawing Conclusions and Publishing Results. (1day) • As you work on this task over the next four days, you will have time to give and receive feedback from Mr. Bridle as well as your classmates. Use these resources to your advantage, but remember you are producing a report that is unique. Copying = Plagiarism. • Evaluation: You will be evaluated using the same rubrics that appear in this packet. This task is a demonstration of your understanding of the scientific method and is a final unit assessment. I trust that you will create an excellent lab report and wish you the best of luck in your experimentation. • This packet will be a record of your progress through this task, as well as a guide. Don’t lose it! If the spaces provided for each step are not large enough, feel free to attach separate sheets of paper to complete your work. • Don’t let this packet scare you! You know this material and you can do this!

36. Developing Quality Rubrics Metaguide to Developing Rubrics

37. Stiggins, 2006, p. 203

38. Common Problem with Rubrics • Counting items when quality is what really counts • Leaving out things that are important • Including things that are trivial • Using unclear language or terms

39. Evaluating Rubrics Exercise • At your table, distribute the rubrics at your table (either individually or in pairs). • Compare the rubric to the Metaguide to Developing Rubrics. • Decide what you like about the rubric and what would need to be improved based on the Metaguide. • Be prepared to discuss your ideas in the larger group.

40. Rubric Resources • http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schrockguide/assess.html • http://olc.spsd.sk.ca/de/resources/rubrics/index.htm

41. Common Assessment in a PLC Developing common assessments will become easier the more you do.

42. “Creating common assessments that honor the content and nature of our discipline while keenly and clearly assessing what students know and can do is complex, important, and challenging work. By working collaboratively with your colleagues and starting always with Steven Covey's "end in mind," we're likely to produce assessments that are meaningful to both students and their teachers.” Ellen Moir, Director of the New Teacher Center, UC Santa Cruz

43. Where do we go from here? • Teachers in this school have worked together to clarify and focus on the essential outcomes for each course, each grade level, and each unit of instruction • These common essential outcomes reflect the teacher’s efforts to build shared knowledge regarding best practice • Teachers in the school have worked together to clarify the criteria they use in judging the quality of student work and they apply the criteria consistently • Teachers in the school have worked together to monitor student learning through frequent formative assessments that are aligned to state and local standards

44. Common Assessments Brainstorm • Brainstorm the necessary steps for your school to implement common assessments. • Identify the challenges involved in implementing the steps you outlined. • Brainstorm actions your school will need to undertake to address the challenges. Choose a recorder to document your school’s responses on chart paper and hang on wall for sharing with others.

46. Gallery Walk • In your groups, take a marker and do a gallery walk. • Read the group responses and add ideas/comments/suggestions regarding the challenges they face.

47. Essential Question #3 How do we increase student involvement in assessment?

48. Student Involvement “When students are required to think about their own learning, articulate what they understand, and what they still need to learn, achievement improves.” Black and Wiliam, 1998; Sternberg, 1996; Young 2000

49. Student Involvement: Guiding Questions • Where am I going? • Where am I now? • How can I close the gap? Royce Sadler

50. Seven Strategies of Assessment for Learning Where Am I Going? Strategy 1: Provide a clear and understandable vision of the learning target. Strategy 2: Use examples and models of strong and weak work. Where Am I Now? Strategy 3: Offer regular descriptive feedback Strategy 4: Teach students to self-assess and set goals. How Can I Close the Gap? Strategy 5: Design lessons to focus on one aspect of quality at a time. Strategy 6: Teach students focused revision. Strategy 7: Engage students in self-reflection and let them keep track of and share their learning