Download
1 / 30
E N D
Students often times do not know if they understand concepts because they are not self-regulated learners. Getting answers to general questions such as “Do you understand?” or “Does this make sense?” do not provide the educator with the information on whether or not the students grasp the concepts. Formative assessments inform instruction if used intentionally. Discussions, writing assignments, etc. are not “compliance checks.” Technology is fundamental for communication and collaboration. Teaching is aimed at the middle unless formative assessment is used which can give educators the information that they need to figure out what to do in the next ten minutes.
Using checks for understanding as part of the formative assessment process means that educators identify the learning goals, give students feedback, and then plan instruction around the errors that students make. Hattie and Temperley (2007) call these phases Feed-Up, Feedback, and Feed-Forward. Feed-Up-Clarifying the Purpose: Teachers establish the purpose, objective or learning target(s). Teachers can align their checks for understanding strategies with their learning outcomes if a clear purpose has been established. Feedback-Responding to Student Work: Teachers should provide individual responses, which should be directly related to the purpose and performance goal. Teachers should not rely on summative review to provide feedback to students but should use formative feedback to give students information about performance. Feed-Forward-Modifying Instruction: Educators should use data to plan instruction and intervention. An entire class that needs a lesson retaught or individual students who need guided instruction are examples of feed-forward.
Mistakes and Errors Mistakes are the result of a lack of attention. If a mistake is pointed out, students understand that a mistake was made and then make corrective actions. • Errors occur because of a lack of knowledge. There are four types of errors: • factual, procedural, transformation, and misconception. • A factual error interferes with a student’s ability to perform with accuracy. • Difficulty applying factual information can result in a procedural error. • Transformation errors are those in which a student makes when trying to use a procedure they have learned for a problem in which it should not be used. • Misconceptions occur because of the teaching. • “Checking for understanding not only identifies errors and misconceptions but also can improve learning” (p. 5).
Students learn how to monitor their understanding when the teachers frequently check for understanding. “Short but frequent quizzes of newly learned information appear to increase students’ retention and retrieval of information, including that which is related but not tested, and assists learners in better organizing information (Roediger Putnam, & Smith, 2011). “Checking for understanding is a systematic approach to formative assessment” (p. 7) and should be done at the minimum of every 15 minutes. “Wiggins and McTighe implored us to think about the outcomes, goals, and objectives we had for student learning first and then plan instruction and develop curriculum to close the gap between what students already know and what they need to know” (p. 8). “Because understanding develops as a result of ongoing inquiry and rethinking, the assessment of understanding should be thought of in terms of a collection of evidence over time instead of an event---a single moment-in-time test at the end of instruction (Understanding by Design, 1998, p. 13).
Teachers should have a plethora of assessment systems in place to determine if modifications, accommodations, and extensions are working for students. Instruction and assessment are linked together. The Framework for Intentional and Targeted Teaching ™ has four phases in which teachers can check for understanding. • Focused Instruction: The teacher established purpose and models. Modeling is a chance to show ways in which experts think. • Collaborative Learning: When working collaboratively, students learn and retain more. • Guided Instruction: “The strategic use of questions, prompts, or cues designed to facilitate student thinking (p.13). • Independent Learning: Students should engage in independent work for review or reinforcement of concepts and applications that have already been taught.
“Checking for understanding completes the circle of assessment, planning, and instruction by providing teachers and students with evidence of learning” (p. 14). • Use the following guiding questions when checking for understanding: • Do I know what misconceptions or naïve assumptions my students possess? • How do I know what they understand? • What evidence will I accept for this understanding? • How will I use their understanding to plan future instruction? • Tips for incorporating checks for understanding in lesson planning: • Begin with the outcomes in mind. • Create engaging lessons. • Plan to check for understanding on a regular basis with different tools. • Take action based on the data that is collected. Schmoker (2005) notes, “an enormous proportion of daily lessons are simply never assessed---formally or informally”.
“In classrooms where there are increased numbers of students living in poverty, teachers talk more and students talk less (Lingard, Hayes, & Mills, 2003). In addition, there is an increased focus on basic skills in these classrooms and less attention to critical and creative thinking (Stipek, 2004). Teachers of struggling students usually offer them ‘less exciting instruction, less emphasis on meaning and conceptualization and more rote drill and practice activities” than do teachers of high-performing or heterogeneous groups and classes (Cotton, 1989).
Teachers mostly use an initiate-respond-evaluate questioning model. In this model, the teacher asks a question, a student is picked to answer the question, and then the teacher evaluates the response. When this model is used, the ability to check for understanding with the whole group is lost. There are two questions that teachers should ask themselves about student talk within the classroom (Cazden, 1988). • How do patterns of talk in the classroom affect the quality of students’ educational opportunities and outcomes? • How is discourse used as a support for deeper student understanding?
Accountable Talk • Accountable talk is the agreements that the teacher and student commit to as they speak to their partners. Teachers should monitor partner conversations to make teaching decisions and model the principles. Accountable talk can be used for book club meetings, Socratic seminars, or whole class instructions. It is best to follow these three guidelines: • Stay on topic. • Use information that is accurate and appropriate for the topic. • Think deeply about what the partner has to say. • Five indicators of accountable talk (p. 22): • Press for clarification and explanation: “Could you describe what you mean?” • Require justification of proposals and challenges: “Where did you find that information?” • Recognize and challenge misconceptions: “I don’t agree because…” • Demand evidence for claims and arguments: “Can you give me an example…” • Interpret and use each other’s statements: “David suggested…”
Language Frames Language frames can provide students with a level of scaffolding so that content is the focus. Examples include making a claim, providing evidence, asking for evidence, inviting speculation, and reaching consensus. Noticing Nonverbal Cues Students let us know what they do or do not understand through their nonverbal cues. A teacher might notice the look on a student’s face, puzzled expressions, or the frustration when a child throws his hands up in the air, which is a sign of not understanding.
Value Lineups Value lineups help students have conversations about their opinions and beliefs. Students should be given the opportunity to have discourse with others who do not believe the same and then both sides should be able to give reasons for their positions. The teachers can determine any pre-conceived notions and background knowledge as well as find gaps in information.
Retellings “Retellings are new accounts or adaptations of a text that allow students to consider information and then summarize, orally, what they understand about this information” (p. 27). Think-Pair-Share and Think-Pair-Square Students are first asked to think about a question, prompt, or reading suggested by the teachers and then the students pair up with a partner. Pairs are then asked to share their thinking with the entire class. Pairs can be asked to share their partner’s thinking. Novel Ideas Only This strategy helps a teacher determine if content should be re-taught to the whole group and is used at the closure of a lesson. Students create a list of at least 3 items. After the student has created a list, all of the students stand up and one student is asked to share an item on his/her list. The other students check off any item on their list that has been mentioned and once all of their ideas have been checked off, the students sit down. This continues until everyone is seated.
Tips for Using Oral Language as a Check for Understanding: • Students need to have lots of opportunities for discourse with clear expectations and procedures established early. • Use language frames to scaffold the student’s use of academic language. • Take time to listen when students talk with one another to clarify any misunderstandings or gaps in their learning. • The use of oral language should take place throughout the lesson.
Teachers need to develop well-crafted questions in order to find out what students know, to find out what students need to learn, and to clarify any misunderstandings. Teachers questioning should be a complex progression in which the question is prepared and presented, student responses are prompted and processed, and then questioning practices are reflected upon (Sattes, 2011). Teachers should let the students know about the response format such as choral response, partner sharing, or individual response. “Wait time” should be three to five seconds before calling on a student. If a student answers a question incorrectly, the teacher should provide scaffolds such as cues or prompts to facilitate student learning.
Misuses of Questioning Questioning rarely goes beyond the initiate, respond, evaluate cycle. There is a great deal of difference between knowing what 7 students know compared to 32. Students can learn to ask questions of themselves and their peers. The types of questions teachers want their students to ask each other should be modeled. If students are used to responding to questions that demand evidence in the response, then they will become used to it and expect it of others.
Developing Authentic Questions Students can use Webb’s Depth of Knowledge to allow students to create their own questions. Text-dependent questions can only be answered by looking at the text. • There are six types of text-dependent questions: • General Understanding: Focus on the big ideas • Key ideas: Focus on the who, what, where, when, and why, how much, and how many • Vocabulary and Text Structure: Explore the meaning word and phrases and why the author chose those words • Author’s Craft and Purpose: Determine why the author constructed the text and their reasoning about the meaning of the text • Inferences: Students have to make conclusions based on the evidence and their reasoning about the author’s means of the text • Opinion, argument, and intertextual connections: Students are asked to form an opinion or argument and back up the evidence with evidence from the text
Instructional Practices that Promote Participation • Response Cards: Students hold up answers to a question by using a whiteboard, sign, index card, or other object • Hand Signals: An example would be thumbs up or thumbs down • Audience Response Systems: Handheld devices such as clickers • ReQuest: Known as reciprocal teaching, which was designed for students to ask questions as they read This starts with the teacher leading the whole class in silently reading part of a text. Students then ask questions about the part that they just read together. Then, roles are switched and when the second section of the text is read silently, the teacher asks the questions. They keep switching roles. • Socratic Seminar: A text is selected that will engage students in discussion. The teacher (or leader) poses a question that has no right answer. “A good opening question requires that students return to the text to think, search, evaluate, wonder, or infer” (p. 59). Responses should lead to new questions with new responses.
Responding When Students Don’t Get It • Giving a student an answer to a question sends the message that students can guess and they will be told whether their thinking is correct or not. There are three scaffolds (questions, prompts, and cues) that can be used to avoid learned helplessness. • Questions: Ask the students another question or rephrase the original question. This gives students additional time to think. • Prompts: Designed to cause something to happen in the learner’s mind Background knowledge, process and procedure, reflective, and heuristic are the four types of prompts. • Cues: Help guide students to notice something they may have missed. Types of cues include visual, verbal, gestural, and environmental. • Tips for Success • Questions should be planned ahead of time and represent a wide range of cognitive tasks. • Engagement is increased if the number of students who are asked to participate increases and teachers have more opportunity to check for understanding to catch misunderstandings of the students.
Writing to learn helps clarify a student’s thinking and their understanding. Prompts should be created that allows students to explore a topic or issue. “Since writing is thinking, the message and the way the message is conveyed is interrelated” (p. 65). There are three text types: narratives, informational/explanatory, and opinions/arguments. Misuses of Writing in the Classroom Often times, writing is viewed as the end product with little chance of the writer being asked to revisit the final product. Feedback is not adequately aligned to the task. More feedback focuses on the mechanics rather than the ideas, reasoning, and use of evidence. • Writing-to-Learn Prompts • Admit/Exit Slips: Students write on an assigned topic at the beginning or end of class. • Crystal Ball: Students make a prediction about what will happen next. • Awards: Students make an award for a topic such as “Most Useful Landform” or “Most Influential Character”. • Yesterday’s News: Students summarize the information presented the day before. • Take a Stand: Students discuss their views on a controversial topic. • Letters: Students write letters to a number of different audiences.
Writing Strategies to Check for Understanding: • “Student writing can be used to determine what students know, what they still need to know, and what they are confused about” (p. 66). If teachers want students to reach the highest levels of Bloom’s taxonomy, then writing must be utilized. • Interactive Writing: In this process, the writers discuss a topic and form a consensus on the message. • Read-Write-Pair-Share: Students read, write a response, share their ideas with a partner, and then share with the entire class. • Summary and Précis Writing: Summary writing allows a teacher to gather awareness on how learners condense information. The ability for a writer to write for accuracy and conciseness can show the teacher the writer’s “knowledge of the topic and control over the form” (p. 71). • Tips for Success • Writing prompts should clearly express if the write is to convey an experience, to inform or explain, or to persuade. • Writing prompts should have command words such as compare/contrast, outline, or analyze. • Writing to learn activities should happen throughout all stages of a lesson. • Feedback should be aligned to the prompt.
If students are able to apply their learning to new situations, the transfer of learning accelerates. “We must witness how our students choose and use information while taking part in a meaningful activity. When we view these events as opportunities to check for understanding and not just task completion, we gain insight into the extent to which our students have transferred their learning to new situations” (p. 78). Misuses of Projects and Performances in the Classroom Projects and performances are often viewed as the endpoint but should be part of the learning experience. Students usually get a grade on a project or performance without the opportunity to make revisions. Students should be provided feedback during interim checkpoints on projects that cover a span of several days. Students should be asked to explain what was changed from one draft to the next and how the project improved as a result of the revisions.
Design Principles for Projects and Performances • Learning Appropriate Goals: Students and teachers need to understand the learning target, goal, or objective. • Scaffold for Student and Teacher Learning: Before giving students a major project, teachers should give students a problem-based learning experience; a task analysis or rubrics are good scaffolds for projects. • Frequent Opportunities for Formative Assessment and Revision: Put systems in place so that there are opportunities for revisions for works in progress. • Social Organizations That Promote Participation and a Sense of Agency: Peer feedback is a good idea to utilize when students have been asked to complete projects individually. Problem-Based and Project-Based Learning Project-based learning is more common in K-12 schools in which a multidimensional task is defined and supported. Problem-based learning is mostly used in the medical field and is authentic to the situation. Students are more limited in their ability to complete the project. Performance Learning Performance tasks allow students a number of ways to show that they understand and therefore are great for differentiation.
Effective Techniques Using Projects and Performances • Reader’s Theatre: Students read directly from a script to convey information to an audience. • Public Performance: In Podlozny’s meta-analysis (2000), the evidence showed that if students received instruction on public performance, there was an increase in comprehension and reading achievement (p. 98). • Multimedia Presentations: The use of text, graphics, video, sound, and animation to share what students know • Electronic and Paper Portfolios: Should serve as evidence that best shows the thinking process of the student • Visual Displays of Information: Using image or movement to show knowledge in a nonlinguistic way • Examples include graphic organizers, foldables, dioramas, and the software programs Inspiration and Kidspiration • Tips for Success • Projects and performances should be linked to learning goals. • Explain the criteria for success before asking students to complete tasks; they should know what is expected of them before they are provided feedback. Students should be taught to use a variety of visual aids and graphic organizers to show what they know and don’t know. There are several different types of thinking maps: circle, bubble, double bubble, tree, brace, flow, multi-flow, and bridge (p. 93).
Using Tests to Check for Understanding • All checks for understanding require an examination of student responses and instructional decisions based on those responses. • ***See page 107-108 for a checklist for creating assessments. • Multiple Choice: Consist of a stem and response choices • Short Answer: There are three types of short answer: the blank line, specificity, and hidden clues. • Cloze Procedure: A procedure in which words are eliminated from a passage according to a word count formula. • Dichotomous Choices: Known as True/False • Essays: Essays allow students to consolidate their thinking.
Schools should teach students about tests as a genre and provide students with test format practice throughout the year. Students need to know how tests work and should not only be used for a grade. “When students are encouraged to set goals, and tests are linked to those goals, learners can be motivated to actively engage in their own learning” (p. 102) according to Tuckman. Tests should be used to inform instruction. Schools that are high performing use tests to change their curriculum.
Tips for Success • “Assessment always has more to do with helping students grow than with cataloging their mistakes” (p. 120) according to Tomlinson (1999). • Spend time on test-taking strategies and the understanding of the different genre of tests as well as the test-taking procedure for each assessment. • Get in the habit of developing distractors that allow educators to see something about the students’ understanding.
Using Common Formative Assessments to Check for Understanding Professional development for teachers should be engaging, based on current research evidence, aligned with standards, and provide the opportunity for peer engagement. One suggestion is to show students an item analysis and have them work in small groups to decide why certain answers were wrong.
A Protocol for Using Common Assessments • Pacing Guides: Decide on a timeline for the sequence of instruction. • Instructional Materials and Arrangements: Teachers select materials, strategies, approaches, and arrangements and share with one another. • Common Assessments: These should take place at least once every six weeks. Creating common formative assessments allows teachers to talk about the standards and how they will be assessed, the current level of student performance, and what needs to take place for students to show proficiency (p. 125). • Consensus Scoring and Item Analysis: Time should be set aside for teachers to meet and discuss results and achievement gaps so that interventions can be planned. • Revising Pacing Guides, Reviewing Assessments, Re-teaching, and Forming Intervention Groups: Teachers should make modifications to pacing guides as needed and review standards for misunderstandings in content, and plan for re-teaching.
Tips for Success • Leaders need to plan time so that teachers can work with one another to look at student work and to develop pacing guides and common assessments. Student responses should be looked at collaboratively. • Looking at student work together should not be a one-time event but should happen continuously.
