Think-Pair-Share 1: What key principles about assessment did you learn from the readings?

1. Students and teachers should have a shared understanding of goals Students can get the answer wrong but still understand the concept Focus on degrees of understanding rather than correctness Generate a scrapbook of evidence It’s good to have a cycle of feedback—engage w/students’ understanding in the process of achieving understanding goals – formative, not just summative, assessments Assessments should be aligned w/the standards they are (supposedly) assessing Good summative assessments require application of learning in an authentic way Assessments should figure out if students can transfer knowledge (“flexible application of knowledge and skills”) Good assessments can be integrated into learning, not taking away learning time Self-assessment can be very powerful for helping students understand what and how they are learning Shouldn’t be limited to what can be easily and quickly graded Goal of formative assessment can be to get students to monitor and take responsibility for their own understanding Good formative assessment should inform instruction Some formative assessment shouldn’t be graded Assessment can enable students to see what they’ve learned and categorize it Assessments should provide multiple avenues for students to demonstrate understanding Think-Pair-Share 1:What key principles about assessment did you learn from the readings?

2. How to practice backwards design: Summative assessment showing what students should get out of entire unit, then planning instruction toward that Begin with positive feedback, then follow w/concrete, doable tasks that students can accomplish Document students’ strengths and weaknesses over time so that teacher can help students w/respect to these Feedback should explicitly refer to standards and rubric Use on-line resources to get more ideas and not reinvent the wheel Authentic projects require real-life skills that have to be scaffolded along w/the target content and other skills (see FIFA assignment) Use points of entry to assessments that are relevant to students (FIFA, painting, play, etc.) Assessments may advance gradually; build in complexity Single assessments can use multiple ways to assess understanding (e.g. test that includes word bank, connections, etc.) Assessments should take developmental progression and conceptual progression into account Think-Pair-Share 2:What practices and techniques for good assessment did you learn from the readings and posted materials?

3. Purposes of Assessment: • assess student comprehension or mastery via performance of understanding • benchmark progress • assess teacher efficacy • hold teachers, students, administrators, others accountable • clarify expectations (for students, parents, teachers, colleagues…) • motivate students to work/study/stick to requirements • motivate teachers to work/study/stick to requirements • teach new material in context of assessing student mastery of other material/skills • assign grades • sort students (or teachers) • compare students (or teachers) to an external norm or set of criteria • conform with/adhere to external requirements (MCAS, etc.) • demonstrate to students how much they’ve learned – give them something to show off or celebrate • help students become better at taking tests

4. Purposes of Assessment: • assess student comprehension or mastery via performance of understanding • benchmark progress • assess teacher efficacy • hold teachers, students, administrators, others accountable • clarify expectations (for students, parents, teachers, colleagues…) • motivate students to work/study/stick to requirements • motivate teachers to work/study/stick to requirements • teach new material in context of assessing student mastery of other material/skills • assign grades • sort students (or teachers) • compare students (or teachers) to an external norm or set of criteria • conform with/adhere to external requirements (MCAS, etc.) • demonstrate to students how much they’ve learned – give them something to show off or celebrate • help students become better at taking tests Examples??

5. Slicing and Dicing:Kinds of Assessments • Formative vs. summative • Qualitative vs. quantitative • Norm-referenced vs. criterion-referenced • Individualized vs. standardized • Teacher-created vs. other created • “Authentic” vs. ?: Continuum of authenticity • Open-ended vs. close-ended • Public vs. private • Low stakes vs. high stakes

6. Slicing and Dicing:Kinds of Assessments • Formative vs. summative • Qualitative vs. quantitative • Norm-referenced vs. criterion-referenced • Individualized vs. standardized • Teacher-created vs. other created • “Authentic” vs. ?: Continuum of authenticity • Open-ended vs. close-ended • Public vs. private • Low stakes vs. high stakes Learning check: What is the UP/AE?

7. Uses (and abuses) of Grading: • Grades may indicate: • Content/Skill Mastery • Effort • Improvement • Relative status • Motivate • Reward • Punish • Sort • Gatekeep • Communicate • Clarify No matter what your or others’ purposes, remember that grades are constructed, not objective facts.

8. Grading Practices: some thoughts • Scales(+ to -, 0-100%, A-F, 1-5, other) • Relative weighting • Categories vs. assignments vs. trajectory (improvement over time) • One “trick”: HW = 10 pt scale; Quizzes = 25 pt scale; Major tests or projects = 100 or 200 pts (or more) • Interim grades vs. final grades • setting high expectations vs. boosting morale • How to factor in retakes, revisions, etc. – average all scores on an assignment vs. go with the best? • Calculating final grades: Algorithm vs. “Feel” • virtues of algorithms: compatible w/electronic gradebooks, easy to demonstrate to students that you don’t “give” grades, holds students and teacher accountable, less likely to be swayed by student behavior or other non-academic considerations • virtues of fuzziness: can take improvement and other personal circumstances into account, makes it easier to rethink along the way, recognizes that formative assessment is about learning process whereas final grades are about overall achievement

9. LASW

10. Group 1: Emily Susan Jason Mike Brian Katharine Matt Group 2: Justin Eva Allison Dave Arpan Andrew Bill LASW Protocol • Group 3: • Luke • Rose • Sam S. • Nicole • Claire • Nic • Melissa

11. From practice to principles: LASW

12. LASW: Do you know what your students know? How do you know? • Watch/participate in/teach a class (i.e., do whatever you would normally do) in which students produce some written work (notes, worksheet, interactive nb entries, etc). • At the end of the class, randomly select a student. (Draw a number out of a hat; close your eyes and point to a name in your gradebook; make sure you are really randomly selecting somebody.) • Record what you think this student learned and how you know. Do this within 24 hours of the class. • Collect all samples of that student’s work from that class. • Analyze your student’s work with your group, following one of the LASW protocols. • Record what you think the student learned and how you know. • Reflect in writing: What does your student understand/know—presumably with regard to the lesson goals, but also potentially in other domains, too? How do you know? What are the implications for teaching this lesson in the future? Also, how has your grasp of your student’s understanding changed from step 3 to step 6? What principles do you derive from this? Finally, what questions do you still have about your student’s learning, and about LASW/assessment in general? How will you apply what you have learned from this exercise in your UP design? Other thoughts? Extra credit: If possible, look at student’s work related to this lesson later in the month (to test “stickiness” of learning) and include this in your reflection.

13. Logistics: • Written reflection + all support materials (copies of steps 3, 4, 5 [if you took notes], and 6) due November 10 at 4 p.m. • Group Assignments will be posted by the end of this week (we want to match grade level and subject as much as we can) • Groups will be 3-4 students each, so plan for this to take 3-4 hours of group meeting time sometime before Nov. 5

14. Assessment issues we didn’t even touch: • Almost everything in the Darling-Hammond chapter • How to interpret and use standardized test data (MCAS, Stanford 9, BPS and CRLS midterms and final exams) • What to do about the plethora of standardized tests in urban schools • How to look at student work from a whole class, or across a set of classes • How to encourage teacher collaboration (e.g. LASW), especially when the process ferrets out weaknesses as much as strengths, and when you’re a “newbie”