Making the Connection: How to Use Assessment to Increase Learning

1. Making the Connection: How to Use Assessment to Increase Learning The Oregon DATA Project

2. “As to methods, there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

3. Objectives Establish the intended connection between testing and teaching. Compare current assessment practices to those recommended for identifying student needs, learning goals, and subsequent instructional strategies. Practice linking analysis of assessment results with instructional planning to increase learning.

4. Formative Assessment Living Likert: Read the following statement. Stand at your place along the line. Strongly agree -------> Strongly Disagree

5. Evidence exists that formative assessments positively impact student achievement.

6. Unpacking formative assessment Where the learner is going Where the learner is How to get there Providing feedback that moves learners forward Engineering effective discussions, tasks, and activities that elicit evidence of learning Teacher Clarifying, sharing and understanding learning intentions Peer Activating students as learning resources for one another Activating students as ownersof their own learning Learner

7. And one big idea Where the learner is going Where the learner is How to get there Using evidence of achievement to adapt what happens in classrooms to meet learner needs Teacher Peer Learner

8. Evaluating the Evidence – John Hattie (2009) meta-analysis of over 800 studies...Teacher – Student relationships - .72 Professional development (as a PLC)- .63 Effective Teacher Instruction- .75 Vocabulary programs - .67Assessment as Formative Feedback - .73

9. The CCSS require a paradigm shift toward assessment as a multi-faceted process of formative assessment development.How will you know if each student is learning, becomes a significant question for you and the collaborative team. Tim Kanold, 2012

10. Assessment for the sake of assessment? Or, Assessment with a purpose!

12. Testing/Teaching Connection: What are the advantages of connecting testing and teaching?

13. Classroom use of assessments: Decisions about curriculum alignment Decisions about students’ prior knowledge Decisions about how long to teach something Decisions about effectiveness of instruction

15. What happens when we are not clear on the standard or common curricular goal?

18. Discuss How is Test-triggered Clarity different from “Teaching to the Test”?

19. Advantage of using tests to clarify curricular goals: • More accurate task analysis-what are my students expected to know and do? • When you begin with the end in mind you have a better chance of getting there! • Can identify “enabling subskills” or “enabling knowledge” AKA unwrapping the standards! • Clearer instruction and explanations • More appropriate practice activities

20. Curriculum Alignment Decisions • To whose interpretation are you teaching? • Clarify expectations using • Sample Tests, Scoring Guides and Work Samples • Test Specifications and Blueprints • Smarter Balanced Assessment • Augment OAKS results with local assessment results to clarify alignment within and across grade levels

22. http://www.azed.gov/standards-practices/mathematics-standards/http://www.azed.gov/standards-practices/mathematics-standards/

24. Ishikawa FishboneAnalysis:Looking for related causes and antecedents that may relate to a specific effect or outcome

25. Ishikawa Fishbone: Cause & Effect Diagram Modified for Task Analysis Content/skills Content/skills Student Engagement Tasks Student Engagement Tasks Standard Student Engagement Tasks Student Engagement Tasks Content/skills Content/skills

26. So many targets, what is a teacher to do?

27. Prioritize and align! Objectives for instruction content and skills you plan to teach Actual instruction that preceded assessment content and skills you actually taught Decisions or conclusions you plan to make using interpretation of resulting scores

28. Advantages of assessing prior learning: • Economizes instructional planning • Many standards, not enough time, • teach what is needed, not what is already known by students • Gives teacher the lay of the landscape • Diversity of learners • Diversity of prior knowledge/readiness to learn • Provides connections from which to build new knowledge and skills when you include key enabling skills and subskills or bodies of knowledge

29. Assessing prior knowledge: It’s more than just a pretest Brainstorm with your team a quick list of pre-assessment strategies. Be prepared to share at least 2!

30. Do you use assessment practices to determine how long to focus on a particular set of objectives? • Economizes instructional planning • Move on when students are ready, not when the unit planner indicates • Many standards, not enough time, “steal” back time where possible • Time saved in an easily mastered unit can be used for units with unexpected difficulty

31. The Dipstick Assessment: How long do I need to teach this set of skills/concepts? • Item-sampling method for quick assessment • Different students complete different subsamples of items from your unit test (a couple of items each) • Takes less than five minutes to administer to students • Gives quick fix on status of entire class—not intended for inferences about individual students

32. Using tests to determining instructional effectiveness: • Use classroom assessment to evaluate your own instructional effectiveness • Use cohort and growth from OAKS to triangulate on instructional effectiveness • Strong inferences come from simple model: • Pretest • Posttest • Compare results

33. Simple, but powerful model…

34. These concepts can be integrated into your action research and data teams processes Data Teams Process: • Examine student work collaboratively observe, hypothesize, predict • Develop interventions hypothesize, predict • Adjust teaching strategies test hypothesis • Monitor results gather data, explain, observe

35. Testing/Teaching Connection: How will you alter instruction as a result of what you’ve learned through assessment?

36. Assessment Instruction

37. What do you expect students to know and be able to do? How do you expect them to demonstrate it? Use the standards language to determine content and skills: nouns identify content verbs identify skills & level of cognitive demand

39. How does pattern analysis apply to instructional/assessment planning?

40. Connecting Assessment to Instruction • Identify a student from each group whose responses or performance are representative of the group’s performance • Describe each representative performance • Describe each student’s learning needs based on this detail of performance • Determine how you will differentiate instruction • Deal with the students whose performance in a category is fuzzy, needs more data to determine

41. Describe representative performance

42. Describe learning needs based on representative performance and curricular learning goals

45. Determine differentiated learning strategies

46. Planning Instructional Strategies:Linking Strategies to Assessment Given what you expect students to know and be able to do, what strategies will you use for instruction? How will you know that both adults and students are implementing strategies? What evidence from teachers (lesson plan and assessment)? What evidence from students (engagement and assessment)? This is where released items can help you target expected actions.

48. Identify instructional activities and student engagement strategies

50. How do you gauge and compare implementation (what you do) and outcomes (what students do as a result of your actions)?