Assessment FOR Learning: Doing it Right and Using it Well

1. “Can assessment raise standards? Recent research has shown that the answer to this question is an unequivocal “yes”. Assessment is one of the most powerful educational tools for promoting effective learning. But it must be used in the right way. There is no evidence that increasing the amount of testing will enhance learning. Instead the focus needs to be on helping teachers use assessment, as part of teaching and learning, in ways that will raise pupils’ achievement.” Assessment Reform Group Assessment FOR Learning: Doing it Right and Using it Well

2. Pre-Assessment • Click here to complete your Pre-Assessment

3. Course Objectives • Understand the differences between “Assessment of Learning” and Assessment for Learning” • Understand how classroom assessment fits into your job as a teacher and part of a team in your school/district. • Understand how “quality” rubrics are essential in “Assessment for Learning” that benefits the students.

4. Key Concepts • Assessment is the process of gathering evidence of student learning to inform instructional decisions. • Assessment of Learning are those that happen after is learning is supposed to have occurred to determine if it did occur. • Assessment for Learning are those that happen while learning is happing to diagnose students needs, plan your next steps in instruction, provide students with feedback to improve, and help students see and feel tin control of their academic success.

5. Distinctions between Assessment of and for Learning • Watch the Assessment of Learning and Assessment for Learning video clip that provides key distinctions between Assessment of Learning and Assessment for Learning. • Complete this worksheet while watching the video.

6. Keys to Quality Classroom Assessments • Must answer the following questions to be able to assess accurately and effectively (assessments to benefit students not just to grade them or sort them) • Why do we assess? • What do we assess? • How to we assess? • How do we communicate the results of the assessment?

7. Why do we Assess? • What is the purpose? Who will use the results? ***Students are users too! • Gather evidence of student learning • Make decisions about what comes next? • When to make adjustments to our teaching or curriculum? To assess well, we must know our purpose for assessment and who will use the results

8. What do we assess? • What are the learning targets? Are they clear? Are they state/district approved? • We must have clear targets (expectations and standards) in the beginning. • Must transform the learning targets into “student-friendly” language. (“I can…” statements) • Students are more successful when they know and have a clear sense of the learning targets

9. How do we Assess? • What method? Written well? Sampled how? • You must be aware of the different assessment methods and how matching them to specific learning targets is very important. • Assessment methods include: • Selected response (multiple-choice) • Written response (essay) • Performance assessment • Verbal response • Each assessment method has unique strengths and limitations.

10. Seven Strategies of Assessment for Learning Where am I going? • Provide clear and understandable learning targets • Use the examples/models of good work • Offer regular descriptive feedback • Teach students to self-assess and set goals • Design lessons to focus on learning target • Teach students how to make revision/improvement • Engage students in self-reflection and let them keep track of and share their learning. Where am I Now? How can I Close the Gap?

11. How do we communicate the results of the assessment? • How to manage information? How to report it to students & stakeholders? • Students should be able to track their progress and communicate the results too. • The results of the assessment must connect with student learning. • Everybody must have the same understanding and being able to convey the results to others.

12. Conferencing about and with Students • Conferences with students & parents can be used to communicate about both assessment for (formative) and of (summative) learning. • Appropriate feedback provides them insight so they can continue to improve their work. • Should use assessment results to help students with personal goal-setting.

13. Assessment as Student Motivator • Assessments must go beyond providing merely scores and corresponding judgments about student learning. In other words, if assessments are to support improvements in student learning, their results must inform students how to do better the next time. This requires communicating results that transmit sufficient, understandable detail to guide the learner’s actions.

14. Assessment as Student Motivator (continued) • Able learners built on past success to grow rapidly. However, students who failed to master the early prerequisites within the allotted time failed to learn that which followed. • This caused them to doubt their own capabilities as learners. They began to lose confidence, which, in turn, deprived them of the emotional reserves to continue to risk trying. • Chronic failure was hard to hide and became embarrassing. It was better not to try.

15. Assessment as Student Motivator (continued) • They can respond in either of two motivational ways to any set of assessment results, one productive and the other not. The productive reaction has students saying, “I understand these results. I know what to do next to learn more. I can handle this. I choose to keep trying.” • The counterproductive response leaves students saying, “I don’t know what these results mean for me. I have no idea what to do next. I can’t handle this. I quit.”

16. Assessment as Student Motivator (continued) • If society wants all students to meet standards, as specified above, then all students must believe they can meet those standards. They all must be confident enough about their chances of success to be motivated to take the risk of trying. Any other emotional state (such as the state of perpetual fear perpetrated in the schools of our youth) for any student is unacceptable. We can’t have students who have yet to meet standards losing faith in themselves and giving up in futility

17. Assessment as Student Motivator (continued) • As a result, assessment practices that permit, even encourage, some students to give up on learning must be replaced by those that engender hope and sustained effort for all students. • Classroom assessment for student learning turns the classroom assessment process and its results into an instructional intervention designed to increase, not merely monitor, student learning, confidence, and motivation.

18. Assessment as Student Motivator (continued) • Assessment for Learning has the following unique features that improve student motivation: • It acknowledges the critical importance of the instructional decisions made by students and their teachers working as a team. • Its reliance on repeated self-assessments and continuous feedback, instructs the student on how to improve performance on the next assessment.

19. Rubrics as Student Motivators • Using rubrics allow teachers to help students recognize quality work • Rubrics are a tool to help teacher teach and students learn. • Rubrics can also motivate students to produce quality work • Do students always know what is expected of them? “Students can hit any targets that is sufficiently clear and that holds still for them.” Rick Stiggins

20. Types of Assessments Requiring Rubrics • Performance Assessment – based on observation of performance and judgment of something students’ create. • Extended Written Response – Students write out their responses to questions. • Extended Oral Response – Students answer questions orally

21. Two Types of Rubrics • Holistic – Consider the parts and put them together to come up with a single judgment of how good a product or performance is (have a overall grade). • Analytic – Consider each relevant part and average the judgment of how good a product or performance is. (may have different points for each part)

22. Benefits of a Good Rubric • Good rubrics help students: • Understand what is wanted on an assignment. • Understand what a quality performance or product look like. • Understand what they did well and what to do differently the next time. • Enable students to self-assess.

23. Benefits of a Good Rubric (continued) • Good rubrics help teachers: • Plan instruction. • Grade consistently • Have sound justifications for grades. • Communicate results with students and parents

24. Features of a Good Rubric • Be understandable • Be aligned with the standards • Provide samples of student work • Be concise • Be stated in a way students’ understand • Be easy to use • Be worded in a positive manner • Match the assignment/task • Include the same features across various levels of performance Click here to get a Rubric to evaluate your Rubrics

25. Examples of Rubrics and Evaluation of Rubrics • Writing Rubric Grades 3-12 • Writing Rubric Student Friendly • Oral Presentation Rubrics Grades 4-12 • Technical Writing Rubric Grades 5-12 • Research Paper Rubric Grades 7-College • Teamwork or Group Presentation Rubric Grades 7-12

26. Sources of Rubrics, andSamples of Student Work Language Arts • Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, Assessment (Portland, OR: NWREL, 2001)—rubrics (writing, interpersonal communication, group discussion, oral presentation; includes student-friendly versions). http://www.nwrel.org/assessment/scoring/php • North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, Assessment Series: Speaking and Listening for K–12 Communication (Ann Arbor, MI: NCACS, n.d.)—rubrics and developmental continua in speaking and listening from K to high school. Sources of Performance Assessment Tasks, Rubrics, and Samples of Student Work

27. Sources of Rubrics, andSamples of Student Work (continued) Writing • Vicki Spandel, Creating Writers: Through 6-Trait Writing Assessment and Instruction(Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2005)—tasks, rubrics, samples of student work, primary through high school, includes technical writing. • Ruth Culham, 6+1 Traits of Writing: A Professional Development Series (New York: Scholastic, 2005). Four videotapes with study guides. Rubrics, samples of student work, instructional ideas.

28. References • Stiggins, R. & Chappuis, J. (2012). An introduction to Student-Involved Assessment for Learning (6thed). Pearson Education, Inc. • Stiggins, R., Arter, J., Chappuis, J., & Chappuis, S. (2006). Classroom Assessment for Student Learning: Doing it Right-Using it Well. Pearson Education, Inc. • Arter, J. & Chappuis, J. (2007). Creating & Recognizing Quality Rubrics. Educational Testing Service. • Stiggins, Richard J. (11/01/2006). Assessment for learning: A key to motivation and achievement. Edge, 2(2), 3-19.