Understanding Dynamic Assessment

1. Understanding Dynamic Assessment

2. Dynamic Assessment vs. Norm-Referenced Standardized Measures • Dynamic Assessment is an evaluation processes that are fluid in nature and change with a student’s development and learning. • This is very different from using a static model of evaluation that primarily identifies knowledge previously learned.

3. Demystifying Dynamic Assessment • Don’t over complicate this process!!!!! It’s what we do everyday as practitioners. • After working with the student, how do you treatment)? know what the next lesson will look like? • Do you administer a standardized test after each session? • What is intervention and student support? Ongoing Assessment!! • RTI and DA is intended to identify how a student learns, retains, & transfers information. • The process can assist in identifying typical and atypical learning patterns

4. The Theory Behind Dynamic Assessment • Based primarily upon Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory that cognitive development is impacted by by context and social interactions (1978). • But it’s also related to Feuerstein’s work associated with the Learning Potential Assessment Device (L-Pad) **** Back Story • There is further theoretical and practical work that can be found by cognitive, psychological, and communication researchers such as: Budoff, Lidz, Tzuriel, Pena, Gillam, Kapantzoglou, Restrepo, Ukrainetz

5. DA and the “Zone” • Vygotsky stated that learning takes place within the “Zone of Proximal Development” (ZPD). • Meaning…… What learners can do today with help and resources, they can do in the future on their own. • The goal is to establish the amount of change that can be introduced during interactions with the examiner during the assessment process.

6. Zone of Proximal Development

7. Four Primary Methods of DA • Testing the Limits: Traditional test procedures are modified by rephrasing the question, posing it differently, changing the time parameters, or having the student show what he/she knows. • Example: When testing vocabulary, if an ELL student gets the word incorrect, ask them why they said that and then provide them the answer and reasoning and then ask them the same question and then follow with a similar question. • Clinical Interview: A form of testing the limits, clinical interviewing allows for modifying the administration of the test to generate questions to help children understand how they are thinking about a test question to facilitate their awareness of targeted skills. • Example: “How did you know this?” Or “What would happen if …?” in an attempt to understand why they responded the way they did.

8. Four Methods of DA Cont. ~ • Graduated Prompting: In an attempt to identify the ZPD, the student is provided a series of verbal clues that are graduated in difficulty from the easiest to most difficult. The examiner then focuses on the point where the student is able to demonstrate knowledge/proficiency, judging the distance on a continuum (e.g., no transfer, near transfer, far transfer, very far transfer). • Example: In language proficiency testing, the student is is in the Silent Receptive stage, and can only produce one-word responses is prompted, “This is a baby. Say Baby”. Then ask, “What is this?”, “You say, this is a baby.” • Test-Teach-Retest: The examiner provides an intervention designed to modify the student’s level of functioning in the target area. By first assessing, then teaching the principles of the task, then assessing again, the examiner can determine the extent of the learning that occurs.

9. The Melting Pot of DA Methods • I would offer that the optimal approach to using Dynamic Assessment is to integrate all 4 approaches into a single methodology. • Use the Test-Teach-Retest approach as the Main Structure • Testing the Limits, Clinical Interview, and the Graduated Prompting are all embedded within the main structure with an emphasis on using these techniques during the teaching phase to provide insight to how the student is learning, retaining, and transferring new information.

10. Teaching 101 610 Teaching Along the Educational Continuum • Teaching is a skill and the hope is to become better over time. • However, there is also a tendency to over complicate the process. • What are some basic attributes of strong teaching techniques?

11. 5 Characteristics of Foundational Teaching All lessons, regardless of age should incorporate these components (Pena, 2000 - adapted from Lidz, C). • Intentionality: Statement of goal & purpose of interaction. • Meaning: Why concept is important & how it relates to student’s personal experience. • Transcendence (The Deeper Teaching): Developing metacognitive skills by asking “Who, What, When, Where, Why and What If” questions during problem solving activity.

12. Planning and Competence: Use of a planning strategy that has been taught to complete a target activity or similar tasks (e.g., looking at all of the pictures, waiting for directions, asking for assistance, etc.) • Transfer: Summarize the lesson and help children think how they will use the skill in other activities

13. Transcendence ExamplesQuestions to Challenge Thinking • What do you believe and why? • What should be done next and why? • Why do you think that’s the answer? Explain. • How can we find out about _______? • Why do you think that about _______? • What would you do about _______ and why? • What are some other ways? • What is the most . . . useful and why? interesting and why? effective and why? logical and why? creative and why? • What are the possible causes of _______? • What are the possible consequences or effects of _______? • What conclusions could you draw of _______? • How would you _______? • How could you _______? • How would you propose a plan to _______? • How would you formulate a solution to ______? • How would you defend _______? • How would you state the problem? • How would you support your conclusion?

14. Axioms to Teach By • “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” • “Don’t reinvent the wheel.” Blooms Taxonomy is Still Applicable

17. An Important Component of Teaching: Teach within the ZPD • It’s critical to be able to scaffold a lesson and task analyze a teaching concept. • What is Scaffolding? • What is Task Analyzing?

18. “Scaffolding” is a metaphor to describe “a process that enables a child or novice to solve a problem, carry out a task or achieve a goal which would be beyond his unassisted efforts” (Wood, Bruner and Ross, 1976, p. 90). • Graves and Graves (2003, p. 30) expanded upon this by stating that, “scaffolding should be seen as a technique that is flexible and temporary. Once the students are able to successfully accomplish the task, the scaffold should be gradually decreased and removed.”

19. Task Analysis is the analysis of how a task is accomplished, including a detailed description of both manual and mental activities, task and element durations, task frequency, task allocation, task complexity, environmental conditions, necessary clothing and equipment, and any other unique factors involved in or required for one or more people to perform a given task. Citation: Kirwan, B. and Ainsworth, L. (Eds.) (1992). A guide to task analysis. Taylor and Francis.

20. Principles of Dynamic Assessment • A shift from static to fluid measures of ability. • The assessor actively works to facilitate learning and induce active participation in the learner. • Focus on process of learning rather than completing a specific product: Metacognitive & metalinguistic skills • Produces info on modifiability & the means by which change is best accomplished.

21. Documenting Change During a Teaching Experience • Review DA protocol and scoring criteria to located in packet • Flexibility in using the protocol for data collection (General Education, ESL Teachers, SPED Teachers, SLPs).

22. Scoring Sheet

26. Scoring Sheet Student Needs Verbal & Touch Cue 14

28. Utility of the DA Protocol • Using this protocol as part of an evaluation and/or use in progress monitoring • The use by different disciplines - is that possible? What kind of information does it yield?

29. Challenges Associated with DA • Fear & Disequilibrium • Time (How much time do you spend giving a standardized test - individually). • Non-Standardized Method • Qualitative in Nature (i.e., reliability and validity concerns)

30. What the Research States • Specificity rate of 95.3% of classification of traditional learner (good – Plante & Vance, 1994) • Sensitivity rate of 77.8% of classification of low language ability (fair – Plante & Vance, 1994) • Reliability was noted at .82 and higher • Gains were not due to the “practice effect” but due to the MLE treatment • Traditional learners made significant gains during the short MLE ~ Pena, Iglesias, Lidz (2001)

31. Thank you for your TimeQuestions / Comments