Classroom assessment: minute-by-minute and day-to-day

1. Classroom assessment:minute-by-minute and day-to-day Session 1249T: ASCD Annual Conference 2007 17 March 2007; Anaheim, CA Dylan Wiliam, Institute of Education, University of London www.dylanwiliam.net

2. Overview of presentation • Why raising achievement is important • Why investing in teachers is the answer • Why assessment for learning should be the focus • Why teacher learning communities should be the mechanism • How we can put this into practice

3. Raising achievement matters • For individuals • Increased lifetime salary • Improved health • For society • Lower criminal justice costs • Lower health-care costs • Increased economic growth

4. Where’s the solution? • Structure • Small high schools • K-8 schools • Alignment • Curriculum reform • Textbook replacement • Governance • Charter schools • Vouchers • Technology

5. It’s the classroom • Variability at the classroom level is up to 4 times greater than at school level • It’s not class size • It’s not the between-class grouping strategy • It’s not the within-class grouping strategy • It’s the teacher

6. Teacher quality • A labor force issue with 2 solutions • Replace existing teachers with better ones? • No evidence that more pay brings in better teachers • No evidence that there are better teachers out there deterred by certification requirements • Improve the effectiveness of existing teachers • The “love the one you’re with” strategy • It can be done • We know how to do it, but at scale? Quickly? Sustainably?

7. Why assessment for learning? • Several major reviews of the research • Natriello (1987): grades K-12 • Crooks (1988): grades K-12 • Kluger & DeNisi (1996): grades K-16, work • Black & Wiliam (1998): K-12 • Nyquist (2003): grades 13-16 • All find consistent, substantial effects

8. Cost/effect comparisons

9. Types of formative assessment • Long-cycle • Span: across units, terms • Length: four weeks to one year • Medium-cycle • Span: within and between teaching units • Length: one to four weeks • Short-cycle • Span: within and between lessons • Length: • day-by-day: 24 to 48 hours • minute-by-minute: 5 seconds to 2 hours

10. Effects of formative assessment • Long-cycle • Student monitoring • Curriculum alignment • Medium-cycle • Improved, student-involved, assessment • Improved teacher cognition about learning • Short-cycle • Improved classroom practice • Improved student engagement

11. Five Key Strategies …

12. …and one big idea • Use evidence about learning to adapt instruction to meet student needs

13. Keeping Learning on Track (KLT) • A pilot guides a plane or boat toward its destination by taking constant readings and making careful adjustments in response to wind, currents, weather, etc. • A KLT teacher does the same: • Plans a carefully chosen route ahead of time (in essence building the track) • Takes readings along the way • Changes course as conditions dictate

14. Eliciting evidence of student achievement by engineering effective classroom discussions, questions and learning tasks

15. Kinds of questions: Israel Which fraction is the smallest? Success rate 88% Which fraction is the largest? Success rate 46%; 39% chose (b) [Vinner, PME conference, Lahti, Finland, 1997]

16. Misconceptions

17. Misconceptions 3a = 24 a + b = 16

18. Molecular structure of water?

19. Moving learners forward with feedback

20. Kinds of feedback: Israel • 264 low and high ability grade 6 students in 12 classes in 4 schools; analysis of 132 students at top and bottom of each class • Same teaching, same aims, same teachers, same classwork • Three kinds of feedback: scores, comments, scores+comments Feedback Gain Attitude scores none top +ve bottom -ve comments 30% all +ve [Butler(1988) Br. J. Educ. Psychol., 58 1-14]

21. Responses Feedback Gain Attitude scores none top +ve bottom -ve comments 30% all +ve What do you think happened for the students given both scores and comments: A: Gain: 30%; Attitude: all +ve B: Gain: 30%; Attitude: top +ve, bottom -ve C: Gain: 0%; Attitude: all +ve D: Gain: 0%; Attitude: top +ve, bottom -ve E: Something else [Butler(1988) Br. J. Educ. Psychol., 58 1-14]

22. Kinds of feedback: Israel (2) • 200 grade 5 and 6 Israeli students • Divergent thinking tasks • 4 matched groups • experimental group 1 (EG1); comments • experimental group 2 (EG2); grades • experimental group 3 (EG3); praise • control group (CG); no feedback • Achievement • EG1>(EG2≈EG3≈CG) • Ego-involvement • (EG2≈EG3)>(EG1≈CG) [Butler (1987) J. Educ. Psychol.79 474-482]

23. Effects of feedback • Kluger & DeNisi (1996) • Review of 3000 research reports • Excluding those: • without adequate controls • with poor design • with fewer than 10 participants • where performance was not measured • without details of effect sizes • left 131 reports, 607 effect sizes, involving 12652 individuals • Average effect of feedback substantial, but • Effect sizes very variable • 40% of effect sizes were negative

24. Sharing learning intentions and success criteriaActivating students as owners of their own learningActivating students as instructional resources for one another

25. Student involvement in learning • 3 teachers each teaching 4 year 8 science classes in two US schools • 14 week experiment • 7 two-week projects, scored 2-10 • All teaching the same, except: • For a part of each week • Two of each teacher’s classes discusses their likes and dislikes about the teaching (control) • The other two classes discusses how their work will be assessed [White & Frederiksen, Cognition & Instruction, 16(1), 1998].

26. Iowa Test of Basic Skills Group Low Middle High Likes and dislikes 4.6 5.9 6.6 Reflective assessment 6.7 7.2 7.4 Student involvement in learning (2)

27. Techniques: questioning • Key idea: questioning should • cause thinking • provide data that informs teaching • Improving teacher questioning • generating questions with colleagues • closed v open • low-order v high-order • appropriate wait-time • Getting away from I-R-E • basketball rather than serial table-tennis • ‘No hands up’ (except to ask a question) • class polls to review current attitudes towards an issue • ‘Hot Seat’ questioning • All-student response systems • ABCD cards, Mini white-boards, Exit passes

28. Questioning in math: discussion Look at the following sequence: 3, 7, 11, 15, 19, …. Which is the best rule to describe the sequence? • n + 4 • 3 + n • 4n - 1 • 4n + 3

29. b c A B a a c b a c C D b b c a a b E F c c b a Questioning in math: diagnosis In which of these right triangles is a2 + b2 = c2 ?

31. Questioning in science: discussion Ice-cubes are added to a glass of water. What happens to the level of the water as the ice-cubes melt? • The level of the water drops • The level of the water stays the same • The level of the water increases • You need more information to be sure

32. Questioning in science: diagnosis The ball sitting on the table is not moving. It is not moving because: • no forces are pushing or pulling on the ball. • gravity is pulling down, but the table is in the way. • the table pushes up with the same force that gravity pulls down • gravity is holding it onto the table. • there is a force inside the ball keeping it from rolling off the table Wilson & Draney, 2004

33. Save the ozone layer What can we do to preserve the ozone layer? • Reduce the amount of carbon dioxide produced by cars and factories • Reduce the greenhouse effect • Stop cutting down the rainforests • Limit the numbers of cars that can be used when the level of ozone is high • Properly dispose of air-conditioners and fridges

34. Questioning in English: discussion • Macbeth: mad or bad?

35. A B C D Questioning in English: diagnosis Where is the verb in this sentence? The dog ran across the road

36. A B C D Questioning in English: diagnosis Where does the subject end and the predicate begin in this sentence? The dog ran across the road.

37. Questioning in English: diagnosis Which of these is a good thesis statement? • The typical TV show has 9 violent incidents • There is a lot of violence on TV • The amount of violence on TV should be reduced • Some programs are more violent than others • Violence is included in programs to boost ratings • Violence on TV is interesting • I don’t like the violence on TV • The essay I am going to write is about violence on TV

38. Questioning in history: discussion In which year did World War II begin? • 1919 • 1937 • 1938 • 1939 • 1941

39. Questioning in History Why are historians concerned with bias when analyzing sources? • People can never be trusted to tell the truth • People deliberately leave out important details • People are only able to provide meaningful information if they experienced an event firsthand • People interpret the same event in different ways, according to their experience • People are unaware of the motivations for their actions • People get confused about sequences of events

40. What’s wrong with this item? There are two flights per day from Newtown to Oldtown. The first flight leaves Newtown each day at 9:05 and arrives in Oldtown at 10:45. The second flight from Newtown leaves at 2:15. At what time does the second flight arrive in Oldtown? Show your work.

41. Figurative language • Alliteration • Hyperbole • Metaphor • Onomatopoeia • Personification • None of the above • He was a bull in a china shop. • May I have a drop of water? • This backpack weighs a ton. • The sweetly smiling sunshine… • He honked his horn at the cyclist. • I’ve told you a million times already. • The Redcoats are coming! • He was as tall as a house.

42. Triangle shirt waist factory fire, March 25th, 1911

43. Triangle factory fire Which of the following sources is biased? • Photograph of the event • New York Times story on Mar 26, 1911 • Description of the fire in the textbook • Transcript of talk by Frances Perkins, Sep 30 1964

44. Techniques: feedback • Key idea: feedback should • cause thinking • provide guidance on how to improve • Comment-only grading • Focused grading • Explicit reference to mark-schemes and scoring guides • Suggestions on how to improve • ‘Strategy cards’ ideas for improvement • Not giving complete solutions • Re-timing assessment • (eg two-thirds-of-the-way-through-a-unit test)

45. Techniques: sharing learning intentions • Explaining learning intentions at start of lesson/unit • Learning intentions • Success criteria • Intentions/criteria in students’ language • Posters of key words to talk about learning • eg describe, explain, evaluate • Planning/writing frames • Annotated examples of different standards to ‘flesh out’ assessment rubrics (e.g. lab reports) • Opportunities for students to design their own tests

46. Practical techniques:peer and self-assessment • Students assessing their own/peers’ work • with rubrics • with exemplars • “two stars and a wish” • Training students to pose questions/identifying group weaknesses • Self-assessment of understanding • Traffic lights • Red/green discs • End-of-lesson students’ review

47. Putting it into practice

48. Force-field analysis (Lewin, 1951) • What kinds of forces present in your school/district will promote or support the development of this kind of work? • What kinds of forces present in your school/district will oppose or constrain the development of this kind of work? + –

49. A model for teacher learning • Content (what we want teachers to change) • Evidence • Ideas (strategies and techniques) • Process (how to go about change) • Choice • Flexibility • Small steps • Accountability • Support

50. Supporting Teachers and Schools to Change through Teacher Learning Communities