Teaching and Testing vs. Student Learning and Assessment

In a 2011 issue of Ed Weekly, Peter DeWitt published an article discussing how our focus on testing should be shifted to assessment. This idea of assessment, whether formative or summative, has been widely spoken and debated for quite some time. Our movement towards common core standards and PARCC assessment has forced our shift to summative testing. In other words, we are preparing students for end of course summative assessments that provide an "autopsy" of how well the students have mastered skills and content. By incorporating "Student Growth Percentage Scores (SGP's)" in teacher evaluations we are also assessing how well teachers have done in ensuring such mastery with a defined group of students. 

While there is value and relevance to summative assessments, our goal as educators is not to teach, it is to ensure student learning. In order to meet that demand we need to employ formative assessment to constantly check for understanding. The results of which will impact our pacing, lesson plans, follow-up assessments, interventions and support models.

In most schools teachers embark on this challenge in isolation. They develop tests, quizzes and other formative assessments  on their own. Teachers calculate percentage scores, averages, and hopefully varied levels of itemization resulting in data analysis for their group of students.

The work of DuFour, DuFour and Eaker support a hybrid approach to formative assessment by introducing common formative assessment.  The advantages of teachers teaching the same content developing common assessments are highlighted in their many works.  It is important to note that they are speaking of assessments and not content tests. These assessments provide a variety of prompts, questions sets and tasks that assess the skills, critical thinking, problem solving and content connected to the standards. The results of each assessment are itemized and discussed collaboratively. Interventions, curriculum changes, and  instructional planning are developed collaborative as a result of the data.

"If five teachers teaching the same course or grade level are responsible for ensuring all students acquire the same knowledge and skills, it make sense those teachers would work together to determine the best methods to assess student learning. A team of teachers could divide responsibilities for creating a unit and developing assessments. Teachers working in isolation replicate and duplicate effort. They work hard, but they do not work smart.", (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, 2007).  Other advantages cite equity, collaborative problem solving, improvement of individual and teams of teachers, systematic interventions and increased student achievement.

Teachers of the same content working together to develop 3 or 4 benchmark assessments, aligned to standards, presented timely, and analyzed and discussed collaboratively will undoubtedly have a greater opportunity to ensure student learning than high stakes, summative tests.

Formative Assessment As A Closure Activity

As we develop units of study our focus starts on what we want students to know, how will they demonstrate that knowledge and how will we assess that knowledge. If we integrate the universal design for learning framework we effectively represent content in a variety of ways, provide options and variation for students to apply what they learned and for us to assess, and we have a focus on engaging students in a variety of ways. Regardless of the variations and framework of our lessons the use of effective closure should have a place. How do we provide students with an opportunity to reflect on a lesson and connect their experiences to the lesson objective? Can a closure activity also be a formative assessment?



The use of exit cards is an effective closure activity that provides us with a formative assessment of student learning. This may be a sticky note or index card in which students provide answers to one or more prompts. This may be as simple as:

• "What are three things you learned today?"


• "What is something that is confusing you about today's lesson?"

Questions may be more content specific.

• "What are the three major events that led to the New Deal"? 

The 3-2-1 Exit Card provides a consistent framework:

1. What are three things that you learned in class today?
2. What are two questions that you still have?
3.  What is one aspect of the class that you enjoyed or did not enjoy.



Some teachers have students post their exit cards to a board as they exit the room. This provides a quick visual for teachers to review responses and modify instruction the next day based on the results. Online discussion boards provides a collaborative approach to exit cards. Using this method students may post and respond to each others answers allowing for an extension of the class discussion as well as opportunities for peer to peer instruction.

Formative Assessment Strategies Low & High Tech

The use of formative assessment in the classroom provides insight into what students "get" and what they need for instruction/practice with. As opposed to a summative assessment which assess students ability to demonstrate content knowledge or a skill, a formative assessment assesses students progress towards content knowledge or a skill. Think of the summative as an autopsy and the formative as your checkup to see how you are doing. 

Too often the effective use of formative assessment strategies is overlooked in the classroom. A typical lesson plan template as a section for assessment. What is typically written there is the same statements that have been copied and pasted from previous lessons. "Teacher observation, questioning of students..etc.." What is usually lacking is a more specific assessment strategy that will be used to adjust instruction.

Technology has provided a tool to assess entire groups of students in order to quickly and efficiently receive group and individual feedback. The use of student response systems such as Smart Response allows teachers to poll a class and immediately view a consensus or access a site to view individual responses. Free web-based services like Poll Everywhere or various Iphone/Ipad apps provide the same experience using your phones.

Exit cards are another great way to check for understanding. How about having students write on sticky notes a question they have about the lesson, a summary of what they learned or a sample math problem from the homework. Maybe have them keep their responses to under 140 characters and post them on your Twitter board as they leave class. This may be an actual Tweet or a sticky note posted on a small paper board hung on your wall.

Google Forms can be used to create a quick quiz or assessment. The results are tallied in a spreadsheet and can be sorted or represented in graphic form with the click of a button.

There are hundreds of great ways to use formative assessment strategies in your classrooms. I encourage teachers to explore the use of active, formative assessment to check for student understanding. Transitioning from "who does not understand?" or "Who needs help?" to a more individualized and personalized method of checking for understanding will have a significant impact on student learning in your classes.

Responding to Student Needs With Instructional Strategies

A number of established and best practices in education emulate the principles of inclusive education.  Educators today are better equipped to facilitate meaningful and inclusive education for students at risk.  However, a holistic and comprehensive school plan is an integral component of a school wide effort to provide all students with the education they are entitled to receive.  We must continue to enhance and expand the continuum of options available to our students.  Principles of this systematic plan include staff that is trained in successful instructional strategies, committed to teaching and progress, reflective on student performance, and responsive to the needs of all students.

In looking at instructional strategies, a comprehensive review of the lesson framework and the selection of strategies and practices contained is the first step. We can best meet the needs of our students by designing a classroom environment that provides opportunity for all. Do we design lessons that provide individuals the opportunity to connect prior learning, assess their understanding of content, collaborate with peers, ask questions and explore new learning?

When designing instruction to meet the varying needs of our students the instructional strategies we select are the first step to level the playing field. My colleague and I have designed an interactive pyramid of intervention to provide a toolbox for teachers. This toolbox aides in lesson design, instructional strategies and targeted interventions.  An exploration of the interactive Lesson Framework provides teachers with a toolbox of instructional strategies for each area of the framework.

Assessing Mental Math

In latest issue of Educational Leadership Marilyn Burns (founder of Math Solutions, (www.mathsolutions.com) wrote an article that highlights an assessment strategy in Mathematics that departs from our more recent assessment strategies. She discussed how the Common Core State Standards for mathematics will require teacher to strengthen students' numerical reasoning and mental math skills.  

After reading this article and reflecting on my observations in classrooms I started to make a connection to the significance of assessing mental computation.  Knowledge of how a student mentally computes math problems would provide a wealth of information for teachers. This formative assessment strategy would not only provide insight into the strategies utilized by your students but it would also assess their development of this important life skill.

"Solving math problems mentally too often receives limited attention in classrooms compared with paper and pencil computation. Although developing written computation skills is important, mental computation helps develop facility with many of the practice standards - for example, reasoning quantitatively, constructing a viable argument, and looking for and making use of structure." (Burns, 2012)

Ms Burns has developed a free online tool to assess math reasoning. This tool requires short 10 minute interviews as well as independent paper based computation by the student. At the completion of the assessment the teacher is provided with an analysis of the students math reasoning skill. The entire program includes video tutorials, assessment rubrics and explanations of reports.

This individualized, verbal assessment strategy appears to be a great resource for teachers in grades 5-8.

http://www.mathreasoninginventory.com

Burns, Marilyn. "Educational Leadership." Educational Leadership. 70.4 (2012): 42-46. Print.

Image - http://mathandtech.pbworks.com/f/1268839944/math_art.gif

 

Formative Assessments with Cell Phones

Those of you that read my blog or have attended my workshops you have heard me talk about or use Poll Everywhere. Poll Everywhere is a free service that allows you to collect responses from an audience via text messaging. Teachers can publish a question and students respond by texting their answers. The results are immediately available for viewing online.



This is a great tool for assessing student understanding without having to signal out who does not understand a topic in a class by asking students to raise their hands or respond out loud to  your question. As a teacher you receive immediate information regarding student comprehension and can adjust your instruction at that moment. In our district we will be allowing student owned devices in our classrooms this year. The use of these devices will be 100% at the teachers discretion. We will also have wireless internet in all of our schools. The barriers to entry for this type of technology use have greatly improved!

There is a feature in Poll Everywhere that was just brought to my attention in Richard Byrne's recent blog posting. If you collect open ended responses you can view those responses in one of the three most popular word cloud services. This is a really great feature that has a lot of benefits. Word clouds are a collection of words found in any text based document, site etc.. The words are organized in a variety of designs. The words that are used the most are largest in size.



This type of visualization offers a quick summary of results, a single visual of responses and a number of conversation starters. To learn more about ways to use word clouds in the classroom please visit my wiki page on the topic.

 

Enjoy!

 

A Technology Integration Matrix - Developing our K-12 Neo's

The University of South Florida has published a technology integration matrix that is quite impressive. The matrix is to be used as a guide to initiate a paradigm shift with regards to how we infuse technology in the classroom. The matrix is an excellent resource for all k-12 teachers to not only assess where their level of technology infusion stands, but it also provides inspiration and a road map as we look to expand our use of it in our classrooms.  The matrix provides examples for each level for each of the core subject areas. 

Here is an excerpt directly from their site:

"The Technology Integration Matrix (TIM) illustrates how teachers can use technology to enhance learning for K-12 students. The TIM incorporates five interdependent characteristics of meaningful learning environments: active, constructive, goal directed (i.e., reflective), authentic, and collaborative (Jonassen, Howland, Moore, & Marra, 2003). The TIM associates five levels of technology integration (i.e., entry, adoption, adaptation, infusion, and transformation) with each of the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments. Together, the five levels of technology integration and the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments create a matrix of 25 cells".

This matrix is a valuable resource for all educators. In our district we are working to develop rubrics for classroom walk-throughs. This matrix will be useful as we develop the look-fors.  It is also a great point of reference to share with teachers as we assess and discuss technology use in our district.

Thank you University of South Florida and the department of instructional technology for developing and sharing such a wonderful resource.

Enaged Students - Authentic Tasks - Disguised Learning

I had the opportunity this week to work with a middle school French class. The current curriculum was addressing occupations. The students were being introduced to the vocabulary associated with this topic. Students in the class were assigned the task of researching and presenting a final project that documents what they learned about their occupation. Of course, the entire projected needed to be written and presented in French.

I worked with the teacher, Mrs. Neuschatz,  to develop a project that the students would relate to. We wanted to move away from a traditional research based presentation where students develop PowerPoint slides of texts and images. These types of projects typically do not involve a high level of motivation nor do they result in significant learning or knowledge exchange in a classroom. We can be honest and refer to them as "death by PowerPoint". I think everyone can relate to this.

What we decided to assign is a "Fakebook" profile. Our district is a member of Google Apps for Education. A quick search of the templates in Google Docs returned a number of "Facebook Profile Templates". I selected one that utilizes Google Presentation. It is a four page presentation template that mirrors a typical Facebook profile.
We assigned the students the task of developing a Facebook Profile for a person who practices the occupation that they select. They must include daily events (postings to the wall), who would this person be friendly with (friends), education and other information (info), events that this person might take part in (videos). Although we assigned a rubric, the students have some flexibility as to the content they could provide.

We expect to have some finished projects in a couple of weeks. However, my initial observations in the classroom were very interesting. The students were motivated and excited about the project. They applied creativity and a level of higher order thinking to make connections between the research they uncovered and the sections of the profile that they must complete. It was not sufficient to mere list responsibilities of "A Doctor". They instead had to apply that knowledge by listing activities and events that a doctor might experience and post them on "the wall".  Rather than supply a listing of facts in a typical slide, they are applying what they learned to a task. Students were not only making connections and applying knowledge, but they were learning French through an authentic and engaging task!

The template for our PowerPoint "Fakebook Project" can be found here.

I will share some of our final products when they are ready.

Common Formative Assessments Using Study Island

Our district subscribes to Study Island for its grades 2-8 students. The software started out primarily as a NJ Ask test prep tool. It has evolved into much more. Although there are many features that i could highlight I would like to talk about the Custom Assessment tool in this posting.

The custom assessment option allows teachers to create online assessments for one student in a class, a group of students in a class or an entire class. The faculty member can browse through questions by topic. He or she can select a topic question and tell the system how many of that type of question he or she would like included in the test.

The software will andomize the numbers in a math question or change the text in a language arts question.  This allows the teacher to have multiple questions that assess the same skill.



By having the ability to create custom assessments, faculty members are able to quickly develop formative assessments that will help guide instruction. The fact that these assessments can be taken online, with a student response system or on paper provide a number of options.

The newest release of Study Island now allows faculty members to share the custom assessments that they create with the other teachers in their school. They have added a custom assessment library.

When implemented correctly, study island is a valuable instructional tool. The software offers numerous reports, customizable options and an intuitive interface. I must say I am very happy with our subscription.