Assessment In Learning Marie Wilson EDU 650 Teaching, Learning, and Leading in the 21 st Century Instructor: Heather Caldwell May 21 st, 2016

What’s Assessment in Learning According to (Harrison and William 2003) assessment in learning is a learning that deal with formative and submissive assessment. Assessment is a huge topic that encompasses everything from statewide accountability tests to district benchmark or interim tests to everyday classroom tests. In order to grapple with what seems to be an over use of testing, educators should frame from their view of testing as assessment and that assessment is information. The more the information we have about students, the clearer the picture we have about achievement or where gaps may occur.

Strategy # 1 Clarifying, understanding, and sharing learning intentions. The big five focus on the major skills of the curriculum: Analytical, Conceptual, Information Management, Communication and META-Cognitive.

Strategy #2 Multi- Participant Questions: Students answer questions simultaneously on a mini-whiteboards or by multiple choice. No hands up: Activate all students, by using “hands up” only to let students ask questions and for answering them. Teachers should find ways to frequently check for understanding so that teaching can be adapted accordingly. The Big Question: William suggests that teachers use a pre-planned “big question” to help them understand what their students have learned, or what they already know. Depending on student responses, the teacher can then adapt teaching to suit student needs (move on, re-teach, or engage in peer discussion for further understanding). Using your learning platform, you should be able to easily create surveys and polls as ways to gather instant evidence around The Big Question

Strategy #3 Explore the different ways in which you and your students (for peer assessment) can use your learning platform to provide feedback, either written, or via audio or video. You should be able to provide written feedback for individual rubric criteria, and audio or written feedback for submitted assignments that may not use

Strategy #4 Activating students as instructional resources for each other Encourage collaborative learning opportunities such as project-based group work, and peer assessment that allow students to learn from each other. Pre-flight Checklist: William suggests a peer assessment activity in which the teacher requires a student to have their work checked against a list of criteria by another student before the assignment can be submitted. “The interesting thing about this technique is that it involves at least two strategies,” states Wiliam. “It involves activating students as instructional resources for one another, but the person who completes the pre-flight check also has to understand the success criteria, in order to complete the pre-flight check.”

Strategy #5. Activating students as owners of their own learning By giving students the opportunity for self-assessment, you are allowing them to take responsibility and ownership of their own learning, making it more meaningful and thus, increasing engagement. Self-assessment: Wiliam cites one example in which students are given discs with red on one side and green on the other. All students start out with green. If they don’t understand something that is being taught, they flip the disk to the red side. Once the teacher sees that someone is falling behind, the teacher will then choose someone with a green disc to come to the front of the class and reteach the concept. “The strategy is activating students as owners of their own learning, but it’s also allowing the teacher to be responsive to the students’ needs,” states Wiliam.

Strategy #5 Providing and giving back feed back Take a look inside of student’s brain help them to set goals Allow students to practice and gather information along the way

Formative Assessment Formative assessment The goal of formative assessment is to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can be used by instructors to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning. More specifically, formative assessments: help students identify their strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need work help faculty recognize where students are struggling and address problems immediately Formative assessments are generally low stakes, which means that they have low or no point value. Examples of formative assessments include asking students to: draw a concept map in class to represent their understanding of a topic submit one or two sentences identifying the main point of a lecture turn in a research proposal for early feedback

Summative Assessments Cont’d Summative assessment The goal of summative assessment is to evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark. Summative assessments are often high stakes, which means that they have a high point value. Examples of summative assessments include: a midterm exam a final project a paper a senior recital Information from summative assessments can be used formatively when students or faculty use it to guide their efforts and activities in subsequent courses.

Formative and Summative Assessment According to (Henry and Marsh) formative and summative assessment represent two classifications of assessment, each with a distinct purpose. Formative assessment is commonly referred to as assessment for learning, in which the focus is on monitoring student response to and progress with instruction. Formative assessment provides immediate feedback to both the teacher and student regarding the learning process. Summative assessment is commonly referred to as assessment of learning, in which the focus is on determining what the student has learned at the end of a unit of instruction or at the end of a grade level (e.g., through grade-level, standardized assessments). (Herman et al., 2006; Marsh, 2007).

References Herman, J. L., Osmundson, E., Ayala, C., Schneider, S., & Timms, M. (2006). The nature and impact of teachers' formative assessment practices. CSE Technical Report #703. National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST). Marsh, C. J. (2007). A critical analysis of the use of formative assessment in schools. Educational Research and Policy Practice, 6, 25–29. Rystad, M. (2013, April 7). Assessment for learning [Video file]. Retrieved from achievement#sthash.8VGQp72m.dpuf