Informative Assessment Success for ALL

Informative Assessment is…  According to W. James Popham – “ Formative assessment is a planned process in which teachers and students use assessment- based evidence to adjust what they’re currently doing.”  According to FAST SCASS ( State Collaboratives on Assessment and Student Standards) – “Formative assessment is a process used by teachers and students during instruction that provides feedback to adjust ongoing teaching and learning to improve students’ achievement of intended instructional outcomes.”

I CAN NAME Informative Assessment activities. YES NO MAYBE or A FEW

Getting Started… With your table group, brainstorm a list of formative assessment activities you currently use with your students.

What Research Says about IFA… 1.Informative assessments are ongoing assessments, reviews, and observations in a classroom 2.Teachers use them to improve instructional methods 3.Informative assessment feedback can improve student learning 4.Informative assessment enhances intrinsic student motivation

What Teachers Say about IFA…  Review your group’s list of IFA activities. Do the activities reflect the information you are hearing? Revise as needed.  In what ways did the teachers change?  What observations did these teachers make about their students?

I know the PURPOSE of Informative Assessment. YES NO MAYBE

Informative Assessment

The Purpose of Informative Assessment is TWOFOLD 1. To move students’ learning forward while their learning is still in the process of developing 2. To inform the teacher about the effectiveness of instruction

Gathering Thoughts On a post-it, write your thoughts about the purpose of informative assessment Group members share thoughts (2 minutes) Table groups share with one other table group ++=

IFA Activity List: Revise as indicated…  Review your group’s list of Informative Assessment activities.  Do the activities listed align with the purposes we just reviewed?

polleverywhere.com Benefits of Informative Assessment Let’s use your cell phones as a tool … Respond by rating yourself on a scale of 1-5 # 1: I can name benefits of Informative Assessment for teachers. #2: I can name benefits of Informative Assessment for students.

What Are the Benefits? 1.Groups create a Venn Diagram of Teacher/Student benefits from informative assessment 2. Groups share listed benefits of informative assessment for teachers and for students 3.

What Research says: Teacher Benefits Teachers can: – Determine skills and standards students already know and to what degree – Decide what minor modifications or major changes in instruction they need to make so all students can succeed in upcoming instruction – Create appropriate lessons and activities for groups of learners or individual students – Inform students about their current progress in order to help them set goals for improvement What do you have written on your T-chart that is different but also works?

What Research says: Student Benefits Students can: – Be more motivated to learn – Take responsibility for their own learning – Become users of assessment alongside the teacher – Learn valuable lifelong skills such as self-evaluation, self-assessment, and goal setting

Informative Assessment Techniques… we have used… Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down, Thumbs All Around Cooperative & Collaborative Learning Polleverywhere.com Think, Pair, Share Numbered Heads Together

Additional Informative Assessment Techniques… Handout

Self-Check on Continuums – current self-assessment Quantity of work/PresentationQuality of learning Marking/Grading Comparing students Advice for improvement Identifying individual progress 1

Clearer, deeper understanding can be accomplished by asking people to declare their position relative to a premise, defend it with reasons, and then be expected to stand more firmly on solid ground, or if indicated, adjust their position to align with new information.

#1 - Agree or Disagree? Using benchmark assessments two to three times per year is informative assessment. I ________ with this statement because __________________.

Think, Pair, Share Partner with someone you don’t know yet and share your answers with each other.

Informative, Interim, Summative

 How and when is the information used?  Who is seeing and using it? Thomas Guskey elaborates on both these criteria in Ahead of the Curve, Chapter 1 entitled: Using Assessments to Improve Teaching and Learning

Discussion Points…  Use assessments as sources of information for both students and teachers  Assessments provide teachers with specific guidance in their efforts to improve the quality of their teaching  Using high-quality corrective instruction is not the same as reteaching, which often consists simply of restating louder and more slowly  What better learning-to-learn skill is there than learning from one’s mistakes? Mistakes should not mark the end of learning; rather, they can be the beginning.

REVISIT #1 - Agree or Disagree? Using benchmark assessments two to three times per year is informative assessment. I ________ with this statement because __________________.

#2 - Agree or Disagree? Informative assessment has no impact on student learning or achievement. I ________ with this statement because __________________.

#3 - Agree or Disagree? Students won’t ‘buy into’ informative assessment I ________ with this statement because __________________. – classroom culture – competition vs. individual growth – tests vs. checks for understanding – improvement vs. evaluation – quality feedback Motivation to learn actually increases when students see the gap between what they thought they knew and what they actually know.

#4 - Agree or Disagree? Teachers won’t use informative assessments if they cannot grade them. I ________ with this statement because __________________.

THE DIFFERENCES Continual Improvement INFORMATIVE SUMMATIVE STOP Carried out while learning is in progress—day to day, minute by minute. Focused on the learning process and the learning progress. Viewed as an integral part of the teaching-learning process. Collaborative—Teachers and students know where they are headed, understand the learning needs, and use assessment information as feedback to guide and adapt what they do to meet those needs. Fluid—An ongoing process influenced by student need and teacher feedback. Teachers and students adopt the role of intentional learners. Teachers and students use the evidence they gather to make adjustments for continuous improvement. Carried out from time to time to create snapshots of what has happened. Focused on the products of learning. Something separate, an activity performed after the teaching- learning cycle. Teacher directed—Teachers assign what the students must do and then evaluate how well they complete the assignment. Rigid—An unchanging measure of what the student achieved. Teachers adopt the role of auditors and students assume the role of the audited. Teachers use the results to make final "success or failure" decisions about a relatively fixed set of instructional activities. vs.

 If the assessment occurs after the learning is complete, and is used to give a grade or provide a final measure of student results, it is summative.  An assessment becomes informative based on:  How and when the information is used, and  Who is seeing and using the information Remember…

Connecting UDL and IFA…  Use your UDL Guidelines resources – Focusing on Principle II.  Which Checkpoints could be used to scaffold more assessment buy-in from students without grading them?  Be ready to explain your findings.

Self-Check #2 -where you target to be in 6 months Quantity of work/PresentationQuality of learning Marking/Grading Comparing students Advice for improvement Identifying individual progress 2

Informative Assessments Used Self-Evaluation Misconception Check Think, Pair, Share Think, Pair, Share, Squared

Activity List: Review, Edit, USE!!! TASK #1 - Take a look at your original list of IFA techniques. Review & revise. TASK #2 – Choose 1 IFA technique and explain how you could use it to increase UDL in your classes.

DuFour: 4 Critical Questions 1. What do we expect students to learn? – (Need: Clear learning targets) 2. How will we know if they are learning? 3. What will we do when students are already proficient? 4. How do we respond when students don’t learn?

Using Informative Assessment to Drive UDL  Each table choose a minimum of two UDL Checkpoints  Chart the Checkpoints and what they have to offer towards narrowing “learning gaps”

Checkpoints to analyze… 6.1 Guide appropriate goal setting 6.2 Support planning and strategy development 6.3 Facilitate managing information and resources 6.4 Enhance capacity for monitoring progress 7.1 Optimize individual choice and autonomy 7.2 Optimize relevance, value, and authenticity 8.2 Vary demands and resources to optimize challenge 8.4 Increase mastery oriented feedback

Filling the GAPS… GAPCSO Just right learning target PURPOSE of Informative Assessment PURPOSE of Informative Assessment

Three Central Questions from: Advancing Formative Assessment in Every Classroom 1.Where am I going? – What will I be able to do when I’ve finished this lesson? 2.Where am I now? – What idea, topic, or subject is important for me to learn and understand so that I can do this? 3.What strategy or strategies can help me get to where I need to go? – How will I show that I can do this, and how well will I have to do it? (Brookhart and Moss)

DuFour: 4 Critical Questions 1. What do we expect students to learn? – (Need: Clear learning targets) 2. How will we know if they are learning? – (Need: Balanced assessment system) 3. What will we do when students are already proficient? 4. How do we respond when students don’t learn? “What evidence will I accept?”

Balanced Assessment System “ To maximize student success, assessment must be seen as an instructional tool for use while learning is occurring, and as an accountability tool to determine if learning has occurred. Because both purposes are important, they must be in balance.” From Balanced Assessment: The Key to Accountability and Improved Student Learning, NEA (2003)

What is the difference between assessing and grading? What feedback are you (the teacher) trying to give (1.) your students and (2.) yourself when you grade that assessment?

Post-Video Table Questions

Descriptive or Evaluative Feedback? You made some simple mistakes multiplying 3- digit numbers.

Let’s Play MORE with UDL… Before-During-After Instruction 1.Review the actions taken at each stage of instruction while implementing UDL (see handout) 2.With your new group, choose a minimum of 3 actions you use the least 3.Develop and chart IFA/descriptive feedback activities that will support the use of the chosen UDL actions.

BRINGING IT HOME NOW… How do I apply formative assessment to MY lesson plans? Use your modified lesson plans from the UDL session and the Formative Assessment Activities handout to answer these ??s.  What formative assessment activities could be incorporated into your modified UDL lesson plan?  How would you identify the formative assessment data and where would you record the results?

Self-Check #3 – where you target to be 1 year from now Quantity of work/PresentationQuality of learning Marking/Grading Comparing students Advice for improvement Identifying individual progress 3

DuFour’s: 4 Critical Questions 1.What do we expect students to learn? (Need: Clear learning targets) 2.How will we know if they are learning? (Need: Balanced assessment system) 3.What will we do when students are already proficient? (Need: IFA, UDL, DI and enrichment activities) 4.How do we respond when students don’t learn? (Need: IFA, UDL, DI and intervention activities )

What have you learned today about using informative assessment that will enable you to strengthen your instruction? EXIT SLIP Red = Something I need more help understanding Yellow = Something I am understanding pretty well Green = Something I feel good to go and ready to use