Advancing Assessment Literacy Data Informed Decision Making IV: Monitoring and Assessing Progress

Advancing Assessment Literacy Modules: Data Informed Decision Making IV (February 2008) 2 Monitoring and Assessing Progress An integral part of every action plan are detailed plans to ensure that progress is being made. It is important to gather data from a variety of sources that clearly demonstrate the plan is being implemented, change in instruction is occurring, and student learning is improving.

3 Progress Measure Areas Assessing Progress Student Data Short-Term Medium-Term Long-Term Evidence of Implementation Goal Types Improvement Goals Proficiency Goals From Boudette, City, & Murnane (2005) and Holcomb (2004).

Advancing Assessment Literacy Modules: Data Informed Decision Making IV (February 2008) 4 Short-, Medium-, and Long-Term Data Short-Term Data –Gathered daily or weekly via classroom assessments and/or observations. Medium-Term Data –Gathered at periodic intervals via common department, school, or division assessments. These are usually referred to as benchmark assessments. Long-Term Data –Gathered annually via standardized provincial, national, or international assessments. Boudette, K., City, E. A., & Murnane, R. J. (2005). Data wise: A step-by-step guide to using assessment results to improve teaching and learning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

Advancing Assessment Literacy Modules: Data Informed Decision Making IV (February 2008) 5 Short- and Medium-Term Assessments Referring to your action plan, identify what types of short- and medium-term assessments would best measure the progress of students as they work toward the goal. It may be useful to plan the medium-term assessments first to provide a framework within which short-term assessments would fit. Use the provided Short- and Medium-Term Assessment Planning template to plan when these might be administered.

Advancing Assessment Literacy Modules: Data Informed Decision Making IV (February 2008) 6 Short- and Medium-Term Assessments For example, in one Saskatchewan school division, common math assessments are given at the ends of units at approximately the same time. Prior to the common assessment, teachers’ in- class assessment strategies provide formative feedback to students as they work toward the goal set by the division. Following the common assessment, students who have not achieved the set benchmark receive additional instruction and formative assessment as they work towards the goal.

Advancing Assessment Literacy Modules: Data Informed Decision Making IV (February 2008) 7 Creating Benchmark Assessments Choose one of the goals and the accompanying teaching/learning strategy that have been set. Identify the objective(s) in the curriculum that the goal refers to. Create a benchmark assessment that would be administered to all students in that grade in your school or division.

Advancing Assessment Literacy Modules: Data Informed Decision Making IV (February 2008) 8 Creating Benchmark Assessments TASK: –Create a question or prompt based on the curricular objective. –Create a rubric (holistic or analytic) which assesses student performance in relation to the objective. What information about student performance do you want to gather? –Using your rubric, craft exemplar responses at each level of achievement. EXPANDED TASK: –If you have time, administer the benchmark assessment to students one grade higher than those for whom you are planning and then meet to score their papers using the rubric you’ve constructed. –Extract exemplars from those papers. –At this point you will most likely find areas in the rubric and prompt that need to be changed.

Advancing Assessment Literacy Modules: Data Informed Decision Making IV (February 2008) 9 Reflection What did you find positive, interesting or challenging about working together to create a benchmark task and accompanying assessment? What, for you, was the most significant part of the process?

Advancing Assessment Literacy Modules: Data Informed Decision Making IV (February 2008) 10 Improvement and Proficiency GROWTH Improvement refers to students’ growth on a given assessment within a specified period of time. A student or group of students may experience great growth but still fall short of set proficiency goals. COMPETENCE Proficiency refers to how many students will achieve a certain level of performance within a specified period of time. Proficiency goals don’t measure student growth – they measure how many have reached a set standard or benchmark. Boudette, K., City, E. A., & Murnane, R. J. (2005). Data wise: A step-by-step guide to using assessment results to improve teaching and learning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

Advancing Assessment Literacy Modules: Data Informed Decision Making IV (February 2008) 11 Improvement and Proficiency Attending to both improvement and proficiency ensures that students grow academically and have achieved degrees of competence in their studies. Thinking of growth and competence compels us to consider in what ways all students will grow (weak, average, and gifted) and what levels of competence are desired for all. Boudette, K., City, E. A., & Murnane, R. J. (2005). Data wise: A step-by-step guide to using assessment results to improve teaching and learning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

Advancing Assessment Literacy Modules: Data Informed Decision Making IV (February 2008) 12 To Consider... Using the frame of short-, medium-, and long- term data, where do improvement and proficiency goals fall? What would be the nature of the assessments used to address improvement goals? What would be the nature of the assessments used to address proficiency goals? Create a graphic representation of your understanding of how these items fit together. Provide examples in your representation.

Advancing Assessment Literacy Modules: Data Informed Decision Making IV (February 2008) 13 Evidence of Implementation In the previous module, implementation indicators were identified for teachers, students, classrooms, and student work. Using the expanded template provided, discuss and write down what data would need to be gathered as evidence that each of the indicators is being actualized in an effective manner, i.e. the strategies are being used as designed as opposed to interpretations of the strategy. –Who will collect the data? –How will it be collected?

14 Last Word This module dealt with assessing progress within your action plan. Using the word “progress”, craft phrases for each letter that capture essential attributes, characteristics, or ideas of assessing progress. P ________________ R ________________ O ________________ G ________________ R ________________ E ________________ S ________________ Wellman, B. & Lipton, L. (2004). Data-driven dialogue. Mira Via, LLC.