Expository Reading and Writing Course FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS

Expository Reading and Writing Course What is Formative Assessment? Formative assessment involves gathering, interpreting, and using information as feedback to change teaching and learning so that the gap between expected and observed student performance can close (Ruiz-Primo & Furtak, 2004; Roskos & Neuman, 2012 ).

Expository Reading and Writing Course

What Is Summative Assessment? Summative Assessment provides information about students’ outcomes or performance that gives us indicators of, or summarizes the degree to which, students have mastered knowledge and skills that have been our objectives. Summative Assessment usually following periods of extensive instruction.

Expository Reading and Writing Course

Summative Assessments Summative assessments are customarily planned, regulated, and possibly even high-stakes events.

Expository Reading and Writing Course

Formative Assessment in Language, Gender, and Culture After students read four texts What was confusing? What has become clear? Use "Fuzzy/Clear." Using an index card, students describe something from their reading of the four pieces that is still "fuzzy" or confusing to them or that made them feel ambivalent on one side of the card. On the other side, they describe something that is now clear to them. Review the cards and identify, address, or explain fuzzy content in a follow-up lesson.

Expository Reading and Writing Course Examples from Classroom Instruction Find a partner and in teams of two discuss examples of formative assessments you have used in your own teaching of ERWC modules. Report back to the whole group about examples of formative feedback that have provided you with information that led to closing gaps between your expectations and what students actually knew.

Expository Reading and Writing Course Formative Assessment

Expository Reading and Writing Course Formal and Informal Formative Assessment Formative assessment can be formal when arising from planned action designed to yield information or evidence about student learning.

Expository Reading and Writing Course Formal and Informal Formative Assessment Informal when information about student learning arises from minute-by-minute interactions between teacher and students during classroom activities.

Expository Reading and Writing Course

Formative Assessment Stages Steps to reduce the gap between where students’ are and where students need to get: 1) Gather information 2) Interpret information 3) Act on information Example: Assessment conversations, instructional dialogue arising from classroom activity, pop-quiz or draft of an essay submitted for response.

Expository Reading and Writing Course Formative Assessment Opportunity in “The Value of Life” Building on Activity 4 in which students reported on what they have done in the past to understand Shakespeare. After Activity 6 (a first reading of Hamlet’s “to be or not to be” soliloquy), ask students to complete a Process Quickwrite in which they describe strategies they used to complete their first reading of the soliloquy. When puzzled by what they read, what did they do? These descriptions provide knowledge of your students' metacognitive awareness and suggest paths to its further development. Your feedback on their Quickwrites or through class discussion of strategy use can support metacognitive growth.

Expository Reading and Writing Course Another Example from The Value of Life Ask students to submit a Working Thesis on an index card Quick evaluation of their progress in formulating a central claim that will be the foundation for their essay. Is the Working Thesis clear, compelling, complex, and contestable? Who needs more time and attention for the development of their thesis? If their opinions have not yet gelled, they may need time to write and to talk their way toward greater clarification.

Expository Reading and Writing Course What Can Formative Assessment Do? Popham (2011) configured four categories of formative assessment: Teachers’ instructional adjustments Students’ learning tactic adjustments Classroom climate shift Schoolwide implementation We’re primarily interested in the second of these, but the first and third are also of much importance to us.

Expository Reading and Writing Course

What Research Says About Formative Assessment Some forms of formative assessment feedback are significantly more effective than others. Hattie & Timperley (2007) reviewed and identified the conditions under which feedback had the most positive impact on learning. For example, giving students information about how to undertake a task more effectively generates more impact than praise, punishment, or rewards.

Expository Reading and Writing Course A Model for Formative Assessment Feedback Hattie & Timperley (2007) created a model of feedback that is useful as a framework to explain why some types of formative assessment advance learning more than others. Effective formative feedback answers three questions.

Expository Reading and Writing Course The Three Questions Formative Assessment Answers 1.Where am I going? (also known as Feed Up) 2.How am I going? (aka, Feed Back) 3.Where to next? (aka, Feed Forward)

Expository Reading and Writing Course

Examples from Classroom Instruction: Think-Pair-Share Where am I going? How am I going? Where to next?

Expository Reading and Writing Course Feedback to Students Operates on Four Levels 1.Task level (How well do I understand or perform the task?) 2.Process level (What do I need to do to understand or perform the task?) 3.Self-regulation level (How can I monitor and control actions that get the task done?) 4.Self-level (How am I doing with respect to my mastery of the task?)

Expository Reading and Writing Course On Which Levels Is Formative Feedback MOST Effective? Feedback at the process and self-regulation levels is the most effective. Feedback at the task level can be effective when it addresses the processing of a strategy or the enhancement of self-regulation.

Expository Reading and Writing Course What are some examples of feedback at the process level? What are some examples of feedback at the self-regulation level? What is an example of feedback at the task level that does the work of process or self-regulation level feedback?

Expository Reading and Writing Course ERWC Content For Formative Assessment Vocabulary Central ideas or claims Evidence supporting claims Counterclaims

Expository Reading and Writing Course ERWC Processes For Formative Assessment How to annotate How to activate background knowledge and integrate with text being read How to read “with” and “against” the grain How to connect reading to writing How to negotiate voices How to write a coherent paragraph

Expository Reading and Writing Course Learning from Formative Assessments Read the writing assignment from the “Value of Life” and review the EPT Holistic Scoring Guide. Then read and score ESSAY A and ESSAY B using the six-point rubric. One of the essays (we believe) is upper-half, and the other essay is lower-half. Remember to choose the score category that best describes the writer’s performance as a whole.

Expository Reading and Writing Course Table Conversation What content (e.g., vocabulary, evidence, claims, etc.) and processes (e.g., how to negotiate voices, how to connect reading to writing, how to activate background knowledge, etc.) related to the ERWC can be formatively assessed through this writing assignment? What kind of feedback would you offer to each writer at the task level, process level, and/or self-regulation level?

Expository Reading and Writing Course Formative Assessment for ERWC Professional Learning Read the ERWC document on formative assessment strategies. Then, with a partner, discuss your experience using some of the strategies listed. In whole group conversation, discuss other formative assessment approaches and strategies.

Expository Reading and Writing Course Habits of Mind Promoted by the Formative Assessments in the ERWC Demonstrate independence and self-efficacy. Act as self-directed learners. Reflect on learning and on the processes that shape knowledge, including how different writing tasks and elements of the writing process contribute to their development as a writer.

Expository Reading and Writing Course References Gallagher, Chris W. (2009). Kairos and informative assessment: rethinking the formative/summative distinction in Nebraska. Theory Into Practice, 48, Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), Popham, W.J. (2011). Transformative assessment in action: An inside look at applying the process. Alexandria, VA: ASCD. Roskos, K., & Neuman, S.B. (2012). Formative assessment. The Reading Teacher, 65(8), Ruiz-Primo, M.A., & Furtak, E.M. (2004). Informal formative assessment of students’ understanding of scientific inquiry. Center for the Study of Education Report # 639. National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Teaching (CRESST). University of California, Los Angeles.