The Formative Assessment Cycle Solve a selection of problems of a given skill Analysis Students are instantly told if their answers on ASSISTment are correct or incorrect. Students and teachers may review a report of their answers at any time. Lesson The lesson is the in class lecture given the previous day or week sometime building on knowledge attained in previous years Objective The Assessment Responses to student answers to a problem set of a given skill in ASSISTment. Students have one week to complete this assignment and have to show their work on a work sheet. Student do this assignment over their vocational shop week. Learning Through Data Driven Reflection Using assessment data to drive student actions that promote learning DonnaLee Tignor – Montachusett Vocational High School - Fitchburg, MA Cristina Heffernan – ASSISTment Program Zach Pardos– Worcester Polytechnic Institute Next Objective, lesson, Assessment Objective: Solve a selection of problems of a given skill Lesson: the tutorial strategy of the scaffolding on the system Assessment: Students demonstrate how to solve the problem by writing out the solution on a worksheet to problems they got wrong A Real-World Formative Assessment Example After the teacher gives the students an in class lecture on a geometry topic, the students are assigned ASSISTment homework on that same topic. A few of the questions in that homework are shown to the right. Objective: to practice assorted problems using Pythagorean theorem, angle concepts and coordinate geometry. Lesson: students were given a lecture on Pythagorean theorem and supplementary angles the week before The Assessment: responses to this 11 item problem set serve as the assessment of this objective Part of the geometry problem set assigned to the class The ASSISTment Item report for two students Student A’s worksheet Student B’s worksheet Reflection/correction worksheet of student B Gradebook of student’s work on The ASSISTment System ASSISTment scaffolding for problem Analysis: Students show their work on a separate work sheet and the system logs their answers for viewing by the student or by the teacher at any time. The worksheets to the left show two sample students’ work and a sample of the item report shown to teachers bellow. The key element at this step is the feedback to the student from the system that they have answered an item incorrectly. If this were a typical graded test, a student may simply look at their grade and throw out the test but here the student will have an opportunity to take action based on their wrong answer and can learn from their error in the next step. After a student answers incorrectly on the main problem they are given a tutorial dialog of help called scaffolding. The scaffolding breaks the problem they just attempted into steps and prompts the students to exercise the knowledge gained from the small step that was just explained. At the end of the scaffolding the student is asked to reattempt to solve the main problem. They are given the answer if they request it so the student does not remain stuck on one problem. This is a way in which The ASSISTment System performs a type of automated formative assessment. The system reports data in the form of a wrong answer notification and the student is expected to act on that information and learn the material. In this example, student B incorrectly answered problem and is given scaffolding (shown to the right) to help him or her learn the material. Objective: to solve the scaffolding problems The Lesson: The tutorial stagey of the scaffolding The Assessment: This formative assessment example goes further still in promoting student action based on data by providing an opportunity for the student to reflect on his or her wrong answer and provide an explanation of what mistake was made or what knowledge was not previously known that was required to answer the question. This step is demonstrated in the next step. In this example we see student B’s reflection to answering problem incorrectly. The student remarks that he or she did not know how to find the angles of the triangle but must have learned how from the ASSISTment scaffolding and then showed his or her work with the right answer for full credit. Analysis: This reflection on wrong answers provides valuable information to the teacher about not just what questions students are having trouble with but why they are having trouble. Since this worksheet is graded the student have the incentive to pay close attention to the scaffolding that the system gave in the previous step. The end of the loop is a sit down with each student where the teacher shows a gradebook containing the grades to all their problem sets on the ASSISTment System with their corrected grade included. Objective: If there are still deficits in performance the teacher can propose lessons for the student such as after school programs, one on one tutoring, extra problem sets or workshops. Lesson and Assessment: At this point it is up to the student to decide how much effort and involvement he or she wants in order to improve. Analysis The teacher grades the worksheet which provide extra information to the teacher about why students are answering a problem wrong. Students get full credit for the problem if their correction are sound. A Formative Assessment Cycle involves: 1.Teaching a lesson to achieve an objective. The lesson includes a planned assessment to check if the objective has been learned. 2.Gathering and analyzing data from the assessment by both the teacher and the student. 3.Formulating a new lesson in response to the data. A new objective may be formulated or the teacher and students continue to work towards the original objective. The teacher may adjust the teaching strategy. Next Objective, lesson, Assessment Objective: to motivate the student to seek help where necessary based on the deficits in knowledge in the gradebook Lesson: multiple lessons suggested by teacher Assessment: to be chosen by the student Zach Pardos is an NSF GK-12 funded Fellow