Transformative Assessment Sarah Calveric Susan Combee Hanover County Public Schools

Purpose How do teachers’ assessment beliefs relate to their assessment practices? How can administrators effectively tackle the complicated topic of assessment with educators?

Purposes for Assessments (Brown, 2004) Improvement of teaching and learning (formative view) Accountability of schools and teachers Certification of student’s learning (summative view) Assessment as irrelevant

Teachers’ Beliefs Regarding Assessment Gipps, et al. (1995)Hill (2000)Stamp (1987)Current assessment terms IntuitiveHead note assessors n/aObservation Evidence gatherersUnit assessorsTraditional, academic summative examination Summative Systematic PlannersIntegrated systematic assessors Cater for need and progress for individual students Formative n/a Assessment blocks teachers’ initiative Irrelevant

Gipps, et al. (1995) Intuitive Systematic planners Evidence gatherers Memory-reliant judgment processes of assessing students’ performance intuitively without written records Systematic collection of multiple pieces of evidence for the purpose of shaping instruction and documenting curriculum attainment Collect written evidence usually at end of units to demonstrate progress for the purpose of accountability

Hill (2000) Head note assessors Integrated systematic assessors Unit assessors Rely heavily on their observations and memory of students’ performance Systematically plan and collect data for purpose of recording progress and making teaching improvements Formally monitoring student progress at the end of each unit (school and student accountability)

Stamp (1987) Traditional-academic summative examination Assessment blocks teachers’ initiative Cater for the need and progress for individual students Revolves around the use of test and exams to collect summative information (student accountability conception) Required but get in the way of student creativity (irrelevance conception) Use formative assessments to identify individual student learning needs (improvement conception)

Practical Applications (Northwest Regional Educational Lab, 1998) Standards-Based Assessment-Nurturing Learning Integrating Assessment with Instruction Designing High Quality Assessment Grading and Reporting – A Closer Look

Standards-Based Assessment- Nurturing Learning Beginning with current thinking about standards-based instruction and the role of ongoing assessment of student skills and knowledge to inform practice

Integrating Assessment with Instruction Assist in understanding the various ways that development and use of assessment can affect and enhance instruction Building the vision of how performance assessments can be useful instructional tools if they are designed properly

Designing High Quality Assessments What’s out there and how good is it? What do good assessments look like?

Grading and Reporting- A Closer Look Issues of why, whether, and how we should grade students Other ways to report student progress besides grading

Transformative Assessment No single assessment approach can accomplish all of our goals. A balance must be built by carefully considering all the types of things to be assessed and the reasons to assess them and then choosing the assessment approach that best matches these targets and purposes. Sometimes the answer will be an alternative assessment, sometimes a traditional assessment, and sometimes a combination of the two. ~Northwest Regional Educational Lab (1998)

Contact Information Sarah Calveric, Principal Cold Harbor Elementary School Susan Combee, Assistant Principal Cool Spring Elementary School