2014-2015 Assessment Capable Learners

Norms for Today’s Work We will be active learners & listeners We will be respectful We will be positive We will put our phones on silent or vibrate We will refrain from sidebar conversations I am a deep believer that if a group of people know the target or expectations that govern a gathering, more times than not, we will all aim to hit the bulls-eye For that reason, we have these established rules of engagement and they are - We will actively participate in the work today and will be respectful listeners - We will honor one another as valid thinkers & be respectful - We maintain a positive & laudable (commendable, praiseworthy) learning environment - We will put our phones on silent or vibrate & if we get an important call, we will step out We will hold back from sidebar conversations…our time is short & sidebars rob others of hearing what is being said BTW Explain the packet and how you will direct them to key pages throughout the session Point out the Reflection Page…1

BCPS - Radar Tracking So, What’s On the Radar For 2014-2015? & How Do We Navigate Through It? Visible Learning College and Career Readiness (Vocabulary)

Visible Teaching – Visible Learning On the Radar Visible Teaching – Visible Learning When students SEE themselves as their own teachers When teachers SEE learning through the eyes of the student and The first thing on the radar is Visible Learning…. Seeing learning through the eyes of the students It is teachers seeing learning through the eyes of students; and students seeing teaching as the key to their ongoing learning

Visible Learning Recap

Visible Learning Influences on student learning John Hattie 1999-2009 – research from 180,000 studies covering almost every method of innovation Effect Size Student Expectations (Assessment Capable Learners) 1.44 Classroom Discussions (Accountable Talk) 0.82 Effective Feedback 0.75 Reciprocal Teaching 0.74 Teacher-Student Relationships 0.72 Study Skills 0.63 Cooperative Learning 0.42 Homework 0.29 Individualized Instruction 0.22 Class Size 0.21 Ability Grouping 0.12 Retention -0.13 Mobility -0.34 So, what are the implications for our teaching?? Becoming a visible learning school will not happen over night. We will be learning more about Visible Learning through our PLCs and Professional Development.

Video Clip Visible Learning in the Classroom http://bcove.me/f68t2t88

Creating Assessment Capable Learners There should be, and definitely is, a better way to provide high quality learning opportunities to students. As we negotiate our way through a time when students have to sit through high stakes tests, we need to do our part to make sure that other times in their educational practice are engaging, challenging, and fun. One way to meet these needs is to encourage students to become assessment-capable. Peter DeWitt

Assessment is Not a 4 Letter Word! "I see formative assessment as an ongoing exchange between a teacher and his or her students designed to help students grow as vigorously as possible and to help teachers contribute to that growth as fully as possible. When I hear formative assessment reduced to a mechanism for raising end-of-year-test scores, it makes me fear that we might reduce teaching and learning to that same level.” “Formative assessment is--or should be--the bridge or causeway between today's lesson and tomorrow's.” Education Leadership, Carol Ann Tomlinson

With those thoughts on assessment from Tomlinson: Lessons should not stand alone in a lesson plan book waiting for their day to come. They are not individual silos of learning. Lessons should flawlessly go from one to the next, and it's important that assessment is part of that process. Without it, we can never truly tell whether students are learning.

Students as Assessment-Capable Learners Ensuring our students are assessment-capable learners is the most important thing we can do to raise student achievement (1.44) Assessment capable does not mean that students need to do well on high stakes testing. It also doesn't mean that they have to be good test takers on whatever test they are being given in school, whether it's standardized or teacher made. Assessment capable learning means that students can assess their own learning. It will help them gauge where they need extra help, and where they are doing well enough that they can move on. To engage in learning, students need answers to the three central questions of the formative assessment process: Where am I going? Where am I now? How can I close the gap between where I am now and where I want to go?

Students as Assessment-Capable Learners It is important for students to know where they are going, how they are going, and ask where to next. In order for students to understand how to do this, they need to have "clear learning intentions and success criteria.” This involves providing exemplars and rubrics. Another key ingredient in the assessment capable process is effective feedback. In order for true success in the learning process, students need to be provided effective feedback from their peers and teachers.

Effective Feedback Focus feedback on the task, not the learner. Provide elaborated feedback to enhance learning. Present elaborated feedback in manageable units. Be specific and clear with feedback messages. Reduce uncertainty between performance and goals. Give unbiased, objective feedback, verbally or written. Promote a learning goal orientation via feedback. Provide feedback after learners have attempted a solution.

Video Clip Visible Learning Students http://bcove.me/cyf0qet3

Cultivating Assessment Capable Learners

Personalized Goals  Kids constantly compare themselves to each other. Students are savvy about who is where they are “supposed to be” and who is not. This can lead to struggling students feeling poorly about their progress, or to high-flying students getting too comfortable with where they are and as a result not seek out higher level material. Adults must personalize learning goals and approach every student’s current learning level individually.

Celebrate Success  Unless you celebrate incremental student progress, assessment can cripple student achievement and deeper learning. This may be especially true when students haven’t yet reached proficiency. Keep in mind that a student who was at 20% and is now at 40% has made 100% growth.  The end goal is proficiency, but for some it is a long road to get there. A student who continually feels defeated because they haven’t hit the right number, regardless of their growth, will give up. It’s also important to cultivate a class environment where students aren’t competing against each other, but instead are working together towards common classroom goals such as: every student will achieve mastery on 80% of their goals this week.

De-Mystify Data There are always students who don’t know what the percentage on their paper means, how to recognize when they have made progress, or even why they have made progress. This is largely due to students not knowing how to read or analyze the data in front of them, including error analysis and reflection. Students can complete an assessment reflection on every missed problem. This included a section on analyzing what went wrong, or thinking about their thinking (metacognition), then a retry. Allow for do-overs after the reflection because it fosters an attitude of determination. This process allows for the teacher and student to see together where things weren’t connecting: was it a total lack of concept knowledge or just a minor misunderstanding?

Regular Follow-Up Try to set individual student learning goals weekly, and follow up. If a student needs to adjust their goals, that is okay because this isn’t a perfect process. Students should be able to articulate why they need to adjust their goals, and be reflective of when they haven’t met certain goals. They need to be able to fail and fumble a little bit, then reflect on how it impacts their progress in order to develop solid self-management skills.  Some students will need to check in daily, while others will just need to check in once a week. 

What Makes A Visible Learning School? Teachers Assessment Capable Students Clear learning intentions/goals Challenging success criteria Range of learning strategies Know when students are not progressing Providing feedback Visibly learns themselves Understand learning intentions/goals Participate in developing learning intentions and goals Are challenged by success criteria Develop a range of learning strategies Know when they are not progressing Seek feedback Visibly teach themselves Are able to track and explain their progress by using rubrics, exemplars, charts… Becoming a visible learning school will not happen over night. We will be learning more about Visible Learning through our PLCs and Professional Development.

Visible Learning Tracking Progress

In an effort to change the way students feel about learning, we need to continue to change the way we look at assessment, and we don't have the time to wait for state education leaders to redevelop high stakes testing. We need to shift our mindset to making sure that our students can assess their own learning. Contrary to popular belief, students at a young age can learn how to assess their learning. As a caution, we should always make sure we are finding a balance between assessing learning, and encouraging fun and creativity while doing it. School should be a place where students can explore, even at the risk of failure, at the same time they learn. Helping students become assessment capable will only help them in the long run. 

Closing Thought … By building a classroom and school-wide culture that develops and celebrates assessment-capable learners, you’ll put your students on the fastest track to lifelong learning success.

College and Career Readiness - Vocabulary BCPS Radar Next On the Radar Vocabulary College and Career Readiness - Vocabulary

Vocabulary Casserole Ingredients Needed: 20 words no one has ever heard before in his life 1 dictionary with very confusing definitions 1 matching test to be distributed by Friday 1 teacher who wants students to be quiet on Mondays copying words Put 20 words on chalkboard. Have students copy then look up in dictionary. Make students write all the definitions. For a little spice, require that students write words in sentences. Leave alone all week. Top with a boring test on Friday. Perishable. This casserole will be forgotten by Saturday afternoon. Serves: No one. Kylene Beers makes an analogy we can all relate to in her book When Kids Can’t Read, What Teachers Can Do. Here we have the “vocabulary casserole” which combines 20 unknown words, a typical dictionary, a weekly matching test and a quiet, structured, teacher-centered classroom. Adapted from When Kids Can’t Read, What Teachers Can Do by Kylene Beers

Word Sort Given 5 minutes teachers will do a word sort as expressed by the directions

Word Sort Activity Tier 1 Common Terms Tier 2 Academic Vocabulary Content Specific Packet p.5 Teachers can record their answers on this page

Did You Know? As early as 1941, researchers have estimated that there is a gap of approximately 5,000 words between high achievers and low achievers. Preschool or children’s books expose you to more challenging vocabulary than do prime-time adult TV shows. Vocabulary can be learned through reading and talking. Research shows a student in the 50th percentile in terms of ability to comprehend the subject matter taught in school, with no direct vocabulary instruction, scores in the 50th percentile ranking. The same student, after specific content-area terms have been taught in a specific way, raises his/her comprehension ability to the 83rd percentile. First grade children from higher SES groups know about twice as many words as children from lower SES groups. High School seniors near the top of their class know about 4 times as many words as their lower performing classmates. The amount students read is strongly related to their vocabulary knowledge. Taken from “Building Academic Vocabulary Beverly Public Schools K-5 Handbook” http://www.beverlyschools.org/district/files/Curriculum&Instruction/Building%20Academic%20Vocabulary%20handbook.pdf Here are some facts about vocabulary that make this work vital. What struck you about these facts?

EIGHT RESEARCH-BASED CHARACTERISTICS OF EFFECTIVE VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION Effective vocabulary instruction does not rely on definitions. Students must represent their knowledge of words in linguistic and nonlinguistic ways. Effective vocabulary instruction involves the gradual shaping of word meanings through multiple exposures. Teaching word parts enhances students’ understanding of terms. Different types of words require different types of instruction. Students should discuss the terms they are learning. Students should play with words. Instruction should focus on terms that have a high probability of enhancing academic success. (Adapted from Building Academic Vocabulary by Robert Marzano and Debra Pickering, 2005) This slide reveals the eight findings from years of vocabulary research. Robert Marzano and Debra Pickering took the eight findings and developed a six step process for teaching academic vocabulary.

Why is academic vocabulary important work? They are high yielding words and are seen often in written material They facilitate the comprehension of academic text They are not easy to learn and require deliberate action from stakeholders They are used to articulate simple things in precise ways Unlike Tier 3 words, they are not scaffolded in text 1: These words are found across a variety of text; not understanding these words will be a repeated stumbling block for a reader 2: Understanding complex text hinges on understanding these terms that support the information being shared…struggling readers are undermined by these terms; not understanding them makes making sense of the content information or the question being asked overwhelming 3: Tier 2 or Academic vocabulary words are not easily learned so the teacher has to teach them on purpose and students have to work to acquire them 4: They clarify thoughts and ideas in very precise ways…I saw a red car vs. I saw a crimson colored car. 5: These words tend not to be scaffolded in text because they are so common. For this same reason, teachers tend to overlook teaching them. Because Tier 3 words are so uncommon and are important & specific to a content area teachers deliberately teach them

Vocabulary Treat Ingredients Needed: 5-10 great words that you really could use 1 thesaurus Markers and chart paper 1 game like Jeopardy or BINGO 1 teacher who thinks learning is supposed to be fun Mix 5 to 10 words into the classroom. Have students test each word for flavor. Toss with a thesaurus to find other words that mean the same. Write definitions on chart paper and let us draw pictures of words to remind us what they mean. Stir all week by a teacher who thinks learning is supposed to be fun. Top with a cool game on Fridays like jeopardy or BINGO to see who remembers the most. Serves: Many Now let’s have a look at a recipe for a “Vocabulary Treat”. We are taking a smaller amount of words, an active approach to learning and teaching and incorporating user-friendly resources. A thesaurus, or dictionary that provides student-friendly explanations is more appropriate than traditional dictionaries for student vocabulary growth. Actively participating in illustrating the new words involves the use of multiple senses and learning styles which results in greater student learning. Adapted from When Kids Can’t Read, What Teachers Can Do by Kylene Beers

A Six-Step Process for Teaching New Terms Step 1: Provide a description, explanation, or example of the new term. Step 2: Ask students to restate the description, explanation, or example in their own words. Step 3: Ask students to construct a picture, symbol, or graphic representing the term or phrase. Pass out Handout #1. Read through each of the six steps on the next two slides as participants follow along. This handout provides additional information on the six steps as well as a graphic organizer sample. Adapted from Building Academic Vocabulary by Robert Marzano and Debra Pickering, 2005

A Six-Step Process for Teaching New Terms Step 4: Engage students periodically in activities that help them add to their knowledge of the terms in their notebooks. Step 5: Periodically ask students to discuss the terms with one another. Step 6: Involve students periodically in games that allow them to play with terms. Adapted from Building Academic Vocabulary by Robert Marzano and Debra Pickering, 2005

Effective Vocabulary Instruction Increase independent reading time. Facilitate read-alouds. Keep vocabulary in circulation. Keep vocabulary interactive. Use graphic organizers. In the classroom, teachers can help students learn new vocabulary by providing opportunities to read as much as possible. This slide reminds teachers of some of those ways to keep vocabulary alive and active in the classroom. Content contained is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License