Formative Assessment: Journey To Higher Achievement Martha Lamb September 2010

Activity: Self-Assessment of Skills in Using Formative Assessment

Blind Side Clip #1

Goals/Learning Targets You will be able to:  Differentiate between formative and summative assessment  Describe a classroom climate that is conducive to formative assessment  Demonstrate multiple ways to provide descriptive feedback

Activity: Anticipation /Reaction Guide

Types of Assessment Pre-Assessment: Assessment BEFORE learning Formative Assessment: Assessment FOR learning Summative Assessment: Assessment AFTER learning

Formative Assessment Is more a journey than a destination -involves checking the roadmap -helps students see where they are, where they are going, and how they are progressing along the way

Formative Assessment Involves familiar skills Where am I? Where am I? – pretests, checklists, student self-assessments, quizzes, rubrics, overt responses, performance feedback, conferences Where am I going? Where am I going? – clear learning goal How will I get there? How will I get there? – performance feedback, congruent activities, task analysis, differentiated instruction, scaffolding of tasks

Formative Assessment Is validated by research “Research shows that if students are formatively assessed, learning will improve, (and)... students are able to demonstrate that learning in a variety of ways including scoring well on standardized assessments.” -Black and William (1998)

Establishing Classroom Climate Key: Teachers must help students be active in the classroom by helping them speak out and express their ideas Describe the climate in this room. How is was it established?

Key Elements Encourage self and peer assessment Use of open-ended questions Collaboration: student talk Humor: teacher laughs with students Feedback builds self-esteem Students feel safe to be wrong

Neural Plasticity— Rat experiment... How does this relate to the classroom? Your classroom? Brain Research Support

Three Types of Feedback Motivational Feedback Evaluative Feedback Descriptive Feedback** **validated by research to be the most effective type of feedback for improving achievement

Motivational Feedback Intended to make the learner feel good; to encourage & support It does not give guidance on how to improve performance or reasoning Example: Nice work! You are such a good writer!

Evaluative Feedback Intended to measure student achievement; awards a score or a grade It does not give guidance on how to improve performance or reasoning Examples: 73% Level III Satisfactory

Descriptive Feedback Intended to improve student achievement by telling the learner what steps to take in order to move forward in the learning process. Gives specific guidance as to how to improve the learners’ performance or reasoning. “You accurately found the number of students in 4th grade who said ice cream was their favorite. You now need to divide this number by the total number of students to get the percent who said ice cream was their favorite.”

What Is Descriptive Feedback? Specific Relates directly to the learning Comparison to models, samples, exemplars Related to performance, not personal (adapted from Davies, 2000)

Descriptive feedback is NOT evaluative. It does not: Compare learners against each other Assign a number or letter grade Provide a percentile ranking In other words, it does not assign a VALUE judgment.

Descriptive Feedback Examples When you multiply two negative numbers the result is a positive number. Check your work and correct your errors. You need to include supporting details in the thesis to make it stronger. The lab report is missing the explanation of the chemical reactions. Please add this explanation and return to me.

Non-Descriptive Feedback B+ Messy! You can do better! Excellent Reread the assignment You aren’t using what you know about adjectives Very Good!! I’m proud of you!! Try again. Are you sure???!!

How can I find time to give helpful feedback? Keep written comments brief Give oral feedback as you circulate** Schedule conferences with students on a rotating basis Use sticky notes as reminders of what you want to say to students Check notebooks on a rotating basis Use self-assessments and peer-assessments Start slowly; Rome wasn’t built in a day!! Gradually incorporate descriptive feedback into your repertoire of best practices **Oral feedback is proven to be the most effective mode for giving feedback, presumably because it is tailor-made for the individual, and because it involves a personal investment in the student. (Relationship!)

Activity Think-Write-Rally Robin Examples of descriptive feedback: Observed in classrooms What you’ve provided What you’ve received

Need for Specific Feedback

Goals/Learning Targets You will be able to: Differentiate between formative and summative assessment Describe a classroom climate that is conducive to formative assessment Demonstrate multiple ways to provide descriptive feedback

Bibliography Black, P. and D. William (1998), “Assessment and Classroom Learning,” Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and Practice, CARFAX, Oxfordshire, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp Clarke, Shirley (2005), Formative Assessment in the Secondary Classroom, Hodder Murray, Abingdon, Oxon, Great Brittain. Keeley, Page (2008), “Science: Formative Assessment,” Corwin Press/NSTA Press

Formative Assessment Loop Teacher communicates the learning __________________. Students engage in a ________________ activity. Teacher/peer gathers information on each student’s _________ toward goal. Student receives ____________ feedback on his/her progress toward goal AND information on how he/she can ____________ the gap between his learning and the goal.