1. The Formative Assessment Process in a Comprehensive Assessment System
Melissa Finkel & Denise Stringer

2. Defining Assessment
Turn to a neighbor and discuss
What is assessment?
What is its purpose?
Share your definition with the group

3. Assessment
“Assessment is the bridge between teaching and learning—it is only through assessment that we can find out whether what has happened in the classroom has produced the learning we intended.” Dylan Wiliam 2011

4. Assessment
Assessment helps teachers, administrators and students understand how well students are learning specific material and at the end, how well they have learned
The purpose of the assessment and how the information gathered is to be used determines the type

5. Assessment Supporting Learning
…To support learning, assessments must evolve from being isolated occasional events attached to the end of teaching to becoming an ongoing series of interrelated events that reveal changes in student learning over time.
(Stiggins 2008)

6. A System of Assessments
“A range of assessments, from minute-by-minute to the annual state assessments, providing different levels of detail about student learning over time to be used for various decision-making purposes”
Each level of assessment assesses “different sized chunks of learning, providing information on the degree to which students have progressed toward meeting specific instructional learning targets and, ultimately, to mastery of the content standard.”
(Heritage 2010)

7. Types of Assessments Formative Summative Assessment for learning
Assessment of learning
Purpose
Guide next steps in instruction
Measure student growth after instruction, Accountability
Frequency
Ongoing, during instruction
End of year, quarterly, weekly
Data Audience
Students, teachers, school
School, district, or state level
Types
Pre-assessment, Diagnostics, Questioning, Discussions,
Conferences, Ungraded HW, Student Reflections
Interim/benchmark/Unit
Selected Response Items
Short Answer
Extended Written Response
Performance Assessment

8. Key differences Formative Summative
Includes instructionally embedded activities
Usually teacher/locally developed
Yields rich diagnostic information
Happens while material is being taught
Informs and focuses instructional decisions
Isn’t used for grades
Occurs after material is taught
Includes unit tests and other graded performances
Can be developed locally or purchased
Counts toward grades
Isn’t diagnostic

9. What is Formative Assessment?
Formative Assessment is a process used by teachers and students during instruction that provides feedback to adjust ongoing teaching and learning to improve students’ achievement of intended instructional outcomes.
FAST SCASS/CCSSO (2007)

10. What is Summative Assessment?
Summative assessments are used to evaluate student learning, skill acquisition, and academic achievement at the conclusion of a defined instructional period—typically at the end of a project, unit, course, semester, program, or school year. 
(Great Schools Partnership 2014)

11. Balanced Assessment System

12. Balanced Assessment System

13. Balanced Assessment System

14. Assessment Grid Activity

15. Dylan Wiliam on Formative Assessment
Why Formative Assessment?
Dylan Wiliam on Formative Assessment

16. Attributes of Formative Assessment
Share Learning Goals and Criteria for Success
Elicit and Use Evidence of Learning
Use Descriptive Feedback
Promote Student Self-Assessment
Promote Peer Assessment
Establish a Collaborative Climate

17. Effects on
Student Achievement

18. Benefits of Formative Assessment
Classroom assessment for student learning…turns the classroom assessment process and its results into an instructional intervention designed to increase, not merely monitor, student confidence, motivation, and learning
(Stiggins 2008)

19. Benefits of Formative Assessment
“Consistent use of these formative strategies can double the speed of student learning.”
Wiliam, Dylan. "Content then Process: Teacher Learning Communities in the
Service of Formative Assessment." Ahead of the Curve: The Power of Assessment to Transform Teaching and Learning. Ed. Douglas B. Reeves. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree,

20. Learning Progressions
Develop a “pathway” for learning
Targets assessments and feedback
Helps answer the question “what do I do with this data?”
Identify missing building blocks

21. Learning Goals & Success Criteria
Are clearly identified and communicated to students
Are tightly aligned
Are shared in student-friendly language
Criteria made explicit through exemplars

22. Descriptive Feedback Evidence-based
Aligned with learning goal and success criteria
Specific
Can be readily used by students
Does not include grades, scores, or comparisons to others

23. Self & Peer Assessment Needs to be taught
Deepens understanding of learning goals
Involves students in thinking meta-cognitively about their learning
Support students’ ability to internalize learning goals and self-regulate their learning
Success Criteria:
I can:
Identify the factors that affect electrical energy consumption at home, school, and in the workplace.
Identify sources of energy and categorize them as renewable or non-renewable
Find information in a variety of resources (books, video, Internet, etc.)
Record, share, organize, and synthesize understandings from a variety of sources to propose methods of decreasing electrical energy consumption.
My strengths/knowledge:
An area I need to learn in this unit:
Next step:

24. Collaboration Teachers and students are partners in learning
Students feel comfortable taking intellectual risks
Students are active agents in their own learning

25. Key idea Where is the learner going? Where is the learner right now?
How will the learner get there?
Thompson & Wiliam, 2007

26. How will the learner get there?
Key Idea & the Attributes
Where is the learner going? Learning Goals Success Criteria Learning Progression
Where is the learner now? Self assessment Peer assessment Formative assessment Descriptive feedback
How will the learner get there?
Descriptive feedback
Collaboration
Self-regulation

27. The foundation of a formative assessment culture
Feedback
The foundation of a formative assessment culture

28. Characteristics of effective feedback
Aligns to content
Just right amount
Leads to next steps
Supports self-regulation

29. The Attributes in Action
Learning progressions clearly articulate the pathway typical students travel to meet the learning goal
Learning goals and success criteria are clearly defined and shared with students
Descriptive feedback is evidence based and aligned to learning goals and success criteria
Self and peer-assessment are used frequently to encourage students to understand and internalize success criteria
Collaboration in the classroom creates a culture in which teachers and students are partners in learning

30. Pictures of Practice
1. As a whole group, we will watch three short videos
2. Using the “Video Reflections” handout,
note examples of the 5 attributes in action
3. Discuss what you observed

31. Self/Peer Assessment

32. What did you Notice?
Gr. 6 Math

33. Feedback/ Collaborative Classroom

34. What did you Notice?
Grade 9 Art

35. Learning Goals & Success Criteria

36. What did you Notice?
Grade 12 English

37. Debrief Turn and Talk: What was different about these classrooms?
What practices would you like to see in your classroom/school?
What would have to change in your classroom/school to support this shift?

38. Assessment Grid Revisit Your Assessment Grid
What changes could you make in your classroom or school to support formative assessment practices?
What work are you already doing to support this shift?

39. FAME
FAME is a yearlong collaborative professional development process that consists of 5 self study modules, application activities, communities of practice, leadership support, and during the cohort, support from MSDE formative assessment specialists.
The goals of FAME are to encourage and support teacher reflection and dialogue around formative assessment, help teachers revise and refine their current practices within their own classroom and school, and create lasting change in schools and districts.

40. Why invest in this work? Focused on instructional improvement
Alignment with other key initiatives
College and Career-Ready Standards
Progress Monitoring for SLOs
Teacher & Principal Evaluation
Closing the Achievement Gap

41. “The balance of mandates and resources should be shifted from an emphasis on external forms of assessment to an increased emphasis on classroom formative assessment designed to assist learning.”
Pellegrino, J.W., Chudowsky, N.,
& Glaser, R. (Eds.). (2001).

42. Final Thought
“To maximize student success, assessment must be seen as an instructional tool for use while learning is occurring, and as an accountability tool to determine if learning has occurred. Because both purposes are important, they must be in balance.”
From Balanced Assessment: The Key to Accountability
and Improved Student Learning, NEA (2003)

43. Additional Formative Assessment Resources
Assessment FOR Learning, the Achievement Gap, and Truly Effective Schools (Stiggins)
Formative Assessment That Truly Informs Instruction (NCTE)
Blog post about the NCTE paper with classroom application
Our blog- msde-fame.blogspot.com
Find even more resources from our Twitter account!
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