1. Professional Development
ASSESSMENT
Classroom Assessment:
Minute by Minute, Day by Day

2. Professional Development
Changing our focus:
We need to change from quality control to quality assurance.
Traditional approach to instruction and assessment involves teaching, giving some material, at the end of instruction, figuring out who has not learned. This is like quality control in manufacturing.

3. Professional Development
Assessment for learning involves:
Adjusting your teaching as needed while the learning is still taking place. This is a quality assurance approach.
Quality assurance also involves a shift of attention from teaching to learning.
Basically, what the students are getting out of the process rather than on what the teachers are putting into it.

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The Big Picture:
How powerful practices connect
It is necessary to first design the “big picture” blueprint of a comprehensive instruction and assessment model.
Including all the major components of that system –before attention turns to “building” each component.

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Major components of our model:
Power Standards
“Unwrapping” the standards; Big Ideas and Essential Questions.
Formative and summative assessments.
Instructional unit design, including classroom performance assessments.
Collaborative scoring of student work, including implications for grading.
Data-driven instructional decision making

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Formative and Summative Assessments
Why do we want to assess?
Because we want to know if, and to what degree, students are making progress towards explicit learning goals.
We assess student progress through ongoing observations, questioning, dialogue, and anecdotal note-taking.
The results of formal assessment is to determine levels of proficiency and/or to assign a letter grade.

7. The true purpose of assessment must be, first and foremost, to inform instructional decision making.

8. Types of Assessments Defined
Formative;
Pretest
Gauge student progress
Linked to Power Standards
Summative:
-Occurs at end of quarter, semester, or unit etc…
-Takes place after all instruction and student learning have ended

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Formative Assessments:
Are assessments for learning that measure a few things frequently.
These timely in process measurements can inform teachers individually and collectively regarding the effectiveness of their practice.

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According to Stiggins, 2002, when done well, assessments advance and motivate, rather than merely check on student learning. The clearly define goals and descriptive feedback to students provide them with specific insights regarding how to improve, and the growth they experience help build their confidence as learners.
This comes from Learning by Doing, page 55.

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Formative Assessments:
When combined with classroom teachers skillful ongoing assessment of student proficiency in precise skills on a daily basis, create a powerful synergy for learning.

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'You must be the change you want to see in the world. If blood is to be spilled to do it. Let it be our own.'.
Mahatma Gandhi

13. Professional Development
Black and Wiliam (1998b) define assessment broadly to include all activities that teachers and students undertake to get information that can be used diagnostically to alter teaching and learning. Under this definition, assessment encompasses teacher observation, classroom discussion, and analysis of student work, including homework and tests. Assessments become formative when the information is used to adapt teaching and learning to meet student needs

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When teachers know how students are progressing and where they are having trouble, they can use this information to make necessary instructional adjustments, such as re-teaching, trying alternative instructional approaches, or offering more opportunities for practice. These activities can lead to improved student success.

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Since the goal of formative assessment is to gain an understanding of what students know (and don't know) in order to make responsive changes in teaching and learning, techniques such as teacher observation and classroom discussion have an important place alongside analysis of tests and homework.

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Examples of Formative Assessments
Invite students to discuss their thinking about a question or topic in pairs or small groups, then ask a representative to share the thinking with the larger group (sometimes called think-pair-share).
Present several possible answers to a question, then ask students to vote on them.
Ask all students to write down an answer, then read a selected few out loud.
Teachers might also assess students' understanding in the following ways:
Have students write their understanding of vocabulary or concepts before and after instruction.

17. Professional Development
Examples of Formative Assessment
Ask students to summarize the main ideas they've taken away from a lecture, discussion, or assigned reading.
Have students complete a few problems or questions at the end of instruction and check answers.
Interview students individually or in groups about their thinking as they solve problems.
Assign brief, in-class writing assignments (e.g., "Why is this person or event representative of this time period in history?)

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In addition to these classroom techniques, tests and homework can be used formatively if teachers analyze where students are in their learning and provide specific, focused feedback regarding performance and ways to improve it.

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Black and Wiliam (1998b) make the following recommendations:
Frequent short tests are better than infrequent long ones.
New learning should be tested within about a week of first exposure.
Be mindful of the quality of test items and work with other teachers and outside sources to collect good ones.

20. Professional Development
Finally, Formative assessment is tightly linked with instructional practices. Teachers need to consider how their classroom activities, assignments, and tests supports learning aims and allow students to communicate what they know, then use this information to improve teaching and learning.