1. Formative Assessment: Supporting Achievement of College and Career Ready Standards
Margaret Heritage
Conditions of Learning Symposium
January 28, 2016 | San Ramon, CA

2. Session Objectives Gain a deeper understanding of formative assessment
Practice identifying formative assessment in classroom practice

4. Builds on prior knowledge
Panic zone
Comfort zonelllllllllll
Learning zone
Builds on prior knowledge
Comfort
zone
What students can do next with assistance
Source: Colvin, 2009

5. Definitional Clarity

6. Discussion Read the definitions on Handout 1.
On your own, decide what are three key ideas about formative assessment.
With a partner, discuss why you made these selections.
Nanette – after the small group discussion, I was planning a whole group discussion.

7. Formative Assessment Is…. Formative Assessment Is Not….
generating evidence intentionally in the course of continuous teaching and learning, engagement with learners through observation, discussion, questioning, and review and analysis of tasks/work
giving a test at the end of an instructional cycle or on a predetermined basis (e.g., quarterly, annually)
gauging how student learning is progressing while students are in the process of learning
evaluating student achievement at the end of a sequence of learning
using evidence to inform immediate or near-immediate teaching and learning
using test data to make decisions about medium- and long-term instructional/curricular plans

8. Formative Assessment Is…. Formative Assessment Is Not….
providing ongoing descriptive feedback to learners
assigning grades /reporting achievement
involving students in the assessment process through peer and self-assessment
telling students the results of a test

9. ASSESSMENT IN CA’s ELA/ELD FAMEWORK

10. One Size Does Not Fit All

11. Different Levels of Detail
Quarterly
Annual
End-of-Unit
Minute-by-minute, Daily, Weekly

12. Assessment in the System
Formative assessment process
Interim/Benchmark assessment
Summative assessment
(CDE ELA/ELD Curriculum Framework, 2014, adapted from Herman & Heritage, 2007)

13. Assessment Cycles (Wiliam, 2006)
Extended periods of instruction
Long-term goals

14. Assessment Cycles (Wiliam, 2006)
Interim goals
Monitoring progress
What has been learned

15. Assessment Cycles (Wiliam, 2006)
Short-term goals
Informing immediate teaching and learning

16. Types and uses of Assessment: Short-Cycle Formative
Methods
Information
Uses/Actions
Minute-by-minute
-Observation
-Questions (teachers and students)
-Instructional tasks
-Student discussions
-Written work/ representations
-Students’ current learning status, relative difficulties and misunderstandings, emerging or partially formed ideas, full understanding
-Keep going, stop and find out more, provide oral feedback to individuals, adjust instructional moves in relation to student learning status (e.g., act on “teachable moments”)
Daily Lesson
Planned and placed strategically in the lesson:
-Observation,
-Student self-reflection (quick write)
-Continue with planned instruction
-Instructional adjustments in this or the next lesson
-Find out more
-Feedback to class or individual students (oral or written)
Week
-Student discussions and work products
-Student self-reflection (e.g., journaling)
-Students’ current learning status relative to lesson learning goals (e.g., have students met the goal(s), are they nearly there?
-Instructional planning for start of new week
-Feedback to students (oral or written)
CA ELA/ELD Framework, Fig. 8.3

17. A FEEDBACK LOOP

18. A Feedback Loop
This is the start of a mini lesson

19. A CLOSER LOOK AT THE FEEDBACK LOOP

20. A Feedback Loop
This is the start of a mini lesson

22. Learning Goals
What students will learn (not what they will do) during a lesson – one or more periods of learning
Conceptual, Analytic, Linguistic

23. Success Criteria Performances of learning
Clearly understood by students
Aligned to learning goal(s)
What students will say, do, make or write

24. Spot the Difference Interpersonal Learning Goal Learning Experience
Understand the chronicle of events that led up to the internment of Japanese-Americans in 1942 and the causal relationships among these events
Create a timeline of the events leading up to the history of Japanese-American Internment
Understand how authors use archetypes to help us quickly recognize characters
Read two texts and identify which author uses an archetype and which author uses a stereotype
Use graphical representations to analyze exponential functions
Explore what happens to the graph of the function, f(x) = ax when the value of a changes
Interpersonal

25. 6th Grade Math Success Criteria Learning Goals
Understand the structure of a coordinate grid
Relate the procedure of plotting points in quadrants to the structure of a coordinate grid
I can talk & write about plotting points on a coordinate grid using mathematical language
I can plot and label points in each quadrant on a coordinate grid
I can create a rule about coordinate for each quadrant

26. 7th Grade Integrated ELD
Learning Goals
Success Criteria
I am able to discuss the perspectives that are missing from a secondary source text about the Spanish Conquistadors’ exploration of Mexico
I can explain the historical
event
I can explain the main participants in that event
I can identify the perspective from which the text is written and explain how I know that
I can explain which perspective are missing and how I know that
Source: MCOE

27. Co-Constructing Criteria

29. Aligned to learning goals and success criteria
A Feedback Loop
Aligned to learning goals and success criteria
This is the start of a mini lesson

30. A Feedback Loop
Evidence in the ongoing flow of activity and interaction in the classroom
This is the start of a mini lesson

31. A Feedback Loop Questioning Discussion Tasks Observation Peer feedback
This is the start of a mini lesson

32. Evidence of Each What am I looking for? listening for? What am I
Conceptual
Linguistic
Analytical
What am I
looking for?
listening for?
What am I
looking for?
listening for?

33. Use multiplication and division to solve problems
Learning Goal
Ricardo has 1,135 US stamps. He has 3 times as many foreign stamps as US stamps. How many stamps does he have altogether?
Use multiplication and division to solve problems
Set-up
The students are working on writing expressions with parentheses and are given a word problem on the board, which they are to solve using expressions and parentheses:
The teacher, Ms. Castro, pre-constructs the task in terms of "three steps" to solve the problem, in which in the students state that they need to identify the question, the clues, and keywords :

34. Success Criteria Set-up
I can determine when and how to break a problem into simpler parts
I can explain the relationship between multiplication and division
I can explain what the problem is asking me to do
Set-up
The students are working on writing expressions with parentheses and are given a word problem on the board, which they are to solve using expressions and parentheses:
The teacher, Ms. Castro, pre-constructs the task in terms of "three steps" to solve the problem, in which in the students state that they need to identify the question, the clues, and keywords :

35. Discussion How is this teacher eliciting evidence?
What does she find out?
What routinized practices are in place?

36. 6th Grade Math Start of Lesson Middle of Lesson End of Lesson
Strategy:
Vocabulary “Whip Around” to elicit prior knowledge and see how students understand the concept
Opening Question:
What comes to mind when you think of coordinate graphing?
Success Criteria:
Targeted vocabulary use: origin, x-axis, y-axis, coordinates, quadrant (SC1)
Strategy:
Walk coordinates to label each location on large graph (SC2)
Describe the process verbally using correct vocabulary (SC1)
Strategy
Plot and label points in four quadrants to individually-design a fictional town “Robertsville” (SC1, SC2)
Strategy:
Generalize quadrant locations for set of coordinates verbally and in writing-cooperative groups (SC3)
Chart created rules for each quadrant & gallery walk (SC3)
Strategy
Reflection-self assessment (SC1, SC2, SC3)

37. Primary Math - Primary Conferencing Notes- -Observations of sentence
structure
-Sentence structure modeled
-Student response to modeling
Small group discussion
Gabriela (learning goal and language feature of focus)
Make connections to the work of others
Defend and share their thinking
Think about their thinking
Explain explicitly
Peer feedback
Math Talk

38. Self-Assessment
Heritage, 2010

41. Self-Assessment: Goal Setting
Goals for Today as a Reader: Make predictions of what’s going to happen next.
Goals for Today as a Reader:
Get through the tricky spots.

42. Self-Assessment : Student Log
What was successful about your learning today?
What difficulties or problems did you encounter in your learning?
How did you manage those difficulties? Were you successful? If not, what plans do you have for dealing with them in the next lesson? Whom do you need help from?

43. Discussion How are these students involved in self-assessment?
What routinized practices are in place?

44. Interpret evidence in relation to goal and success criteria

46. How to Get There? Continuing with the planned lesson
Immediate deliberate acts of teaching (modeling, questioning, explaining, prompting, telling)
Planning instruction for subsequent lesson
Feedback
Sharing with students in language they can understand
Goal oriented learning
Examples

47. Feedback Should… Be related to learning goals and success criteria
Be specific and clear
Provide the learner with suggestions, hints or cues for how to improve rather than correct answers
Focus on the task and not on the student
Engage students’ thinking

48. Feedback Feedback is only formative if it is USED by students
Teachers must allow TIME for students to use feedback
Using feedback helps students develop LEARNING STRATEGIES 48

49. Discussion
As you watch the video, what do you notice about the characteristics of this teacher’s feedback to her student?
What role is the student playing in this interaction?

50. Peer Feedback

51. Peer Feedback Benefits giver as much as receiver
Students internalize learning goal
Gain insights into own learning
Helps self-assessment
Modeled and supported by teacher

52. Peer Feedback
Students analyze the work of others, provide feedback on what they are doing well and determine potential next steps based on their observations.

53. Peer Feedback Interactive Ongoing
Reference for future thinking and learning

54. Discussion
As you watch the video, what do you notice about the characteristics of the students’ feedback?
What routinized practices are in place?

55. Sharon
“Formative assessment has not only changed me as a teacher but I believe it has changed the students as learners.”
Heritage, 2010, p. 5

56. Shawn
I used to do a lot of explaining, but now I do a lot of questioning.
I used to do a lot of talking, but now I do a lot of listening.
I use to think about teaching the curriculum, but now I think about teaching the student.
Heritage, 2010, p. 4

57. Thank You!