Developing Common AssessmentsHow do they enhancestudent learning?

Dr. Dennis Kingdking@bluevalleyk12.org

March 30, 2007

Anyone too busy to reflect on one’s practice is also too busy to improve.Robert Garmston

Anyone too busy to reflect on one’s practice is also too busy to improve. 

Robert Garmston

Shared Knowledge

• Collaborative teams always attempt to answer critical questions by building shared knowledge.

• If people make decisions based upon access to the same pool of information, they increase the likelihood that they will arrive at the same conclusion.

What is congeniality? Avoiding the Mary Poppins Principle….

• “Congeniality has to do with the extent to which teachers and principals share common work values, engage in specific conversation about their work, and help each other engage in the work of the school.”

• “ The emphasis on human relations management has resulted in the value of congeniality becoming very strong in the way schools are managed and led. Congeniality has to do with the climate of interpersonal relationships within an enterprise. When this climate is friendly, agreeable, and sympathetic, congeniality is high. Though congeniality is pleasant and often desirable, it is not independently linked to better performance and quality schooling.”

– Thomas Sergiovanni, 2004

The Focus of Collaboration

Collaborative cultures, which by definition have close relationships, are indeed powerful, but unless they are focusing on the right things they may end up being powerfully wrong.

» Michael Fullan

Critical Corollary Questions

• If the mission is focused on learning, – what is it we expect them to learn?– how do we know they have learned it?– how will we respond when they don’t

learn?– how will we respond when they already

know it?

Getting Started – Creating a Collaborative Culture

What makes an effective meeting?/Team Protocols

• Team norms• Method of Consensus• Vision• Agenda with assigned

minutes per topic– Time keeper

• Critical Questions for Teams

• SMART Goal• Interventions• Product orientation

Essential Question:

How can we create common

assessments to monitor and

promote student learning?

“You can enhance or destroy students’ desire to succeed in school more quickly and permanently through your

use of assessment than with any other tools you have at

your disposal.”

Rick StigginsAssessment Trainers Institute

Common Assessments

Any assessment given by 2 or more instructors with the intention of collaboratively examining the results for

•shared learning, •instructional planning for individual

students, and/or •curriculum, instruction, and/or

assessment modifications.

Common Assessments

• Created collaboratively by teams of teachers

• Frequent• Formative• Connected to the essential outcomes• Given to all students enrolled in the

same class, course, or grade level

How do common

assessments assist

everyone (students, teachers,

schools) in achieving

more?

Why Common Assessments?

• Efficiency• Fairness• Effective

Monitoring• Informed

practice

• Assessment literacy

• Raised expectations

• Team capacity• Collective

ResponseModified from R. DuFour keynote address at PLC Institutes

Summative / Formative Assessment

Assessment of Learning (Summative Assessment):

How much have students learned as of a particular point in time?

Assessment for Learning (Formative Assessment):

How can we use assessments to help students learn more?

A Balanced Assessment Program

AssessmentAssessment

““OF”OF”• SummativeSummative

• Norm Referenced / Norm Referenced / Standardized Standardized

• A snapshot in timeA snapshot in time

Essential Question:Essential Question:

• What have students What have students already learned?already learned?

AssessmentAssessment

““FOR”FOR”• FormativeFormative

• Often teacher-madeOften teacher-made

• A moving pictureA moving picture

Essential Question:Essential Question:

• How can we help How can we help students learn more?students learn more?

Which is which?

It isn’t the method that determines whether the

assessment is summative or formative it is how the results

are used.

Dr. Tom Many

Pyramid of Intervention Strategies

Least Restrictive

Most Restrictive

Special Education Placement

Screening and Evaluation

for Special Education

Problem Solving Team

Systematic School Interventions How does the school respond when students don’t get it?

Grade Level / Department/Classroom Interventions - SMART Goals

Early Interventions – What do we need to know prior to the start of school?

INTERVENTION PYRAMID

Interventions

As a school – How do you respond when a student doesn’t learn?

As a department – How do you respond when a student doesn’t learn?

As a teacher – How do you respond when a student doesn’t learn?

Dr. Tom Many

TEAM Reflection

Identify 2-3 assessments (formative and summative) that are currently being used in your schools.

Discussion Where are interventions implemented? One or two interventions associated

with each assessment

Value of Common Assessments

• Focused instruction• Common core curriculum• Focused, common learning• Better tests• Identification of curricular areas needing

attention• Provision of objective indicators of

effectiveness for teachers• Promotes collaboration

Research consistently shows that use of regular, high-quality Formative Assessments increases student achievement.

.5 to 1.8**Rodriguez (2004)

.7 to 1.5Meisels, et al. (2003)

S.D. GainsStudy1.0 to 2.0 *Bloom (1984)

* Rivals one-on-one tutorial instruction

.5 to 1.0**Black and Wiliam (1998)

** Largest gains for low achievers

Research on Effects

35 Percentile Points2-4 Grade Equivalents100 SAT Score Points5 ACT Composite Score PointsU.S. TIMSS scores from 22nd of

41 nations to the top 5

1.0 Standard Deviation Equals

Keys to Quality Classroom Assessment

Clear PurposesWhy Assess?

What’s the purpose?Who will use results?

Clear TargetsAssess What?

What are the learning targets?Are they clear?Are they good?

Good DesignAssess How?

What method?Sampled how?

Avoid bias how?

Sound CommunicationCommunicate How?

How manage information?How report?

Accurate Assessment

Effectively Used

Student InvolvementStudents are users, too.

Students need to understand learning targets, too.Students can participate in the assessment process, too.

Students can track progress and communicate, too.

The Challenge…

How can we use assessment to help the student believe that the target is within reach?

“Teachers who truly understand what they want their students to accomplish will almost surely be more instructionally successful than teachers whose understanding of hoped-for student accomplishments are murky.”

W. James Popham

In the pattern

to the left

locate and

outline the

five-pointed

star.

• If I provide additional information (block out part of the picture) does that help you identify the target?

• If I provide even more information (block out more of the picture) does it help you identify the target?

Rick Stiggins points out that “Teachers and students can hit any target they can see and will hold still.”

What is the

relationship between

this statement and

the activity you just

participated in?

Keys to Quality Classroom Assessment

Clear PurposesWhy Assess?

What’s the purpose?Who will use results?

Clear TargetsAssess What?

What are the learning targets?Are they clear?Are they good?

Good DesignAssess How?

What method?Sampled how?

Avoid bias how?

Sound CommunicationCommunicate How?

How manage information?How report?

Accurate Assessment

Effectively Used

Student InvolvementStudents are users, too.

Students need to understand learning targets, too.Students can participate in the assessment process, too.

Students can track progress and communicate, too.

Learning/Achievement Targets

Statements of what we want students to learn and be able to do.

The single most common barrier to sound classroom assessment is the teachers’ lack of vision of appropriate achievement targets within the subjects they are supposed to teach.”

Rick Stiggins

Knowledge

“Mastery of substantive

subject content where mastery

includes knowing it, understanding it, and knowing how to find it.”

Reasoning

“The ability to use knowledge

and understanding to figure things out and to solve

problems”

Skills

“The development of proficiency in doing

something where it is the process that is important such as playing a musical

instrument, reading aloud, speaking in a second language, or using a psychomotor

skills”

Products

“The ability to create tangible products,

such as term papers, science fair models,

and art products, that meet certain

standards of quality and that present

concrete evidence of academic

proficiency”

Creating Targets For“Driving A Car With Skill”

• What knowledge will students need to demonstrate the intended learning?

• What patterns of reasoning will they need to master?

• What skills are required if any?• What product development

capabilities must they acquire, if any?

Driving a Car With Skill

• Knowledge– Know the law– Read signs and understand what they mean

• Reasoning – Evaluate ‘am I safe’ and synthesize information

to take action if needed

• Skills– Steering, shifting, parallel parking…

• Products– (not appropriate target)

Deconstructing Standards/Outcomes

• Determine standard type– knowledge, reasoning, skill, or product

• Identify its underpinning learning targets

Standard (target) Type

Underpinning Learning Targets

Knowledge

Reasoning Reasoning + K

Skill Skill + R + K

Product Product + S + R + K

Knowledge

Standard/Outcome:

Produce writing to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.

Learning Targets

What are the knowledge, reasoning, skill or product targets underpinning the standard or benchmark?

Product Targets

Write sentences with varied beginnings

Skill Targets

Hold a pencil correctly

Print letters correctly according to DN methods

Space words

Use lines and margins correctly

Stretch out sounds in words to create a temporary spelling of a word…

Reasoning Targets

Distinguish the uses or meanings of a variety of words (word choice)

Knowledge Targets

Know what a sentence is

Understand concept of word choice

Type: Product Skill Reasoning Knowledge

Standard/Outcome: The student understands westward expansion and its effects on the political, economic, and social development of the nation. (Standard, §113.24. Social Studies, Grade 8 )

Type: Product Skill Reasoning Knowledge

Learning Targets

What are the knowledge, reasoning, skill or product targets underpinning the standard or benchmark?

Product Targets Skill Targets Reasoning Targets Knowledge Targets

DECONSTRUCTING STANDARDS/OUTCOME

Rick Stiggins points out that “Teachers and students can hit any target they can see and will hold still.”

Clear (Student-friendly) Statement of Learning Target

• Target: Be able to summarize text.

• Word to be defined: SUMMARIZE– to give a brief statement of the main

points, main events, or important ideas.

• Student-friendly language:– I can make a short statement of the

main points or the big ideas of what I read.

Clear (Student-friendly) Statement of Learning Target

• Target: Be able to make predictions.

• Word to be defined: PREDICTION– A statement saying something will

happen in the future.

• Student-friendly language:– I can use information from what I read

to guess at what will happen next.

Standard/Outcome:

Produce writing to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.

Product Targets Skill Targets Reasoning Targets Knowledge Targets

I can write sentences with different beginnings

I can hold a pencil the right way

I can print my letters correctly

I can put spaces between words

I can write on the lines and I can stay within the margins

I can tell that words mean different things and know when these words add or take away from what I am trying to say in my writing or when they make my writing more interesting.

I know what a sentence is

I know that words have different meanings and tell different things

Standard/Outcome: The student understands westward expansion and its effects on the political, economic, and social development of the nation.

(Standard, §113.24. Social Studies, Grade 8 )

Product Targets Skill Targets Reasoning Targets Knowledge Targets

The most important instructional decisions (that is, the decisions that contribute the most to student learning) are made, not by the adults working in the system, but by students themselves.

Rick Stiggins

You Be George

Student Involvement in Assessment for Learning –Self-Reflection and Goal Setting.

You Be George

• The process • Learning targets• Identifying Strengths and Areas for

Improvement• Strengths, Review, and Further Study• Goal-Setting

Learning Targets

Strengths & Areas for

Improvement

Strengths & Areas for

Improvement

Strengths, Review and

Further Study

Student Goal

Setting

Rick Stiggins

Students can hit any target that they can see and that holds still for them.

Rick DuFour, 2002

When teachers (working in collaborative teams) clarify essential outcomes, develop common assessments, and set standards they want all students to achieve by test and by essential outcomes, they are in a position to establish goals that can only be achieved if each member contributes.

Our job is to help kids believe they are capable

learners

A Proper Belief

We must help kids find the gifts they didn’t know they had

What we know today doesnot make yesterday wrong,it makes tomorrow better.

Carol Commodore