Using Formative Assessment to Drive Effective Instruction

Dawn MitchellSpartanburg Writing ProjectSummer Institute, 2012

“What was once educationally significant, but difficult to measure, has been replaced by what is insignificant and easy to measure. So now we test how well we have taught what we do not value.” - Art Costa

*Rubric Assessment Activity - *What do you notice about the students’

writing? *Please read the following student writing

sample and assess it using our state’s PASS writing rubric.

*Rubric Assessment Activity - *What questions do you have? *How would you describe this experience? *Do you feel you were able to effectively

assess this student writing using the information you had and the rubric provided as an assessment tool? Why or why not?

“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.” -Peter F. Drucker

*Article Discussion -

Spence, L.K. (2010). Discerning writing assessment: Insights into an analytical rubric. Language Arts, 87, 337-348.

“Classroom teachers must develop and trust their own professional knowledge and theories of learning for assessment. Student writing should be read holistically, focusing on the meaning the writer is communicating.”- Lucy Spence

*Assessment Chalk Talk: What is Formative Assessment? What is it’s purpose in the classroom?

How is it different from summative assessment?

Formative Assessment – Conferences, Observations, Anecdotal Notes, Portfolios, Student thinking on paper / Annotations, Self-Assessment, Mind Maps, Peer Feedback, Conversations / Discussions, Socratic Seminar Kid-Watching, Entrance/Exit Slips, Outside the Box, Product-Based Assessment where it values the process as well…

Summative Assessment – Standardized Testing, District Benchmarks, MAP, Dominie, Dial-3, Traditional/Cumulative Tests…

*An Assessment Inventory

What types of formative assessments do you use in your classroom?

See Assessment Toolbox

Assessment Effectiveness: Those that work and those that don’t What types of assessments are effective / Why? All of the formative assessments listed… Conferences are effective because they give

students immediate feedback. Exit/Entrance Slips – you know right away

before and after the lesson what students knew before and what they learned. This impacts subsequent instruction immediately.

What types of assessment are ineffective / Why?

When Do Assessments Work? What can we do to make our assessments more

effective? *We use a lot of formative assessments. *Using the summative assessment to also help

guide instruction would be valuable. *There are so many assessments that I feel many

are telling us the same thing but you aren’t really using the information. “We keep weighing the pig to make him fat – let’s feed the pig.”

*Let’s use the assessment data to improve our instruction.

“Teachers should become acquainted with elements of writing in various genres, students’ home languages, and their lives outside of school. They should address the writing context during the assessment, focusing on the writer rather than on the assessment tool.” – Lucy Spence

**Implications For the Classroom *Excerpted from Spence, L.K. (2010).

Discerning writing assessment: Insights into an analytical rubric. Language Arts, 87, 337-348.

“Decades of scholarship on the writing process provide the necessary information for appropriate assessment practices, including the following:

Review the rubric. Before adopting a rubric for classroom use,

review it in detail to determine what it will reveal and conceal in student writing.

**Implications For the Classroom Consider the sociocultural context. When teachers know about their students’

families and cultures, they are equipped to provide feedback to students and create meaningful and motivating curriculum.

Consider the classroom context. Take into account the day-to-day work in the

classroom. No work is ever truly finished, and all writers are in the process of becoming better. The process of writing within the classroom context is of primary importance.

**Implications For the Classroom Be open to diverse modes of expression. Seek to understand the ways in which students use

language to express their experiences and purposes. Be aware of diverse organizational structures, and show students what you notice in their writing. In this way, they can take pride in their own cultural literacies and learn valuable western European modes of discourse.

Use assessment information in writing conferences. The focus of writing assessment must be to improve

student writing and can be used to develop individual or whole-class curriculum. Through conferring with individual students, writing strengths can be highlighted and expanded. Students can also be shown patterns in their writing, leading to further discussion and improvement. Patterns across student writing can be highlighted in a whole-class lesson.

**Implications For the Classroom Assess English learners appropriately Any school district that uses an analytical rubric –

and there are many – should consider the fact that these assessments are usually created for native English-speaking students. In school districts serving students who are English learners, assessments should be created specifically for them. Assessment should take into account students’ home languages, how this knowledge is used as they write in English (Escamilla & Coady, 2001), and the time it takes to develop academic language. Students should not be penalized for their developing English, and assessment should not be used to compare them with fluent English-speaking students.”