Talk About Assessment: Determining Sufficient Evidence of Achievement

February 2, 2007 London District Catholic School Board (Secondary Schools) Damian Cooper
(905) 823-6298 dcooper3@rogers.com

The Big Ideas of Classroom Assessment

1. Assessment serves different purposes at different times: it may be used to find out what students already know and can do; it may be used to help students improve their learning; or it may be used to let students, and their parents, know how much they have learned within a prescribed period of time.
2. Assessment must be planned and purposeful. 3. Assessment must be balanced, including oral and performance as well as written tasks, and be flexible in order to improve learning for all students.

The Big Ideas of Classroom Assessment

4. Assessment and instruction are inseparable because effective assessment informs learning. 5. For assessment to be helpful to students, it must inform them in words, not numerical scores or letter grades, what they have done well, what they have done poorly, and what they need to do next in order to improve.

6. Assessment is a collaborative process that is most effective when it involves self, peer, and teacher assessment.

The Big Ideas of Classroom Assessment

7. Performance standards are an essential component of effective assessment.

8.

Grading and reporting student achievement is a caring, sensitive process that requires teachers professional judgement.

The Big Ideas of Classroom Assessment

1. Assessment serves different purposes at different times: it may be used to find out what students already know and can do; it may be used to help students improve their learning; or it may be used to let students, and their parents, know how much they have learned within a prescribed period of time.

Assessment for Learning

Assessment for learning is any assessment for which the first priority in its design and practice is to serve the purpose of promoting students learning. It thus differs from assessment designed primarily to serve the purposes of accountability, or of ranking, or of certifying competence.
Black, Wiliam et al. 2004

Assessment of Learning
Assessment of learning includes those tasks that are designed to determine how much learning has occurred after a significant period of instruction. The data from such assessments is often used to determine report card grades.

The Big Ideas of Classroom Assessment

2. Assessment must be planned and purposeful.

Samplingthe key to managing assessment

Teachers teach far more and students learn far more than can ever be assessed and evaluated
Good assessment/evaluation design involves identifying a critical sample of student work from which valid inferences can be made about all that has been learned

This critical sample becomes the body of evidence that will be evaluated and reported upon

Where is the end Im supposed to begin with?

What set of critical tasks will provide evidence of the essential learnings for this class/course? These become the Big Ticket tasks or Games They are where the marks come from They provide evidence that the standards have been achieved

The M. and M. Container Problem

Your group works in the packaging department of the M & M Chocolate Company. Your job is to design and construct a closed container that will hold the largest volume of M & M candies for shipping, using the materials provided. You will present your design and report to the company executives, and include all important data and formulas.

Grade 9 Curriculum Expectations

Achievement Categories

Knowledge and Understanding

Thinking Communication Application

Learning Skills (secondary)

Works Independently Teamwork Organization Work Habits/Homework Initiative

Checklist for a Well-Designed Performance Task

addresses essential learning presents students with an engaging challenge requiring persistence requires students to apply their learning in a new way is appropriate to all students

requires students to engage in problemsolving and decisionmaking where possible, imitates real-world tasks identifies clear assessment criteria provides for individual accountability

How much evidence is enough for reporting? In other words

How do we ensure that the body of evidence selected for evaluation and reporting in a given subject or course is a valid sample?

Backward Design Program Planning

Stage 1: Identify targeted understandings Stage 2: Determine appropriate assessment of those understandings Stage 3: Plan learning experiences and instruction that make such understanding possible
Wiggins and McTighe, Understanding by Design

Designing an Evaluation Plan The Big Ticket Items

WI ______ ______ Task 1 _______ _______ _______ Task 2 T I _______ _______ _______ Task 3 T O W _______ _______ _______ Task 4 O I WI _________ _________ _________ Task 5 T O ______ ______ ______ Task 6 I WH/H Learning Skills

TERM

More tasks.

Knowledge/ Understanding

Thinking/ Inquiry

Communication

Application

_____________ _____________ _____________ _____________ _____________ _____________ _____________

Summative Performance Task

_____________ _____________ _____________ _____________ _____________ _____________ _____________

Final Examination

SUMMATIVE

Damian Cooper 2002

What are the requirements of a valid sample?

No diagnostic evidence
Includes a variety of modes to allow for differences in learning style (write, do, say)

Provides evidence of the essential learning in the subject Tasks represent polished work:
Not practices or early tries Feedback has occurred previously and been implemented

Includes multiple (3+)pieces of evidence for each learning cluster

You Need to Ensure a Balance of Assessment Types

Students: write, do or say

Teachers: mark, observe or listen Authenticity is key change a book report into a book review!

Ensuring a Balance of Write, Do, and Say

Triangulation of Data: Classroom Assessment

Performance task

Valid & Reliable Picture of Student Achievement

Written test data

Oral defense/ conference

Reliability and Validity in Assessments

Reliability

Validity

Grade teams need to collaborate to

Identify the set of critical assessment tasks Agree upon the relative weighting of each task

Develop common, high quality scoring tools that capture the essential indicators of quality performance Periodically engage in moderation of student work Collect banks of exemplars, several for each level, for each task

Establish the criteria by which each task will be assessed

Weighting Assessment Tasks

0 5 10+

Simple task ..Complex Task

Addresses Few Expectations .Many Expectations

One Achievement Category Three/Four Categories Involves Little Time Involves Several Days Occurs Early in Term Occurs Late in Term Diagnostic Formative Summative

#1

Sample Assessment Plan

Formative Assessment for Unit 1
TASK ROLE PLAY Practice(s) QUIZ(ZES) BROCHURE Draft BROCHURE Near Final METHOD(S) Performance Ass't Paper and Pencil Performance Ass't Performance Ass't STRATEGY(IES) Performance Selected Response Product Product SCORING TOOL Rubric Marking Scheme Rubric Rubric ASSESSOR self/peer Teacher peer self/peer

Summative Assessment for Unit 1

TASK ROLE PLAY TEST(S) BROCHURE METHOD(S) Perf Ass't Paper & Pencil Perf Ass't STRATEGY(IES) Performance assessment Sel & Const Response Product SCORING TOOL Rubric Marking Scheme Rubric ASSESSOR Teacher Teacher Teacher

Ken OConnor, How to Grade for Learning

The M. and M. Container Problem

Your group works in the packaging department of the M & M Chocolate Company. Your job is to design and construct a closed container that will hold the largest volume of M & M candies for shipping, using the materials provided. You will present your design and report to the company executives, and include all important data and formulas.

Grading Guidelines
10.

Assessment data derived from cooperative group learning situations must not distort grades.

How do we ensure that students complete the set of assessment tasks that comprise evidence of essential learning?

Big Ticket Assessment Tasks

Unit: Beauty and the Beast
Students Task: Speech Due: Sept. 12 Task: Rdg. Response Due: Sept. 18

Train leaves the station on: October 14/03

Task: Pers. Letter Due: Sept. 23 Task: Poetry Response Due: Sept. 29 Task: Comp. Essay Due: Oct. 3 Task: Wrtg. Anthology Due: Oct. 6

Maria

Guidelines for Ensuring that Critical Tasks are Completed

identify for students and parents the tasks that are essential as proof of learning operate on the understanding that all of these must be completed to meet the requirements of the subject or course timelines for completion of these tasks must be communicated to students and parents to facilitate students and teachers workload communicate to students that late work will be reflected in the Learning Skills portion of the report card

Guidelines for Ensuring that Critical Tasks are Completed

identify strategies for addressing noncompletion of essential tasks: e.g. -completion contract -supervised learning centre -method for tracking missed tasks have a school-wide policy concerning interim and final grade determination: e.g. -use Incomplete on interim report card -consistency regarding what Incomplete becomes on the final report card

Suggested Reading
1. Black, Paul and Wiliam, Dylan. Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment, Phi Delta Kappan, October, 1998 A seminal article on the value of formative assessment that summarizes effective assessment practices as described in 250 studies in the UK, the US, Australia, Switzerland, Hong Kong and Africa. 2. Cooper, Damian. Talk About Assessment: Strategies and Tools to Improve Teaching and Learning Thomson Nelson, 2007. (coming September 2006) ISBN. 0-17-628916-X 3. Davies, Anne. Making Classroom Assessment Work, Connections Publishing, 2000 A short and very useful overview of the basics of assessment in todays classrooms, with particular relevance to elementary schools.

4. Marzano, Robert J. Transforming Classroom Grading, ASCD, 2000 An excellent examination of past and present trends in classroom grading practice. 5. OConnor, Ken. How to Grade for Learning 2nd. Edition, Skylight, 2002 A solid treatment of the grading dilemmas that arise in intermediate and senior grades. 6. Stiggins. Richard. Classroom Assessment for Student Learning, Assessment Training Institute, 2004. An in-depth textbook for students of assessment, organized according to principles of assessment, assessment methods, and communication. 7. Werder Sargent, Judy and Smejkal, Ann E. Targets for Teachers: A Self-Study Guide for Teachers in the Age of Standards, Peguis Publishers, 2000 A superb model to help teachers and administrators sort out what is critical among the current reforms, as well as a model for monitoring implementation. 8. Wiggins, Grant. Educative Assessment, Jossey Bass, 1998 A comprehensive publication from a true expert in the field, this work provides all the background to Wiggins approach to classroom assessment. 9. Wiggins, Grant and McTighe, Jay. Understanding By Design, ASCD, 1998 A concise and very readable guide to designing program from an assessment point of view.