Common Formative Assessments
Matthew Morgan
Imran Abbasi
Schalmont Central School District
Clarify essential learning (skills, knowledge, dispositions) for each course/subject to ensure students have access to a guaranteed and viable curriculum, unit by unit.
1. What is it we expect them to learn?
2. How will we know when they’ve learned it?
3. How will we respond when they don’t learn it?
4. How will we respond when they already know it?
PLC’s attempt to answer these critical questions by first BUILDING SHARED
KNOWLEDGE – engaging in collective inquiry –
LEARNING together,
If people make decisions based on the collective study of the same pool of information, they increase the likelihood that they will arrive at the same conclusion.
Only happens when the teachers who deliver the curriculum work collaboratively to:
Study the intended curriculum and agree on the priorities within the curriculum.
Clarify how the curriculum translates into specific student knowledge and skills.
Commit to one another that they will teach the agreed upon curriculum.
“The true purpose of assessment must be, first and foremost, to inform instructional decision making. Otherwise, assessment results are not being used to their maximum potential—improving student achievement through differentiated instruction.”
--Ainsworth and Viegut, 2006, pp21-22
Traditional Instruction-Assessment Model
Pretest Teach Posttest
Assign
Grades
Pre-
Assess
Instruction-Assessment Model with Data
Analysis
•Analyze
Results
•Plan to
Differentiate
Teach
•Monitor,
Reflect,
Adjust
Post-
Assess
Analyze
Results
•Reteach
Ainsworth & Viegut, 2006
1. Intended: What we want them to learn
2. Implemented: What actually gets taught
3. Attained: What they actually learn
To impact the attained curriculum in the most powerful way, we must make certain that the implemented curriculum is guaranteed and viable.
Understand the definition of a common formative assessment
Identify priority standards
Identify why and when to use common formative assessments
Identify the next steps after giving a common formative assessment
Determine structural needs to implement a system of common formative assessments
To identify what the essential priority standards, apply these three criteria:
1. Endurance: Are students expected to retain the skills or knowledge after they have been assessed?
2. Leverage: Is this skill or knowledge applicable to many academic disciplines?
3. Readiness for the next level of learning: Is this skill or knowledge preparing the student for success in the next grade or course?
Endurance
Value for Life; Long-
Lasting Knowledge
Readiness
Prepares Students for the Next Level of Learning
Priority
Standards
Leverage
Has Value in Many
Disciplines
… assess the learning of all students pursuing the same curriculum through the use of the same instrument and the same criteria.
… are administered during the same window of time.
… are administered to all students with appropriate modifications and adaptations.
Assessments for learning administered to all students in grade level or course several times during a unit of study, semester or year
Items collaboratively designed by participating teachers
Results analyzed in Data Teams in order to differentiate instruction
Ainsworth & Viegut, 2006
“Not standardized tests, but rather teacher-created , teacherowned assessments that are collaboratively scored and that provide immediate feedback to students and teachers .”
--Reeves
What is it we expect students to learn?
Priority Standards
How will we know when they have learned it?
Common Assessments (Form and Summ)
How will we respond when they don’t?
Interventions
How will we respond when they do?
Enrichment or Differentiation
If all students are expected to demonstrate the same knowledge and skills, regardless of the teacher to which they are assigned, it only makes sense that teachers must work together in a collaborative effort to assess student learning.
--
DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, et. al
Not all assessments need to be common assessments. CFAs should be collaboratively developed around essential priority standards.
Represent the “content and performance standards for a given subject matter area in terms of their endurance, leverage and ability to prepare students for readiness at the next level of learning.
--Ainsworth & Viegut, 2006, p31
Focus on Priority standards when developing CFAs but do not ignore others
Teams need to work collaboratively to determine scoring rubrics and levels of proficiency
If possible, CFAs should be collaboratively scored and results analyzed as a team
Shift 1 Balancing Informational
& Literary Text
Shift 2 Knowledge in the Disciplines
Shift 3
Shift 4
Shift 5
Shift 6
Staircase of Complexity
Text-based Answers
Writing from Sources
Academic Vocabulary
Students read a true balance of informational and literary texts.
Students build knowledge about the world (domains/ content areas) through TEXT rather than the teacher or activities
Students read the central, grade appropriate text around which instruction is centered. Teachers are patient, create more time and space and support in the curriculum for close reading.
Students engage in rich and rigorous evidence based conversations about text.
Writing emphasizes use of evidence from sources to inform or make an argument.
Students constantly build the transferable vocabulary they need to access grade level complex texts. This can be done effectively by spiraling like content in increasingly complex texts.
20
The first steps are related to “unwrapping” the standards so that your assessments are aligned to the shifts in the Common Core.
This is applicable to all subject areas not just ELA or
Math.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Choose an Important Topic
Identify Matching Priority Standards
“Unwrap” Matching Priority Standards
Create a Graphic Organizer
Determine the Big Ideas
Write the Essential Questions
Step One: Important Topic: Reading
Comprehension.
Rationale: Important to all subjects and closely aligned with Shift #4: Text-Based Answers.
Step Two: Match Priority Standards
Reading Standards for Literacy in Science and
Technical Subjects 6-12.
Grades 9-10 Students: 2. Determine the central ideas or conclusions of a text; trace the text’s explanation or depiction of a complex process, phenomenon, or concept; provide an accurate summary of the text.
Step Three “Unwrap” the standards.
Underline the concepts (important nouns or noun phrases and circle or capitalize the skills (verbs).
DETERMINE the central ideas or conclusions of a text; TRACE the text’s explanation or depiction of a complex process, phenomenon, or concept; PROVIDE an accurate summary of the text.
Concepts: Need to KNOW about
Central
Ideas/Conclusion
Reading
Comprehension
Process,
Phenomenon or Concept
Accurate
Summary
Skills: Be Able to DO
Approximate
Level of Blooms
4. analyze
2. understand
6. create
Skill and Related Concept
Determine (central idea/conclusion)
Trace (process, phenomenon or concept)
Provide (accurate summary)
Use the unwrapped standards and graphic organizer to help create the Big Ideas to assess.
◦ Use text-based questions to determine if students can
Identify a main idea
Understand a process
Create an accurate summary
Each PLC must create 2 Common Formative
Assessments over the course of the school year.
Schedule
◦ Sept-Nov: Develop Goal and create CFA aligned to standards (Common Core or State)
◦ December: Conduct and analyze CFA
