Target Ladders
Assessing and Planning for
Student Learning
January 2011
Community
The Strength of the
Triangle
Student
Success
Instruction
Assessment
Target
I am able to task analyze in order to
build learning progressions.
The Transformative Classroom
Level 1
Teachers will understand how to use
formative assessment to collect evidence
by which they can adjust their current and
future instructional activities.
Level 2
Teachers will understand how to help
students adjust their own learning tactics
based on formative assessment
evidence.
Level 3
Teachers will understand how to create a
new culture in their classroom where
instead of using classroom assessment to
compare students with one another for
grades, assessment will be used to
generate evidence from which teachers
and students can adjust what they’re doing.
Two Powerful Questions
1. What do you want students to
learn (target)?
2. How do you know what their
level of understanding is
(formative assessment)?
Without learning targets:
“Students become accustomed to
receiving classroom teaching as an
arbitrary sequence of exercises with no
overarching rationale.”
Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards
Through Classroom Assessment (Black, Wiliams)
Explicit lesson targets are
written in student language
• I know (vocabulary, basic facts)
• I understand (content knowledge)
• I am able to (application)
The words you begin with indicate the level
of thinking you want from students.
The Black Box
From the brain’s perspective……
• Few instructional designs are perfect
the first time around.
• We provide input & stimuli to students’
brains.
• We ‘see’ what the output tells us about
what went on inside their brains.
Formative Assessment
Providing students with immediate, frequent, and
relevant feedback about their performance
• allows the teacher to make better instructional
decisions.
• offers continual information relative to individual
student performance.
• fosters authentic performance assessment.
Connecting Brain Research with Effective Teaching, (Hardiman)
Formative Assessment
Formative assessments
are FOR learning, not OF
learning. (That’s summative
assessment.)
Formative Assessment
Frequent checks on student
learning allows you to
monitor student
understanding.
Formative Assessment
It makes sense to find out
what students are ‘getting’
in order to make future
instructional decisions.
The Research
The effect of assessment for learning on
student achievement
is some four to five times greater than the
effect of reduced class size. Few
interventions in education come close to
having the same level of impact as
assessment for learning. But the most
intriguing result is that, while all students
show achievement gains, the largest gains
accrue to the lowest achievers.
–
Classroom Assessment for Student Learning, (Stiggins, Arter, and Chappuis)
Meta-analysis
Student gains in learning triggered by formative
assessment are “amongst the largest ever
reported for educational interventions.”
“Helps low achievers more than other students.”
Black and Wiliam 1998
Feedback from classroom assessments should
provide students with a clear picture of their
progress on learning goals and how they might
improve.
Bangert-Drowns
Kulik, Kulik & Morgan, 1991
# of studies
Characteristics of Feedback from
Classroom Assessment
Percentile Gain/Loss
6
39
Right/Wrong
-3
8.5
Provide Correct
Answers
30
Criteria understood by
student vs. not
understood
16
9
4
Explain
20
20
Student reassessed
until correct
Feedback
Feedback to any pupil should be about
the particular qualities of his or her work,
with advice on what he or she can do to
improve, and should avoid comparisons
with other pupils.
Feedback
Feedback on tests, seatwork, and
homework should give each pupil
guidance on how to improve, and each
pupil must be given help and an
opportunity to work on the improvement.
Student’s Role
If formative assessment is to be
productive, pupils should be trained in
self-assessment so that they can
understand the main purposes of their
learning and thereby grasp what they
need to do to achieve.
Task Analysis
Breaking a task into its essential
components to have guidelines for
planning instruction. This process
increases the possibility of addressing
all necessary elements to complete a
task successfully.
The Elements of Instruction (Hunter)
Learning Progression
A sequenced set of sub-skills and
bodies of enabling knowledge that
students must master en route to
mastering a more remote curricular
target (the ‘big’ target).
Transformative Assessment (Popham)
The Target Ladder
A target ladder is a visual representation
of the requisite skills students need to
achieve the target or standard.
Standard: 3.1.2 Recognize and demonstrate that
sizes of fractional parts are relative to the size of
the whole.
I understand that the size of a fractional part
depends on the size of the whole.
I am able to draw ‘halves’ of different sizes. (thirds,
fourths, tenths)
I am able to make a model that shows ‘halves’ of
different sizes. (third, fourths, tenths)
I understand how to represent with drawings and
models parts of a set or a whole object with
fractions.
Types of Ladders
Content Planning
In order for students to grasp the significance of the American
Revolution, they are able to:
give two reasons why the Americans won the Revolutionary War.
(Analyze)
decide why the decision to pursue independence was a risk. (Evaluate)
explain how acts of the British Parliament lead to unification of the
colonies. (Analyze)
understand what a protest is and the different forms protests can
take.
list three events that antagonized colonists.
understand why the French and Indian War was a factor leading to
the Revolutionary War. (Analyze)
understand what a revolution in government is.
understand the purpose of government.
Learning Progression
ODE Content Standard 2.2.5: I can figure out the value
of a collection of coins to $1.00
8. I can add pennies, nickels, and dimes.
7. I can add pennies and nickels.
6. I can add coins of the same value (e.g., collection of
pennies or nickels.
5. I can count by 25’s.
4. I can tell the value of each coin in pennies.
3. I can tell the value of each coin.
2. I can identify the names of the coins (penny, nickel, dime,
quarter)
1. I can count by 5’s and 10’s.
Differentiated: Vocabulary
4. I can use the word correctly in
conversation.
3. I can use the word correctly in my own
writing.
2. I can define the word with my own words.
1. I can understand the word when I read it
in a book.
Behavior: Partner Learning
I am able to use my partner’s thinking to
deepen my understanding.
I am able to ask my partner questions when I
do not understand.
I try to understand what my partner is saying.
I am able to give specific compliments to my
partner.
I can follow the expectations for partner
learning.
Student-Centered
Students monitor their progress on a ladder
Linwood Fifth Graders:
• "I think I need to practice more if I am going to change
my color from yellow to green." (Students color code
levels of understanding.)
• "I really want to get the highest color possible. What
exactly do I have to do so I can color my ladder
PURPLE?"
• "Hey look, your colors improved. You must have
worked hard."
A Transformative Classroom
Ladder
Step One
Use Standards when
planning lessons.
Compare
& Order
Whole
Numbers
2.1
Standards
What is a
Fraction?
3.1
Compare &
Order
Fractions and
Decimals
4.14
Compare
& Order
Whole
Numbers
2.1
Standards
What is a
Fraction?
3.1
Compare &
Order
Fractions and
Decimals
4.14
Step Two
Post a target(s) for
each lesson.
Step Three
Post targets in student
language and make
sure students
understand target
vocabulary.
Step Four
Use formative
assessment to collect
evidence by which
current and future
instructional activities
are adjusted.
Step Five
Use task analysis to create
learning progression or
content planning ladders that
show the requisite skills and
concepts that lead to
mastering the essential
outcome. (big target)
Pre-Assessment
1. Determines starting points for
students.
2. Determines need for additional
rungs.
3. Increases efficiency.
A word about creating
assessment items
Color Coding
Red = Help from teacher.
Yellow = More Practice
Green = Good to Go
(Purple = Could Teach)
Pre-Assessment Results
Student Rung 1
George
John
Tom
James
Jim
John Jr
Andrew
Martin
Will
2
3
4
Class Recording Sheets
3 Small Groups
• Green: challenge activities: extend,
box math, same games with larger or
different numbers.
• Yellow: practice activities--check with
partner--check answer sheet (Green
student is ‘helper’.
• Red: with teacher: move back to
concrete or sketch.
Start Involving Students:
Key questions for students:
• What are you learning?
• How are you doing?
• How do you know?
• Who are you doing this for?
Evidence of Success
Comparing:
• Pre-assessments to post-assessments.
• Formative assessments.
• Portfolio work: a September story with
a November story.
• Early ladder placement to later ladder
placement.
Step Six
Help students adjust
their own learning
tactics based on
formative assessment
evidence.
Step Seven
Involve students:
students know their
level of understanding
of a skill or concept on
a ladder.
Step Eight
Students with different
levels of understanding
are able to help each
other.
Step Nine
Students are able to
select independent
activities or homework
that matches their level
of understanding.
Step Ten
Create a new culture in your
classroom where assessment is
used to generate evidence from
which students and you
understand levels of
understanding and adjust what
you are doing.
Target
I am able to task analyze in
order to build learning
progressions.
Task Analysis
Acquire a thorough
understanding of the
target curricular aim.
1.
–
Transformative Assessment, (W. James Popham, ASCD, 2008).
Task Analysis
2. Identify all requisite
precursory sub-skills and
bodies of enabling
knowledge.
Task Analysis
3. Determine whether it’s
possible to measure students’
status with respect to each
preliminarily identified
building block.
Task Analysis
4. Arrange all building blocks in an
instructionally defensible sequence.
• Building blocks you will be identifying are the subskills and knowledge you will be addressing
instructionally.
• It is better to end up with a small set of truly
requisite precursory building blocks.
• Is a building block so very important that you’d want
to make an adjustment decision based on students’
mastery or non-mastery of that particular building
block.
Why Use Task Analysis and
Pre-Assessment?
• In order for a student to be successful,
you need to find his “rung of success.”
• If the holes in a student’s thinking are
not filled, he takes those holes with him
in each succeeding year.