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Formative Assessment for Science
Teachers
Erin Marie Furtak, Ph.D.
University of Colorado
+ Everyday Assessment
 A.k.a. assessment
for learning, or the various
formal and informal ways teachers get information
about and act upon student thinking as part of their
daily practice (Atkin & Coffey, 2003)
 Should
 Can
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be a seamless part of ‘good teaching’
take many forms, including:
Asking questions to tap student thinking
Structuring activities to elicit student ideas
Listening to group or classroom discussions
Using clicker questions
Looking at student work and giving feedback
…and…and…and…
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a.k.a. Formative Assessment
In Edu-jargon, we call everyday
assessment formative assessment, or
activities in which students share their
developing ideas while learning is in
progress so that instruction can be
modified to help students reach
learning goals.
Student
Teacher
“The feedback loop”
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Formative Assessment
Often
described as
consisting of three
steps:
 What
do you want
students to learn
(goal)?
 What do the students
know now (activity)?
 How can students
move from their
present
understanding to
learning goals?
(feedback)
(NRC, 2001)
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Formative Assessment
A
meta-analysis has shown
that the third step – providing
feedback - has a positive
effect on student learning.
 Highest
learning gains
observed for lower-achieving
students
 Not
the ‘silver bullet,’ but an
important way to differentiate
instruction and help all
students to learn
(Black & Wiliam, 1998)
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My Work in Formative Assessment
I
have explored formative assessment from
multiple perspectives:
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Research Assistant
Primary Investigator
Teacher
Professional Developer
Science Teacher Educator
 These
perspectives have helped me bring
evidence to bear on my book on formative
assessment, published in July 2009.
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Overview
 Formative
 Planning
Assessment in Action
for Formative Assessment
 Step
One: Setting Goals
 Step Two: Finding Out What Students Know
 Step Three: Anticipating Feedback
 Three
Formats for Formative Assessment
 ‘Big
Idea’ or ‘Driving’ Questions
 Predict-Observe-Explain
 Multiple-Choice
 Closing Thoughts
+ Formative Assessment in Action
7th grade Physical Science Class
 Students
have just completed an
investigation in which they have
investigated the motion of balls
on flat and inclined ramps.
Formative assessment:
Student responses to
and discussion about a
multiple-choice
question in which the
answers were linked
to common student
ideas 
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Show Video
 Start
at 17:00
 As
you watch the video, follow along with
the transcript posted online.
 Pay
attention to:
 How did the teacher find out what
students were thinking?
 What idea(s) were shared by the
students?
 In what way(s) did the teacher provide the
students with feedback?
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PAIR-SHARE: What did you notice
about…
How
did the teacher find out what
students were thinking?
What
idea(s) were shared by the
students?
In
what way(s) did the teacher
provide the students with feedback?
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POLL #1
 What
kinds of questions are best for getting
students to share their thinking?
A.Yes/No
B.Fill-in-the-Blank
C.Open-Ended
D.Rhetorical
Questions
Questions
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Overview
 Formative
 Planning
Assessment in Action
for Formative Assessment
 Step
One: Setting Goals
 Step Two: Finding Out What Students Know
 Step Three: Anticipating Feedback
 Three
Formats for Formative Assessment
 ‘Big
Idea’ or ‘Driving’ Questions
 Predict-Observe-Explain
 Multiple-Choice
 Closing Thoughts
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Planning for Formative Assessment
Step 1: What do you want students to learn?
 Set
overarching learning goals (i.e., what
students should know and be able to do)
based upon curriculum
framework/syllabus.
 Design
a formative
assessment for each
stepwise goal.
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Unit on mass, volume, and
density
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Planning for Formative Assessment
Step 1: What do you want students to learn?
 Each
learning goal
should involve some kind
of performance by which
students can demonstrate
their understanding.
 Use “Bullseye” to
prioritize important
concepts to include in
your stepwise learning
goals.
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Planning for Formative Assessment
Step 1: What do you want students to learn?
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Planning for Formative Assessment
Step 1: What do you want students to learn?
More mass
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Planning for Formative Assessment
Step 2: What do the students know now?
Plan
an activity at the places in your
unit where students need to have met
learning goals before moving
forward.
Start
by building a safe classroom
climate conducive to formative
assessment.
Ask
high-quality questions.
Use
a variety of activities.
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Planning for Formative Assessment
Step 2: What do the students know now?
‘One-Stop
Shop’ for learning about
student misconceptions:
 www.nsdl.org
 Click
on ‘misconceptions’ link in upper
corner on any of the science literacy maps
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Planning for Formative Assessment
Step 2: What do the students know now?
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Planning for Formative Assessment
Step 3: Anticipating Feedback
Types
of feedback:
 Verbal/Discussion
 Giving
students information to move
them toward learning goals
 Writing
 Pointing out areas for improvement,
things students have not thought about
yet, etc.
 Softball pitcher example
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Planning for Formative Assessment
Step 3: Anticipating Feedback
 Providing
feedback is the most important step in
formative assessment since it is the action that
helps students move toward learning goals.
 Unfortunately, it’s
also the hardest step because it
requires teachers to:
 Know the content,
 Know students’ common prior ideas &
responses, and
 Have a plan for helping students adapt those
ideas into more accurate ones.
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Planning for Formative Assessment
Step 3: Anticipating Feedback
Don’t
 Can
kill yourself!
use rubrics to score formative
assessments, but it can take a long time.
 Research suggests that scoring interferes
with students paying attention to
feedback
 Walk around the classroom, listen to
students talk, think about their
conversation as you plan next lesson.
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Planning for Formative Assessment
Step 3: Anticipating Feedback
Involving
 It
Students in Feedback
doesn’t always have to go through you!
 Create opportunities for students to discuss
criteria for high-quality work.
 Make these criteria public:
 Write on butcher paper and post
 Make copies of exemplars and distribute.
 Let students practice scoring work with
rubrics.
 Encourage students to self and peer-assess.
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Small piece will float, large piece will
Sink.(Sinking and floating has to do
with an object’s size.)
Ask students to think of examples
of large things that float and small
things that sink.
Ask students how changing shape and
size affects the property of density.
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Step 3: Feedback
 Reviews
of Educational Research:
 Kluger
& deNisi, 1996: The Power of Feedback
 Hattie & Timperley, 2007: The Effects of Feedback
Interventions on Performance
 Furtak, Seidel, Iverson & Briggs, 2009 (Inquirybased teaching): More Guidance = More Learning
 Finding: The
impact of feedback on student
performance is dependent upon its nature
and quality.
 Low
impact: Evaluative, contingent praise
 High impact: Hints, information on how to
improve performance
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POLL #2
 Which
of the following is an example of
‘high-impact’ feedback?
A.
That’s right, you’re smart.
B.
I see a mistake here. Do you see it?
C.
Compare your answer to Jose’s and see
how they are similar and different.
D.
That’s wrong. You should work harder.
E.
Next time think about…
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Overview
 Planning
for Formative Assessment
 Step
One: Setting Goals
 Step Two: Finding Out What Students Know
 Step Three: Anticipating Feedback
 Formats
 ‘Big
for Formative Assessment
Idea’ or ‘Driving’ Questions
 Predict-Observe-Explain
 Multiple-Choice
 Concept Maps
 Evidence-to-Explanation
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‘Big Idea’ Formative
Assessments
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‘Big Idea’ Formative Assessments
 The
Purpose is to periodically
find out what students know as it
relates to the overarching goal of
your unit.
 Have
students write in their science
notebooks.
 Use different colored pen when
returning to the question.
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Please answer the following question. Write as much information as
you need to explain your answer. Use evidence and examples to
support your explanation.
Why does it cost so much to drive a car?
Why does our water taste so bad?
Where does our trash go?
Why do things sink and float?
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‘Big Idea’ Formative Assessments
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‘Big Idea’ Formative Assessments
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QUESTION
Take
a moment to think:
What
are some ‘big ideas’ you teach
that you might be able to adapt into
‘Big Ideas Questions?’
Type ideas into the Question Box
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Predict-Observe-Explain
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Predict-Observe-Explain (POE)
Purpose:
To find out what students
know by having them make
predictions about a novel
phenomenon
A.K.A. PEOE
 What
are the different predictions?
 How did the students support these
predictions?
 What evidence do you have in support of
the different predictions?
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Predict-Observe-Explain (POE)
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QUESTION
Take
a moment to think:
What
are some
demonstrations/activities that you
might be able to adapt into a
Predict-Observe-Explain?
Type ideas into the Question Box
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Multiple-Choice Questions
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Bad/Good Multiple Choice
Questions
 To
generate discussion, use items that have
more than one correct response.
 These
items are terrible for summative
assessment purposes, but great for
formative purposes because they force
students to argue about their ideas.
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From dylanwiliam.net
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Multiple-Choice Questions
Another approach is to use questions which are
related to students’ common ideas about science:
 Linked
to ‘big idea’ questions,
 Written
clearly and in language that is easy for
your students to understand,
 Include
one alternative response that is the
scientifically correct explanation, and
 Include
a set of distracters that are linked to
students’ common prior ideas and misconceptions
about the big idea.
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POLL #3
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Multiple-Choice Questions
Helpful for teaching students how to take apart and
respond to multiple-choice questions
Sources for questions:
- TIMSS released items
- PISA released items
- NAEP released items
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POLL #4
Which of the following is NOT a feature of a
formative assessment multiple-choice question?
A.
Answers are written in ‘student words.’
B.
Answer D is ‘I don’t know.’
C.
Distracters are linked to student
misconceptions.
D.
Item is clearly written.
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Food For Thought
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Summarizing Teachers’
Experiences
 At
each step of the formative assessment process,
teachers are met with multiple challenges:
 Beliefs: Related to how students learn and what
approaches to teaching are most effective
 Knowledge: Related to teachers’ background
knowledge about the subject
 Practice: Related to teacher’s ability to enact the
formative assessments; however….
 The
interaction of beliefs, knowledge, and practice
come to a head at the most important step in the
formative assessment process: FEEDBACK.
+ If formative assessment is such a
great idea, why aren’t more
teachers doing it?
 My
experiences suggest that teachers are
enacting some aspects of formative assessment:
 Setting
learning goals, and
 Eliciting student ideas.
 Feedback is the least enacted by teachers (Furtak,
2006; Furtak & Ruiz-Primo, 2008; Furtak et al., 2008; Ruiz-Primo &
Furtak, 2006; 2007).
 My
explanation: teachers aren’t giving feedback
because it’s the hardest part.
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Why is Giving Feedback So Hard?
 Beliefs
 Believing
the teacher is instrumental to help students
learn
 Knowledge
 Knowing
common student ideas and
misunderstandings, and what examples will help
students
 Practice
 Knowing
what teaching strategies will address common
student prior ideas/misconceptions
 Recognizing student ideas under the veil of student talk
 Providing feedback on-the-fly
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Realizing Formative Assessment
 Formative
Assessment does not need to
take a lot of time – even 5 minutes can give
you a lot of information about student
thinking.
 Use
formative assessment to engage in a
conversation about student ideas and
teaching strategies with your colleagues.
 Develop/find
a formative assessment
 Everyone enacts it
 Bring samples of student work to a meeting &
discuss
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Other
Questions?
Thank you!
erin.furtak@colorado.edu
http://spot.colorado.edu/~furtake