5 Key Strategies
for Assessment for Learning
&
PGES
2
Target:
I can determine how the 5
strategies for formative assessment
may improve my practice as well as
student performance.
Assessment for learning/formative assessment
“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. An assessment activity can help learning if it provides
information that teachers and their students can use as feedback in
assessing themselves and one another and in modifying the teaching
and learning activities in which they are engaged. Such assessment
becomes “formative assessment” when the evidence is actually used
to adapt the teaching work to meet learning needs.”
(Black, Harrison, Lee, Marshall & Wiliam, 2004 p. 10)
4
Teacher Professional Development:
One Big Idea and Five Core Strategies
Handout that was given earlier today
Formative assessment: a new definition
“An [assessment] of teacher performance functions
formatively to the extent that evidence of teacher
performance that is elicited by the assessment is
interpreted by leaders, teachers, or their peers to
make decisions about the professional development of
the teacher that are likely to be better, or better
founded, than those that would have been taken in the
absence of that evidence.”
Unpacking formative assessment of
teaching
Where the
teacher is now
Leader
Peer
Teacher
Clarifying,
sharing and
understanding
learning
intentions
Where the teacher
is going
Engineering effective
situations, tasks and
activities that elicit
evidence of development
How to get there
Providing feedback that moves
learners forward
Activating teachers as learning
resources for one another
Activating teachers as owners
of their own learning
TPGES
7
Peer Observation
 Principal Observation
 Self-Reflection
 Student Growth Goals
 Professional Growth Goals
 Student Voice

8
Observer Checklist: 5 Key Strategies
for Effective Formative Assessment
(Hand out)
A strengths-based approach to change
9


Talent development requires attending to both
strengths and weaknesses
The question is how to distribute attention
between the two:
 For
novices, attention to weaknesses is likely to have
the greatest payoff
 For more experienced teachers, attention to strengths
is likely to be more advantageous
Tight, but loose
10

Two opposing factors in any school reform
Need for flexibility to adapt to local circumstances
 Need to maintain fidelity to the theory of action of the
reform, to minimize “lethal mutations”


The “tight but loose” formulation:

… combines an obsessive adherence to central design
principles (the “tight” part) with accommodations to the
needs, resources, constraints, and affordances that occur
in any school or district
(the “loose” part), but only where these do not conflict
with the theory of action of the intervention.
Looking at the wrong knowledge
11

The most powerful teacher knowledge is not explicit:




That’s why telling teachers what to do doesn’t work.
What we know is more than we can say.
And that is why most professional development has been
relatively ineffective.
Improving practice involves changing habits, not adding
knowledge:

That’s why it’s hard:




And the hardest bit is not getting new ideas into people’s heads.
It’s getting the old ones out.
That’s why it takes time.
But it doesn’t happen naturally:

If it did, the most experienced teachers would be the most
productive, and that’s not true (Hanushek & Rivkin, 2006).
12
Question Formulation Technique
The Question Focus (QFocus)
Statement:
If we believe that effective teaching yields student
success, then applying the 5 strategies for formative
assessment of learning (and teaching) will move all
learners forward.
CATEGORIZING
QUESTIONS
CLOSE
DENDED
www.rightquestion.org
PRIORITIZING QUESTIONS
Choose three questions that…
•most interest you.
•you consider to be the most important.
•will best help you solve a problem
•you want/need to answer first.
www.rightquestion.org
COMPONENTS OF THE QUESTION
FORMULATION TECHNIQUE™
1. The Question Focus (QFocus)
2. The Rules for Producing Questions
3. Producing Questions
4. Categorizing Questions
5. Prioritizing Questions
6. Next Steps
7. Reflection
www.rightquestion.org
17
“It’s easier to act your way into a
new way of thinking than to think
your way into a new way of acting.”
Millard Fuller, Habitat for Humanity founder
(from Content Then Process: Teacher Learning Communities in
the Service of Formative Assessment p. 195)
Hand hygiene in hospitals
Study
Preston, Larson, & Stamm (1981)
Focus
Compliance rate
Open ward
16%
ICU
30%
Albert & Condie (1981)
ICU
28% to 41%
Larson (1983)
All wards
45%
Donowitz (1987)
Pediatric ICU
30%
Graham (1990)
ICU
32%
Dubbert (1990)
ICU
81%
Pettinger & Nettleman (1991)
Surgical ICU
51%
Larson, et al. (1992)
Neonatal ICU
29%
Doebbeling, et al. (1992)
ICU
40%
Zimakoff, et al. (1992)
ICU
40%
Meengs, et al. (1994)
ER (Casualty)
32%
Pittet, Mourouga, & Perneger (1999)
All wards
48%
ICU
36%
Pittet (2001)
Making a commitment
19

Action planning:





Forces teachers to make their ideas concrete and creates a record
Makes the teachers accountable for doing what they promised
Requires each teacher to focus on a small number of changes
Requires the teachers to identify what they will give up or reduce
A good action plan:





Does not try to change everything at once
Spells out specific changes in teaching practice
Relates to the five “key strategies” of AFL
Is achievable within a reasonable period of time
Identifies something that the teacher will no longer do or will do
less of
Supportive accountability for next steps
20

What is needed from teachers:
A
commitment to:
 The
continual improvement of practice
 Focus on those things that make a difference to students

What is needed from leaders:
A
commitment to engineer effective learning
environments for teachers by:
 Creating
expectations for continually improving practice
 Keeping the focus on the things that make a difference to
students
 Providing the time, space, dispensation, and support for
innovation
 Supporting risk-taking