Developing Common Assessments
How do they enhance
student learning?
March 30, 2007
Dr. Dennis King
dking@bluevalleyk12.org
Anyone too busy
to reflect
Anyone
too
busy
on one’s practice is also too
tobusy
reflect
to improve.on one’s
practice is also too
busy to improve.
Robert Garmston
Robert Garmston
Shared Knowledge
• Collaborative teams always attempt to
answer critical questions by building
shared knowledge.
• If people make decisions based upon
access to the same pool of information,
they increase the likelihood that they will
arrive at the same conclusion.
What is congeniality?
Avoiding the Mary Poppins Principle….
• “Congeniality has to do with the extent to which teachers and
principals share common work values, engage in specific
conversation about their work, and help each other engage in the
work of the school.”
• “ The emphasis on human relations management has resulted in
the value of congeniality becoming very strong in the way schools
are managed and led. Congeniality has to do with the climate of
interpersonal relationships within an enterprise. When this climate is
friendly, agreeable, and sympathetic, congeniality is high. Though
congeniality is pleasant and often desirable, it is not independently
linked to better performance and quality schooling.”
– Thomas Sergiovanni, 2004
The Focus of Collaboration
Collaborative cultures, which by definition
have close relationships, are indeed
powerful, but unless they are focusing on
the right things they may end up being
powerfully wrong.
» Michael Fullan
Critical Corollary Questions
• If the mission is focused on learning,
– what is it we expect them to learn?
– how do we know they have learned it?
– how will we respond when they don’t learn?
– how will we respond when they already know
it?
Getting Started – Creating a
Collaborative Culture
What makes an effective
meeting?/Team Protocols
•
•
•
•
Team norms
Method of Consensus
Vision
Agenda with assigned
minutes per topic
– Time keeper
• Critical Questions for
Teams
• SMART Goal
• Interventions
• Product orientation
Essential Question:
How can we create
common assessments
to monitor and
promote student
learning?
“You can enhance or destroy
students’ desire to succeed in
school more quickly and
permanently through your use
of assessment than with any
other tools you have at your
disposal.”
Rick Stiggins
Assessment Trainers Institute
Common Assessments
Any assessment given by 2 or more
instructors with the intention of
collaboratively examining the results for
• shared learning,
• instructional planning for individual
students, and/or
• curriculum, instruction, and/or
assessment modifications.
Common Assessments
• Created collaboratively by teams of
teachers
• Frequent
• Formative
• Connected to the essential outcomes
• Given to all students enrolled in the same
class, course, or grade level
How do
common
assessments
assist everyone
(students,
teachers,
schools) in
achieving
more?
Why Common Assessments?
• Efficiency
• Fairness
• Effective
Monitoring
• Informed
practice
Modified from R. DuFour keynote
address at PLC Institutes
• Assessment
literacy
• Raised
expectations
• Team capacity
• Collective
Response
Summative / Formative Assessment
Assessment of Learning (Summative Assessment):
How much have students learned as of a
particular point in time?
Assessment for Learning (Formative Assessment):
How can we use assessments to help students
learn more?
A Balanced Assessment Program
Assessment
Assessment
“OF”
“FOR”
• Summative
• Formative
• Norm Referenced /
Standardized
• Often teacher-made
• A moving picture
• A snapshot in time
Essential Question:
Essential Question:
• What have students
already learned?
• How can we help
students learn more?
Which is which?
It isn’t the method that determines
whether the assessment is
summative or formative it is how
the results are used.
Dr. Tom Many
Pyramid of Intervention Strategies
Most
Restrictive
Least Restrictive
INTERVENTION PYRAMID
Special Education Placement
Screening and Evaluation
for Special Education
Problem Solving Team
Systematic School Interventions
How does the school respond when students don’t get it?
Grade Level / Department/Classroom Interventions - SMART Goals
Early Interventions – What do we need to know prior to the start of school?
Interventions
As a school – How do you respond when a
student doesn’t learn?
As a department – How do you respond
when a student doesn’t learn?
As a teacher – How do you respond when a
student doesn’t learn?
Dr. Tom Many
TEAM Reflection
Identify 2-3 assessments (formative and
summative) that are currently being used
in your schools.
Discussion
 Where are interventions implemented?
 One or two interventions associated with
each assessment
Value of Common Assessments
•
•
•
•
•
Focused instruction
Common core curriculum
Focused, common learning
Better tests
Identification of curricular areas needing
attention
• Provision of objective indicators of
effectiveness for teachers
• Promotes collaboration
Research consistently shows that
use of regular, high-quality
Formative Assessments
increases student achievement.
Research on Effects
Study
S.D. Gains
Black and Wiliam (1998)
Meisels, et al. (2003)
Rodriguez (2004)
.5 to 1.0**
.7 to 1.5
.5 to 1.8**
Bloom (1984)
1.0 to 2.0 *
* Rivals one-on-one tutorial instruction
** Largest gains for low achievers
1.0 Standard Deviation Equals
35 Percentile Points
2-4 Grade Equivalents
100 SAT Score Points
5 ACT Composite Score Points
U.S. TIMSS scores from 22nd of 41
nations to the top 5
Keys to Quality Classroom Assessment
Accurate Assessment
Clear Targets
Clear Purposes
Assess What?
What are the learning targets?
Are they clear?
Are they good?
Why Assess?
What’s the purpose?
Who will use results?
Good Design
Assess How?
What method?
Sampled how?
Avoid bias how?
Sound Communication
Effectively Used
Communicate How?
How manage information?
How report?
Student Involvement
Students are users, too.
Students need to understand learning targets, too.
Students can participate in the assessment process, too.
Students can track progress and communicate, too.
The Challenge…
How can we use
assessment to help the
student believe that the
target is within reach?
“Teachers who truly understand what they
want their students to accomplish will
almost surely be more instructionally
successful than teachers whose
understanding of hoped-for student
accomplishments are murky.”
W. James Popham
In the pattern to
the left locate
and outline the
five-pointed
star.
• If I provide
additional
information
(block out part
of the picture)
does that help
you identify the
target?
• If I provide even
more
information
(block out more
of the picture)
does it help you
identify the
target?
Rick Stiggins points
out that “Teachers and
students can hit any
target they can see
and will hold still.”
What is the
relationship between
this statement and the
activity you just
participated in?
Keys to Quality Classroom Assessment
Accurate Assessment
Clear Targets
Clear Purposes
Assess What?
What are the learning targets?
Are they clear?
Are they good?
Why Assess?
What’s the purpose?
Who will use results?
Good Design
Assess How?
What method?
Sampled how?
Avoid bias how?
Sound Communication
Effectively Used
Communicate How?
How manage information?
How report?
Student Involvement
Students are users, too.
Students need to understand learning targets, too.
Students can participate in the assessment process, too.
Students can track progress and communicate, too.
Learning/Achievement Targets
Statements of what we
want students to learn
and be able to do.
The single most common barrier to sound
classroom assessment is the teachers’ lack
of vision of appropriate achievement targets
within the subjects they are supposed to
teach.”
Rick Stiggins
Knowledge
“Mastery of
substantive
subject content
where mastery
includes knowing
it, understanding
it, and knowing
how to find it.”
Reasoning
“The ability to use
knowledge and
understanding to
figure things out
and to solve
problems”
Skills
“The development of
proficiency in doing
something where it is the
process that is important
such as playing a musical
instrument, reading aloud,
speaking in a second
language, or using a
psychomotor skills”
Products
“The ability to create
tangible products, such
as term papers,
science fair models,
and art products, that
meet certain standards
of quality and that
present concrete
evidence of academic
proficiency”
Creating Targets For
“Driving A Car With Skill”
• What knowledge will students need to
demonstrate the intended learning?
• What patterns of reasoning will they need
to master?
• What skills are required if any?
• What product development capabilities
must they acquire, if any?
Driving a Car With Skill
• Knowledge
– Know the law
– Read signs and understand what they mean
• Reasoning
– Evaluate ‘am I safe’ and synthesize information to
take action if needed
• Skills
– Steering, shifting, parallel parking…
• Products
– (not appropriate target)
Deconstructing
Standards/Outcomes
•
Determine standard type
– knowledge, reasoning, skill, or product
•
Identify its underpinning learning targets
Standard (target) Type
Underpinning Learning
Targets
Product
Product + S + R + K
Skill
Skill + R + K
Reasoning
Reasoning + K
Knowledge
Knowledge
Standard/Outcome:
Produce writing to communicate with different audiences for a
variety of purposes.
Type:
 Product
 Skill
 Reasoning
 Knowledge
Learning Targets
What are the knowledge, reasoning, skill or product targets underpinning the standard or benchmark?
Product Targets
Write sentences
with varied
beginnings
Skill Targets
Hold a pencil correctly
Print letters correctly
according to DN methods
Space words
Use lines and margins
correctly
Stretch out sounds in
words to create a
temporary spelling of a
word…
Reasoning Targets
Distinguish the
uses or meanings
of a variety of
words (word
choice)
Knowledge Targets
Know what a
sentence is
Understand concept
of word choice
DECONSTRUCTING STANDARDS/OUTCOME
Standard/Outcome: The student understands westward expansion and its
effects on the political, economic, and social development of the nation.
(Standard, §113.24. Social Studies, Grade 8 )
Learning Targets
What
are the knowledge, reasoning,
the standard
or benchmark?
Type:
Productskill orproduct
Skill targets underpinning
Reasoning
 Knowledge
Product Targets
Skill Targets
Reasoning Targets
Knowledge Targets
Rick Stiggins points
out that “Teachers
and students can hit
any target they can
see and will hold
still.”
Clear (Student-friendly) Statement
of Learning Target
• Target: Be able to summarize text.
• Word to be defined: SUMMARIZE
– to give a brief statement of the main points,
main events, or important ideas.
• Student-friendly language:
– I can make a short statement of the main
points or the big ideas of what I read.
Clear (Student-friendly) Statement
of Learning Target
• Target: Be able to make predictions.
• Word to be defined: PREDICTION
– A statement saying something will happen in
the future.
• Student-friendly language:
– I can use information from what I read to
guess at what will happen next.
Standard/Outcome:
Produce writing to communicate with different audiences for a
variety of purposes.
Product Targets
I can write
sentences with
different
beginnings
Skill Targets
I can hold a pencil the
right way
I can print my letters
correctly
I can put spaces between
words
I can write on the lines
and I can stay within the
margins
Reasoning Targets
Knowledge Targets
I can tell that
words mean
different things
and know when
these words add
or take away from
what I am trying to
say in my writing
or when they
make my writing
more interesting.
I know what a
sentence is
I know that words
have different
meanings and tell
different things
Standard/Outcome: The student understands westward expansion and its
effects on the political, economic, and social development of the nation.
(Standard, §113.24. Social Studies, Grade 8 )
Product Targets
Skill Targets
Reasoning Targets
Knowledge Targets
The most important instructional
decisions (that is, the decisions
that contribute the most to
student learning) are made, not
by the adults working in the
system, but by students
themselves.
Rick Stiggins
You Be George
Student Involvement
in Assessment for
Learning –
Self-Reflection and
Goal Setting.
You Be George
• The process
• Learning targets
• Identifying Strengths and Areas for
Improvement
• Strengths, Review, and Further Study
• Goal-Setting
Learning Targets
Strengths & Areas
for Improvement
Strengths & Areas
for Improvement
Strengths,
Review and
Further Study
Student
Goal Setting
Rick Stiggins
Students can hit any target that they
can see and that holds still for them.
Rick DuFour, 2002
When teachers (working in collaborative
teams) clarify essential outcomes, develop
common assessments, and set standards
they want all students to achieve by test and
by essential outcomes, they are in a position
to establish goals that can only be achieved if
each member contributes.
A Proper Belief
Our job is to help kids believe
they are capable learners
We must help kids find the gifts
they didn’t know they had
What we know today does
not make yesterday wrong,
it makes tomorrow better.
Carol Commodore