Formative Assessment in
Middle School
Teacher Inquiry Project: Multimedia Case Study
Ross Local Schools-FAMS Cohort 1, 2012-2013
8th Grade Team
Joe Heilman, Lisa Oravec, and Robin Plowman
Our Teacher Inquiry Project Question
Inquiring Minds
Want to Know:
Does using formative
assessment help
students in the 8th
grade understand/
refine their own
college/career
readiness?
Our Teacher Inquiry Project Goal
Students will obtain college/career
readiness knowledge, skills, and
understanding to develop a post-high
school goal and recognize the academic
rigor necessary to achieve that goal.
Ross Middle School is...
The Ross Local School District has consistently achieved Excellent ratings on
the State of Ohio District Report Card and has earned the prestigious
Excellent with Distinction rating for the past five years. In addition, Ross
High School and Elda Elementary School have both been named Schools of
Distinction. On the 2012 District Report Card Elda Elementary School and
Morgan Elementary Schools earned an Excellent with Distinction rating while
Ross High School and Ross Middle School earned Excellent ratings by the
Ohio Department of Education.
The district consists of 72 square miles in the southwest corner of Butler
County, Ohio. The area is rural/suburban with four small villages.
Teamwork!
The 8th grade language arts
teachers have more than 50 years
of combined teaching experience.
We worked together extensively
planning and implementing all
stages of our FAMS Inquiry
Project. We met weekly to develop
plans, and used Google drive to
develop and edit our formative
assessment documents on a
continuing basis throughout the
school year.
Our Demographics
The 8th grade students have a daily block of
language arts consisting of 84 minutes. We are a
full inclusion district, and we each have 3 classes
with a common plan period, which allows us to
meet and plan together. The 7th and 8th grade
students are placed on 3 different teams: A-Team,
Dream & Extreme Teams. We each have
approximately 75-80 8th grade students per team.
What is College/Career Readiness?
The level of achievement a student needs to be
ready to enroll and succeed — without
remediation — in credit-bearing first-year
postsecondary courses. And by postsecondary
we mean primarily two-year or four-year
institutions, trade schools, and technical
schools. Today, however, workplace readiness
demands the same level of knowledge and skills
as college readiness. (ACT, 2008)
The Importance of Middle School for College
Readiness
New research by ACT shows "the level of academic
achievement that students attain by eighth grade has a
larger impact on their college and career readiness by the
time they graduate from high school than anything that
happens academically in high school." ...
"This report also reveals that students' academic readiness
for college and career can be improved when students
develop behaviors in the upper elementary grades and in
middle school that are known to contribute to successful
academic performance."
Common Core & PARCC
Common Core- "To build a foundation for college and
career readiness, students must read widely and deeply
from among a broad range of high-quality, increasingly
challenging literary and informational texts."
PARCC- "The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for
College and Careers (PARCC) is a consortium of 23 states
plus the U.S. Virgin Islands working together to develop
a common set of K-12 assessments in English and math
anchored in what it takes to be ready for college and
careers."
Project Background
Since moving to the Common Core and preparing
for the new PARCC assessments, we have made
learning about college and careers the focus of the
students' 8th grade year. Students use a variety of
online personality and interest assessments to
match up to college programs and careers. The
students spend the year researching and learning
about colleges and careers and show their acquired
knowledge in the form of written essays and career
activities.
Project Background
The final culminating College/Career
project consists of students preparing a
Career Portfolio, a multi-media research
project or the opportunity to actually job
shadow during the school day. We also
tour our district's technical high school
(Butler Tech) during the 8th grade.
Job Shadow and Butler Tech
Our Formative Assessment Focus:
We chose 3 specific areas of formative
assessment that we wanted to focus on and
incorporate into our College/Career study:
1. Learning Targets
2. Student Surveys
3. Student Self-Assessment & Feedback
Implementation and Impact-Learning
Targets
A glimpse into our
formative classrooms.
• Developed clear
learning targets.
• Lessons were
aligned to the
learning targets
• Success Criteria
aligned to the
learning targets
• Student Ownership
with shared learning
targets
Implementation and Impact-Student Surveys
Implementation and Impact-Student Surveys
•
•
Student surveys
allowed us to
make needed
adjustments to
our lessons and
instruction
We used surveys
to determine if
learning took
place and if our
project goal was
successful
Implementation and Impact-Student SelfAssessment & Feedback
Implementation and Impact-Student SelfAssessment & Feedback
•
•
•
•
The questions, Where am I going? Where am I now? and
Where do I go next? were used as the focus for our
student self-assessment activities.
Students monitored and assessed their own learning
through the use of checklists, self-assessments, and peerevaluations.
Students used self-assessments to determine if they were
successful in meeting the success criteria.
Teachers used the results of the students' selfassessments to determine if they understood the learning
target and success criteria.
Link to our Website of Student Videos
• View our student
college/career
interviews
• View students
completing career
research
Link to website with
videos:
8th Grade FAMS
https://sites.google.com/a/rossrams.com/rms-fams/8th-grade
Big Ideas
• Feedback is central to formative assessment.
• There is no one single way to "do" formative
assessment.
• Formative assessment strategies need to be
aligned to learning targets and success criteria.
• Learning Targets and success criteria must be
communicated clearly and reinforced with
students in language they can understand.
• Students must be given instruction and tools in
order to set learning targets and success criteria
with their teachers.
More Big Ideas
• Learning Targets and success criteria drive the
process of formative assessment.
• Effective formative assessment provides a
constant stream of information about how
student learning is evolving toward the desired
Learning Target.
• Feedback should be clear, purposeful, and
meaningful, and compatible with students'
prior knowledge, and provide logical
connections.
Our Personal Reflection
• Teachers implementing formative assessment
need to set aside their need for control and their
fear of making mistakes.
• Support and understanding from school
administration and other personnel are crucial
to implementing formative assessment.
• Implementing formative assessment is not a
quick fix or a one-year "project." It is a
continual commitment to meeting students'
needs and involving students in their own
learning.
Inquiry Conclusion
•
Formative Assessment increased students’ college/career readiness
knowledge, skills, and understanding to develop a post-high school goal
and recognize the academic rigor necessary to achieve that goal.
Evidence of Professional Growth
• Grade 8 Deconstructed Reading Standards
• Grade 8 Quarterly
Scope and Sequence
Works Cited