COMPONENT T

HREE

MONITORING LE

ARNING

PROGRESS

W H AT I S T H E S C H O O L’ S A SS E SS M E N T P L A N ? H O W I S T H E A SS E SS M E N T D ATA A N A LY ZE D A N D K N O W N ? H O W D I D T H E R E S U LT S I M PAC T I N S T R U C T I O N A N D C U R R I C ULUM ?

ASSESSMENT PLAN Philosophy/Purpose: Why Methods/Instruments/Tools: What, Where, When

and How Grade Levels: Who At Least 1 Standardized Tool Analysis/Communication/Impact on Instruction:

What Was Learned and Where Do We Go Next??

Philosophy: WHY

Methods/Tools: What, When,

Where, and How

Grade Levels/Stu-dents: Who

Assessment Plan

A DEVELOPED STATEMENT, WHICH EXPOUNDS GUIDING IDEOLOGIES WITH REGARDS TO ETHICS, QUALITY STANDARDS, VALUES AND BELIEFS.

Define Philosophy statement:

LET’S SHARE S

OME

EXAMPLE

S

Developing a Philosophy of Assessment

Tells What the School Community Believes to be True about Assessment and the Purpose of Assessments

TAKE 5 TO REVIEW THE SAMPLES PROVIDED AND TO DISCUSS WITH YOUR NEIGHBORS WHAT YOU THINK WOULD FIT YOUR COMMUNITY AND WHAT WOULD NOT BE A FIT…

NOW THAT

WE KNOW THE

WHY...WE NEED TH

E WHO,

WHAT, W

HERE, WHEN,

AND HOW

D E V E L O P I NG A

N AS S E S S M E N T P

L A N

• Is Balanced: Formative, Interim, and Summative

• Is School Wide – Addresses assessment practices and procedures for all children

• Is Utilized to Drive Instructional Practices and Programming Decisions

BALANCED ASSESSMENT PLAN:Formative: Provides insights needed for teachers to

make adjustments to instruction. Formative assessments happen frequently – daily, weekly

Interim: Provides an objective measure of progress and growth. Interim assessments happen at select intervals during the school year.

Summative: Provide evidence to demonstrate whether or not the students have learned. Summative assessments occur at the end of a unit, semester, or school year.

• teacher observation• principal observation• formative strategies (i.e., exit

cards)• homework• essays• research papers• student projects• course grades• portfolios• performances• teacher-made tests• end-of-unit tests

• skills diagnostics• universal screeners• self-assessments• peer assessments• progress monitoring tools• state accountability tests• aptitude tests• behavioral measures (such

as attendance)• grade point average• class rank• interim assessments

BALANCED ASSESSMENT PLANS INCLUDE MULTIPLE MEASURES

NO CHILD LE

FT BEH

IND…AND

THIS APPL

IES TO ASSESSMEN

T

I S

SC H O O L W

I DE The Assessment Plan should

state who is being assessed

Be sure all children are appropriately assessed using tools and procedures that are developmentally appropriate

PLAN IS IN PLACE, ASSESSMENTS COMPLETED, NOW WHAT…

DATA MINING

an analytic process designed to explore data in search of consistent patterns and/or systematic relationships between variables

DATA MINING IS A FIVE-STEP PROCESS:

• Identifying the source information• Picking the data points that need to be analyzed• Extracting the relevant information from the data• Identifying the key values from the extracted data

set• Interpreting and reporting the results

AND THEN IN

TO

ACTION>>>>>

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What does the data tell you?

What action would you take?

How and Who would you communicate results to?

TAKE 5 TO REVIEW DATA AND MAKE 2 OR 3 OBSERVATIONS

COMMUNICATION

W H AT D ATA

FormativeInterimSummative

W H O A N D H O WTeachersStudents ParentsSchool Boards/Advisory

Councils Other Stakeholders:

Extended Family, Parishioners

Public

Reporting Results to Students

Two-step process: The first step is a overview provided to the entire group of students who received individual results.

The second step is individual follow-up meetings with students. These meetings should focus on how the teacher(s) will be addressing the individual needs of students.

Reporting Results to Parents:

Parents want to know how their children are performing in school and how the entire student body is performing in comparison with other schools.

Keep in mind that parents want to know how the school scored overall, even if their own children were not assessed.

Four strategies are suggested for reporting results to parents. (1) individual parent/teacher conferences (2) an individual written report sent home (3) parent group meetings, and (4) parent newsletter articles.

Reporting Results to the School Board/Advisory Council:

1. Report should include background information about the assessment. Including, what was assessed, what type of assessments were used, why they were used, and how the results will be applied and reported.

Suggestion: If the report is given when the assessment information is being collected, but before assessment results become available, it encourages the school board members to focus on the message of the assessment rather than the numbers.

2. Report should contain the results of the assessment at the school and district levels when available. It should answer typical questions raised by board members.

3. Follows up on the status of efforts to improve instruction at the school and the effectiveness of these changes. This report conveys to the school board that the real purpose of student assessment is to help improve teaching and learning, not to serve as a scorecard on the quality of the school.A 3 Step Reporting

System

Reporting Results to the Public: Remember often the public seems to know little else about schools other than test results.

1. Decide what audience is going to be addressed. The "public" consists of many different groups of people with varying levels of prior knowledge and information needs.

2. Determine the purposes and goals for reporting.

3. Procedures for reporting the results need to be determined.

While an important one, news media is only one way the public learns of results. Be proactive in exploring other options. Get your marketing, developing, and communications groups involved.

2 REPORTING MISSTEPS Reporting assessment results in an unclear manner. Avoid reporting information is overly complex or in a manner that is poorly written. These issues may lead to data being misunderstood or misused. To avoid these issues, have reports reviewed by various stakeholders to ensure clarity.

The effectiveness of the reporting process will be greatly compromised if the school makes no effective use of the assessment information. Teachers, administrators, and parents need to learn from and act upon assessment data or the entire process will be of little or no benefit to the children. Thus undermining the ultimate goal of assessment which is to better educate the children.

AVOID THE PITFALLS…