Formative Assessment&

DifferentiationDarielle Timothy

Kacey Greenawalt

Shabana Shah

Introductions

• Sugarland Elementary- • TITLE I

• Large ELL population

• Darielle Timothy (8 years, K-3)

• Kacey Greenawalt (8 years, K-3)

• Shabana Shah (4 years in 1st grade & ELL)

Building Background

• Inside-Outside Circle- “promote practice with key content concepts and develop oral language” (Echevarría, Vogt, 2008). It creates an atmosphere that is:• Student centered;

• Makes learning accessible for English Language learners;

• Differentiated- sentence starters, task cards with Blooms Taxonomy levels.

• The teacher’s role is: take anecdotal notes, facilitate scaffolded learning, and adjust instructional activities and/or delivery.

Inside-Outside Circle- Examples

• English : inside circle students share a piece of writing while the outside circle students act as editors. Editors have an assigned task (check punctuation) and outside circle continues to rotate while helping to revise the stories that are being read by the inside circle. Roles can change. (Echevarría, Vogt, 2008)

• Math: inside circle gives definition and outside circle gives a real life example.

• Jeopardy: inside circle gives answer and outside circle gives question.

• Haiku & Limerick (6th grade SOL): inside circle can write and the outside circle gives them the next sentence.

Formative Assessment (Research & Theory)

• What is it? As defined by Popham: “Formative assessment is a planned process in which teachers or students use assessment-based evidence to adjust what they are currently doing” (2008).

• What are the features?• It is a planned process, not any particular test.

• It takes place during instruction.

• Based on the evidence, teachers adjust their ongoing instructional activities or students adjust the procedures they’re currently using to try to learn whatever they’re trying to learn. (Popham, 2008)

Formative Assessment (Research & Theory)

• Why use it? • Formative assessments foster student-teacher interactions that

have demonstrated significant learning.

• Formative assessments let teachers give students immediate feedback on their performance.

• Formative assessments also spur students to become self-directed learners by instilling the critical thought component necessary to analyze and inform their own instruction. (Underwood, Burns 2014)

Example/ Non-Example (Olsen, Shields-Ramsay, 2010)

• A learning strategy “that activates prior learning and springboards the learner’s thinking into higher levels of cognition” (Olsen, Shields-Ramsay, 2010). These strategies can be:• Differentiated;

• Interactive;

• Used in interactive journals;

• Metacognitive, triggers the student’s understanding of what they’ve learned; and

• A cross-curricular strategy that informs the teacher of their instructional practices and gives the student immediate feedback on their learning.

Example/ Non-Example (Olsen, Shields-Ramsay, 2010)

Math Example: draw or write an example of an obtuse angle and then a non-example.

Example:

It is larger than 90 degrees

Non- Example

Plane shape is not an obtuse angle.

Thumbs Up/ Thumbs Down

• A quick, informative form of formative assessment, which allows the teacher to make immediate instructional changes based on students’ responses.

• Teacher provides a statement, whether true or false, and presents the statement aloud to their students.

• It’s essential that students are given wait time to think about response and justification.

• Signal the students to reveal their response, when the teacher gives the specific signal.

Differentiated Question Stems Sandra W. Page

Educ Consultant & ASCD Faculty Member

• Open-ended questions that trigger students thinking. • Questions are differentiated by Revised Blooms Taxonomy levels;

• Differentiated levels of thinking for a variety of learning styles;

• Responses will reveal students level of understanding.

• Teacher can pose the question.

• Students can choose questions from different levels

• Questions can be utilized across the curriculum.

Counting back you put your big number in your head counting the little number.

Counting back is putting the big number in your head and making it smaller or subtracting little numbers. Counting on is putting the big number in your head and making it bigger or adding.

Analysis Level

Differentiated Question Stems Sandra W. Page

Educ Consultant & ASCD Faculty Member

• Knowledge: What do you recall about ___?; Which is true or false….?

• Comprehension: What was the main idea when …?; Summarize the key points.

• Application: How does this event or information change our understanding of ___?; How would you solve __ using what you’ve learned?

• Analysis: What questions would help us discover/uncover …?; What was the underlying theme of the scene when …?

• Evaluation: How would you have solved ….?; Why do you agree/disagree with...?

• Synthesis/Create: Can you combine ___ with __ to create a new solution or idea?; What would happen if you … minimize/maximize/eliminate…?

Wrap Up

• Formative assessments can be graded. • Formative assessments should be given

throughout the lesson and provide feedback to students.

• Teacher makes instructional adjustments as needed

• The teacher is the facilitator.• Student adjusts their learning to access the

curriculum.

Bibliography

• Marzano, Robert J. Formative Assessment & Standards-Based Grading. Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research Laboratory, 2010. 

• Olsen, Steven J and Patricia Shields-Ramsay. Learning 360 Framework Participant's Guide. Midvale, UT: School Improvement Network, Inc., 2010. 

• Page, Sandra. "Question Stems." Chapel Hill, NC, 2012. • Popham, W J. Transformative Assesment. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision

and Curriculum Development, 2008. • Underwood, Janice Bell and Elizabeth Burns. "The disconnect between college and

reality: with formative assessments, teachers can more accurately determine student interests and aptitudes and drive achievement." Phi Delta Kappan 95.8 (2014): 80. 

• Vogt, MaryEllen and Jana Echevarria. 99 Ideas and Activities for Teaching English Learners with the SIOP Model. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc., 2008.

Disclaimer

Reference within this presentation to any specific commercial or non-commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer or otherwise does not constitute or imply an endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the Virginia Department of Education.

Questions?

• Shabana Shah: Shabana.shah@lcps.org

• Kacey Greenawalt : Kacey.greenawalt@lcps.org

• Darielle Robinson: Darielle.robinson@lcps.org