Formative Assessment:Journey To Higher Achievement

Martha Lamb

August 2009

Activity:

Self-Assessment of Skills in Using Formative Assessment

Goals/Learning Targets

You will be able to:

Differentiate between formative and summative assessment

Describe a classroom climate that is conducive to formative assessment

Demonstrate multiple ways to provide descriptive feedback

Types of Assessment

Pre-Assessment: Assessment BEFORE learning

Formative Assessment: Assessment FOR learning

Summative Assessment: Assessment AFTER learning

Activity:Anticipation /Reaction

Guide

Formative Assessment

Is more a journey than a destination

-involves “checking the roadmap/GPS”

-helps students see where they are, where they are going, and how they are progressing along the way

Formative Assessment

Involves familiar skills

Where am I?Where am I? – pretests, checklists, student self-assessments,

quizzes, rubrics, overt responses,

performance feedback, conferences

Where am I going?Where am I going? – clear learning goal

How will I get there?How will I get there? – performance feedback, congruent activities, task analysis, differentiated instruction, scaffolding of tasks

Formative Assessment

Is validated by research

“Research shows that if students are formatively assessed, learning will improve, (and). . . students are able to demonstrate that learning in a variety of ways including scoring well on standardized assessments.”-Black and William (1998)

Formative Assessment

During video, use sticky notes to:

•Jot down key words or phrases you want to know more about

•Jot down any connections you think of

Video: Video: Formative Assessment

http://www.teachers.tv/video/565

White Board Activity

What happens when you move to summative assessment too quickly?

Using Summative Assessment Formatively

•Make chapter/unit tests cumulative. Note items that are not mastered on a test, re-teach, then test those skills/that knowledge along with items on next unit test

•After giving feedback, provide time for students to correct test items that were incorrect, especially open-ended questions or tasks. (Idea: For true/false questions, have them “correct” the false items.)

•Other ideas?

Establishing Classroom Climate Key: Teachers must help students be active in

the classroom by helping them speak out and express their ideas

Observations from the video about the climate?

Describe the climate in this room. How is was it established?

Key Elements Encourage self and peer assessment Use of open-ended questions Collaboration: student talk Humor: teacher laughs with students Feedback builds self-esteem Students feel safe to be wrong

Neural Plasticity— Rat experiment . . .

How does this relate to the classroom?

Your classroom?

Brain Research Support

Three Types of Feedback

Motivational Feedback

Evaluative Feedback

Descriptive Feedback**

**validated by research to be the most effective type of feedback for improving achievement

Motivational Feedback

Intended to make the learner feel good; to encourage & support

It does not give guidance on how to improve

performance or reasoning Example: Nice work! You are such a good

writer!

Evaluative Feedback

Intended to measure student achievement; awards a score or a grade

It does not give guidance on how to improve performance or reasoning

Examples: 73%

Level III Satisfactory

Descriptive FeedbackIntended to improve student achievement by

telling the learner what steps to take in order to move forward in the learning process.

Gives specific guidance as to how to improve the learners’ performance or reasoning.

“You accurately found the number of students in 4th grade who said ice cream was their favorite. You now need to divide this number by the total number of students to get the percent who said ice cream was their favorite.”

What Is Descriptive Feedback?

Specific Relates directly to

the learning Comparison to

models, samples, exemplars

Related to performance, not personal

(adapted from Davies, 2000)

Descriptive feedback is NOT evaluative.

It does not:

• Compare learners against each other

•Assign a number or letter grade

•Provide a percentile ranking

In other words, it does not assign a VALUE judgment.

Descriptive Feedback Examples•When you multiply two negative

numbers the result is a positive number. Check your work and correct your errors.

•You need to include supporting details in the thesis to make it stronger.

•The lab report is missing the explanation of the chemical reactions. Please add this explanation and return to me.

Non-Descriptive Feedback

•B+

•Messy!

•You can do better!

•Excellent

•Reread the assignment

•You aren’t using what you know about adjectives

•Very Good!! I’m proud of you!!

•Try again.

•Are you sure???!!

Descriptive Feedback Activity:

Use handout to reflect on statements made by experts

How can I find time to give helpful feedback?Keep written comments brief Give oral feedback as you circulate** Schedule conferences with students on a rotating basis

Use sticky notes as reminders of what you want to say to students Check notebooks on a rotating basis

Use self-assessments and peer-assessments Start slowly; Rome wasn’t built in a day!! Gradually

incorporate descriptive feedback into your repertoire of best practices

**Oral feedback is proven to be the most effective mode for giving feedback, presumably because it is tailor-made for the individual, and because it involves a personal investment in the student. (Relationship!)

Need for Specific Feedback

Activity: : “Write About”

During which activities has formative assessment been

modeled today?

Self-Assessment – Novice to Guru Anticipation/Reaction Guides

Graffiti Board White Boards

Collect All Four Reflection on Statements from Experts

Write About

Goals/Learning TargetsYou will be able to:

•Differentiate between formative and summative assessment

•Describe a classroom climate that is conducive to formative assessment

•Demonstrate multiple ways to provide descriptive feedback

BibliographyBlack, P. and D. William (1998), “Assessment and

Classroom Learning,” Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and Practice, CARFAX, Oxfordshire, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp.7-74.

Clarke, Shirley (2005), Formative Assessment in the Secondary Classroom,

Hodder Murray, Abingdon, Oxon, Great Brittain.

Keeley, Page (2008), “Science: Formative Assessment,” Corwin Press/NSTA Press

Formative Assessment Loop

Teacher communicates the learning __________________.

Students engage in a ________________ activity.

Teacher/peer gathers information on each student’s _________ toward goal.

Teacher/peer gathers information on each student’s _________ toward goal.

Student receives ____________ feedback on his/her progress toward goal AND information on how he/she can ____________ the gap between his learning and the goal.