Formative Assessment

What is a formative assessment?

Many educational experts have provided definitions but, in summary, using the perspective that “formative assessment can inform teacher and student where the student is now so both can know what comes next in the learning” (Stiggins 2015) is the most instructive.

Or, as many explain, formative assessments are for learning and summative assessments are of learning. (Stiggins, Arter, J. Chappuis, and S. Chappuis, 2006, Caaspp 2015)

Why use formative assessments?

• To create useful formative assessments, we need to use clear learning targets. This step allows teachers and students to “ know where they are headed from the very beginning of the learning. Just start instruction with student-friendly versions of the target and watch what happens.” ( Richard J. Stiggins, 2015)
• A formative activity gives us a quick understanding what we still need to teach, reteach, or review.
• “For teachers, formative-assessment tools are far more important than summative tests because they offer real-time insight into students' understanding.  (Marianne Perie, 2015)  
• An in class formative assessment can lighten the homework practice time but still hold our students' accountable for assessing their content and skill acquisition.
• Specific feedback to students to help them understand and assess their own learning about the specific tasks and expectations needed for mastery. This process is crucial practice for learning how to learn and the growth mindset we want to provide our students.
• Some formative activities can be crafted to provide assessment practice to further address our students’ different levels of previous and outside of our class experiences.

How to begin to introduce formative assessments?

1. Create a safe classroom that honors the learning process.
2. Clarify the learning targets, and equally more powerful, clarify the learning progression.
3. Choose a format that serves your calendar and classroom constraints. ( see examples below)
4. Review your format to be sure you are getting accurate information from language learners.
5. Review edtech options for easy and engaging tech formats. Example: Socrative

Sample formative activities:

·    Role play: Write a Postcard from one person, character, property, formula  to another

·    Short summary: Write a summary for 5 min only.; later allow 2 more minutes.

·    Illustratration: Create a graphic depiction of the new concepts. Draw a storyboard, multiple axis timeline, or progression of learning, events, order of operations, process, rules.

·    Anonymous Assessment: Hand in, pass out, share: Write answers to one or a list of questions, students do not include their name on the paper, turn it in, hand work out to other students, score, poll results. Students can take notes on the response they are scoring and keep it for reference.

·    Diagram/Compare and contrast: Venn diagram 2 to 3 new concepts.

·    Check off: Provide a list of expectations or learning targets and students, using symbols, indicate what they have accomplished (√),  what they are sure they can do (+), what they currently have questions about (?).

·        Metacognition: Respond in a doc, form, exit card, journal write, summary to notes to the metacognitive “w”s : What did we do? Why did we do it? What did I learn? What can I apply? What are my questions?

·    Signal: Red (stop:I need more info) yellow (slow down), green (got it) cards or use all white cards with colored circles on one side so that only the teacher sees the indicator.

·    or: Thumbs up, to the side, or  down, again in front of the student’s chest to keep the response private.

·    Collaborative Conversation: Ask your elbow partner a question about what was just covered, listen to the response, reverse the roles, record and submit this work. This conversation can be conducted verbally or silently, all in written form, or as individual or a shared document.

·    Quick write for journal writes, exit cards, or pre collaborative conversations:

What are you square with?

What is rolling around in your head?

What are 3 key points to remember/act on?

            

or:

3 things I learned, 2 things I will apply/remember, 1 question I have.

More Resources:

Ask to see your course team colleagues' for samples they have used, Steve Kahl offers a list in his new teacher training,  David Wees provides a list of formative assessments, the CAASPP digital library focuses on this strategy, and Marzano’s explains both the research and theory that supports and clarifies Formative Assessment and Standards-Based Grading in his 2010 text.

Please add a comment with your favorites and feel free to contact Joy to help find or create some for your units.

Lasting learning: class and homework options

A teacher, a neurosurgeon, and a football coach or how about a actor, pianist, and pilot … the start of a good joke or some useful, well rounded research.

How about two cognitive scientists and a writer?

Peter Brown, Mark McDaniel, and Henry Roediger in Make it Stick, the Science of Successful Learning (2014) describe some of the latest research about learning and memory. Most of this information is not new to us at MVLAUHSD but it can inform our discussions about teaching and learning and could help us as we focus on best practices for both classwork and  homework.

A few ideas from their research to consider, including their learning from that teacher, neurosurgeon, coach, pilot, pianist, and actor:

Reflections:  In Make It Stick, the authors describe how successful professionals who are lifelong learners all require reflection of themselves and of their students. Two examples given are the daily free recall (requiring students to write for 10 minutes daily on what they learned) and weekly summary sheets instead of more traditional homework questions.

These directed summaries or reflections can require or recommend:

• retrieval of information and knowledge
• visualization
• diagrams
• lyrics and poetry
• generation: rephrasing in new words
• elaboration: connections of new information to previous learning
• plans on how to use new information differently

The authors’ discussion of reflections echo the work we have done in this district on using the best practice of summarizing, described in Wormeli’s and Marzano’s research and texts. I was surprised at how allowing some of my students to create a song as their summary to a few nights’ reading showed their ability to use many levels of learning and thinking. Having all of us in the class sing their lyrics (to the melody of the Addams family, including finger snapping) probably helped some students learn the content better than my categorization chart.  Certainly one of my students learned more from composing a law of supply rap than completing another vocab graphic.

Quick quizzes: To counter the “illusion of knowing” or a false familiarity that comes when students reread, highlight, skim, or work without owning a purpose, use low stakes testing as a “tool for learning.”  

Old school: flash cards.  New edtech: Flubaroo, Quizlet, Kahoots, Socrative

Testing groups instead of study groups.


Collaborative item analysis: A biology professor described in Make it Stick provides a few structures that support this type of learning: She has students (or you can provide) a few different answers to questions and asks students to raise fingers that match the number of the answer they chose. Students are directed to talk to another student who raised a number of fingers different from their own choice and share their reasoning.  
This activity can be also done with a shared document, using index cards, or random or teacher chosen pairings.

Combining content coverage with metacognitive skill development

At times our most diligent students “do the work” but don’t know what they don’t know.  Frequent informal quizzes can address this problem and model an effective learning strategy. Being transparent about your pedagogy and providing students with your reasons for for using quick quizzes instead of or as a supplement to traditional homework or classwork will teach our students how to learn and metacognitive skills.  

The biology professor also provides vocabulary to assist her students’ metacognition. Her students alert her that they have an “illusion of knowing” and ask how they can do better.

(page 230).  I ask my students to “continue their learning” rather than do test corrections.

Low stakes quizzes and formative assessments take time to generate but, with the help of your course teams and giving yourself a few years teaching your course, over time you can build a bank of quiz questions.  You can also substitute traditional homework questions for these quick quizzes. And more and more textbook publishers, data management, and testing services are providing assessments that can be used to support this work.

This type of retrieval activity does not limit our students’ critical thinking skills, but will build the knowledge they need for higher ordered learning in our disciplines.

Please comment and share your own strategies that help your subject stick for your students.

Thank you to Joanne Miyahara and Carol Evans for encouraging me to read Make It Stick.

Visualizations and Graphic Organizers

Now into the 2nd quarter, you might be looking for a new way for students to take notes, process information, and communicate their own understanding and analysis of your teaching and their learning.

Successful students may be ready for something other than Cornell/STAR notes and struggling students may need a different way to record and construct meaning from new information.

Provide a graphic organizer that perfectly portrays the process exemplified by your studetns' learning or, depending on the skill of your students or the sophistication of the material, allow students to decide on their own how to best graphically organize their thinking and learning.  Both options give students a strong understanding of both the new concept and their own metacognition.

Visualizations and graphic organizers are research proven methods of learning. For me, requiring a concept map added what was missing in my teaching and some of my students’ learning in one of my less engaging units.

A periodic table for Chemistry Teachers and their colleagues across the disciplines

Ralph Lengler and Martin J. Eppler  created a resource Periodic Table of Visualizations that provides various visuals and graphic organizers students can use.  Examples of Data, Information, Concept, Strategy, Metaphor, and Compound visualizatons are provided. Because the methods are categorized, metacognitive language, awareness, and cognition increases. The examples are also categorized by indicating process or structure outlines along with detail and/or overview visualizations. Indicators of convergent or divergent thinking are also noted. 

For more on the very thoughtful way they organized these structures, review their publication Towards a Periodic Table of Visualizations . Though Lengler and Eppler work in the Institute of Corporate Communication, the graphic organizers are useful for teaching and learning with our students.

Employing the best graphic organizers support our students’ growing critical thinking skills, deep understanding of our content, and supports their mastery of the following standards and practices:

ISTE Standards for students:

1. Creativity and innovation:  b. Create original works as a means of personal or group expression c. Use models and simulations to explore complex systems and issues
2. Communication and collaboration:  b. Communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats

CCSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP4 Model with mathematics.

Mathematically proficient students  are able to identify important quantities in a practical situation and map their relationships using such tools as diagrams, two-way tables, graphs, flowcharts and formulas.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, & Technical Subjects  2: Write informative/explanatory texts, including the narration of historical events, scientific procedures/ experiments, or technical processes.

2A grades 9-10: Introduce a topic and organize ideas, concepts, and information to make important connections and distinctions; include formatting (e.g., headings), graphics (e.g., figures, tables), and multimedia when useful to aiding comprehension.

2A grades 11-12: Introduce a topic and organize complex ideas, concepts, and information so that each new element builds on that which precedes it to create a unified whole; include formatting (e.g., headings), graphics (e.g., figures, tables), and multimedia when useful to aiding comprehension.

Speaking and Listening: The Power of Pronouns, the Strength of a Salutation

We have now completed the first quarter of teaching and learning for the 2015-16 school year. These posts focused on building a community to serve as a foundation for the content and critical thinking skills we  teach and our students learn during the first month of this academic year.  With a strong and safe community started, the second month of posts focused on verbs and nouns that can be used to elevate students understanding and mastery of the 21st Century college and career skills they need when they leave us.

This week I am turning to pronouns to merge both tending to our community while using powerful language that will enable our students’ intellectual growth.  

How might a salutation sting or a pronoun be powerful?

Many of us address our classes with “Ladies and Gentleman.” The salutation is meant as a form of respect - letting our students know that we don’t see them as children.

But to honor the diversity, including gender identity, in our community, it it time to review and potentially revise our choice of nouns and pronouns.The respectful language we expect and employ can protect and build the identity safety students need to grow.

Use a student's name instead of the potentially incorrect pronoun. Speak of “adults in your lives” rather than of parents, to honor those students who do not live with their parents. Substitute participant for citizen.  Perhaps even greet the class as Academic Aztecs, Educated Eagles, or Scholarly Spartans to respect gender diversity.

Changing our common nouns and pronouns will protect and honor some of our most vulnerable students and model thoughtful speaking and listening for all of our students.

MVLAUSHD does a great job of caring for and about all of our students and purposefully fostering a safe community, but painful language use persists for our students.

Data as a call to action

In their February 2014 publication, the California School Boards Association policy brief, the authors cited a study illustrating the common experience students have hearing hurtful speech:

In a national study* of students in grades 6-12, the majority reported hearing homophobic remarks frequently or often: 85 percent frequently or often heard “gay” used in a negative way, 71 percent heard other homophobic remarks and 61 percent heard negative remarks about students not acting “masculine enough” or “feminine enough.”

*Kosciw, J.G., Greytak, E.A., Bartkiewicz, M.J., Boesen, M.J., & Palmer, N.A. (2012). The 2011 National School Climate Survey: The Experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Youth in Our Nation’s Schools. New York: Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network. Available athttp://bit.ly/1ekZRv9

Our own words as teachers – while never intentionally painful – are particularly poignant for students. Potentially easier than the homework and revision policy discussions, we can also review the messages we send through our language.

One purpose of public high schools is to have one more chance at developing positive and powerful participants for our democratic society.  Purposeful pronouns and inclusive nouns can be a start as we continue to build a safe community and model our own growth mind set for our students.

Thank you to my many colleagues in the MVLAUHSD  who helped to articulate this concern.

A few more sources:

Teaching Tolerance’s Best Practices: Creating an LGBT-inclusive School Climate and

Teaching Tolerance's posting "the Problems with  Pronouns

Building blocks for Background knowledge: Need to know nouns

Vocabulary as a vehicle to strengthen and liberate working memory

M. Sprenger explains “Not only does background knowledge grow in the brains of our students, through their experiences, but the vocabulary words that are stored as a result of such experiences provide avenues to comprehend curriculum from the text, as well as lecture and discussion ( page 6, 2013)

Last week I listed the verbs that educational researchers indicate are critical for mastering the Common Core state standards as well as becoming college and career ready.  Below you can find a list of the nouns needed for the same goals.

Why nouns now?

Yes, the list below indicates that  students in our high school district should already be fluent in these nouns, but depending on their prior experiences, one of our students may still believe that an argument is a fight and forget that it also requires both writing a thesis and articulating critical thinking ( through critical thinking would be powerful in a fight).  And, given this variety of prior experiences,  we may work with a student who has not yet discovered that actual alliteration can absolutely be an advantageous, smart and silly way to learn and communicate.

So often we have students, especially those who are pushing themselves to take a first advanced class, who will quietly share “I  can’t talk as smart as the other students”.  With purposeful and targeted academic vocabulary instruction, we can bridge that opportunity gap and support our students’ courage and growth mindset.

Nouns in the Common Core

Nouns in the order they appear in the Common Core State Standards ( Springer, page 121) with some context:

1st grade: connections, details

2nd grade alliteration (see above)

3rd grade: central/main idea, illustration, point of view, stanza, theme

Identifying theme is asking students to clarify the message. The theme connects to and is more than the main idea.  The theme indicates a universal message that can clarify connections and requires abstract and thus higher order thinking.
4th grade: conclusion, evidence, figurative language, metaphor, simile, structure

The Common Core State Standards often ask for the teaching of conclusions requiring students to infer and the using  specific textual evidence.

Being aware and using Illustrations and structure will not only help students understand and remember information,  both make it easier for students to understand and remember concepts, thus liberating  working memory and giving more space for new concepts. Familiarity with structure will help students use that new prior knowledge when they tackle more sophisticated text.
Identifying and creating metaphors and similes are a proven best practice as they require the higher ordered thinking of comparing and contrasting.
5th grade: interaction, argument

One of the 5 shifts required by the CCSS is to teach argument instead of persuasion. Argument uses logic and evidence.

6th grade: connotative language, mood, tone

Understanding connotative and figurative language helps students identify tone. The most common figurative language is simile and metaphor (145).

7th grade: analogy

Analogies, though gone from the SAT, can be a useful learning stretch. Marzano lists identifying similarities and differences as one of the best ways to improve student achievement and playing with analogies provides practice in that skill. The logic required in identifying analogies is another crucial college and career readiness skill.  

8th rhetoric It’s an election year and we are working to prepare participants in our democratic society.
Enough rhetoric, next week: pronouns and identify safety.