How the Changing Face of Assessments Align with Teaching

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How the Changing Face of Assessments Align with
Teaching Student Learning in the NCLB Era

• Presented by

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Tina Turn

• April 2009

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Bemidji State University ED 6120 Critical Issues
in Education Professor Shari Olson
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The goal of this presentation is for you to think
about your current view of educational assessment
and whether or not it is an issue that deserves
evaluation in our current educational climate.

• Whats your view?

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Topic areas
History of Definitions Effects of NCLB
on 21st Century learners Practical
Applications Professional development
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History of Assessments

• through the years

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Teachers have used many evaluation methods
through the centuries. Usually, the methods are
reflective of their contemporary society,
exemplified by the following periods. (Tucker
Stronge, 2005, pg. 16)
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Oral exams were popular in Platos times
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During the Protestant Reformation, memorization
was most important.
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This memorization recitation of text
(particularly biblical text) extended into
American colonial education.
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After the Revolutionary War and into the 20th
Century, assessment content was more secular, but
oral exams remained the assessment of choice.
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After the Civil War, industry modernization
helped to create mass production of paper and
pens. Thus, educators began using written exams
as their primary means of assessment.
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By the 20th century, pencils were the writing
utensil of choice and standardized tests debuted
as the new breed of assessment. (Tucker
Stronge, 2005, pg. 17)
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Standardized Testing

• 20th Century --

• 21st CenturyNCLB

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Another historical example (Hagstrom, 2006, pg.
11)
Industrial Age vs. Information Age
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Hagstrom, in 2006, said that during the
Industrial Age, things were measurable and solid.
In the current Information Age, varying cultures
and values make measures increasingly complex.
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People will map success and failure by path
analysis and pattern generation rather than with
bar graph representation. In the electronically
connected world of the Communication Age, knowing
what is insufficient. Knowing how is and
will be the key to future self-efficacy and
career development. (Hagstrom, 2006, pg. 11).
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One final historical perspective (Stiggins, 2005,
pg. 1)
Traditional school assessments like the pop quiz
or the final exam were thought to motivate
students through the fear of failure.
Assessment as intimidator!
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In 2005, Stiggins maintains
When in the early grades students score high on
these types of assessments, the emotional impact
is great and they become confident and risk
striving for more success because they believe
they can.
When these same students do not score well, they
question their own capabilities. Their
confidence wanes, motivation is reversed
performance plummets.
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Instead of leaving no child left behind, these
practices, in effect, drove down the achievement
of at least as many students as they successfully
elevated. (Stiggins, 2005, pg. 2)
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Definitions of Assessment

• Lets all get on the same page

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There is no single officially sanctified and
universally accepted definition of formative
assessment. (Popham, 2008, pg. 3)
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Add in summative assessment and call every sort
of evaluation a general assessment and everyone
is confused!
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The following slides show examples of
definitions. Everyone seems to have their own.
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Formative Assessment

• (Popham, 2008, pg. 5)

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Formative vs. Summative

• Teachers administer formative assessment while
  students are learning.
• Teachers administer summative assessments at the
  end of learning experiences.

• (Marzano, 2007, pg. 12-13)

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Assessment vs. Grading
Assessment focuses on gathering student
achievement that can be used to make
instructional decisions. Grading is an
end-point judgment about student achievement.
(Tomlinson McTighe, 2006, pg. 131).
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Assessment is the act of determining the extent
to which the desired results are on the way to
being achieved and to what extent they have been
achieved. (Wiggins McTighe , 2005, pg. 6).
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Formative testing seems to mean just about
anything thats non-summative. (Sausner, 2005,
pg. 4).

• Testing becomes formative when the results are
  used to adapt teaching to meet needs.

• Its not about giving the assessments, its about
  doing something about the results.

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This type of formative assessment is used to
inform, support and enhance the learning
process.
Assessment for learning (Clark, 2008, pg. 1)
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Definition summary

• putting it all together

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Formative assessment is the kind of assessment
teachers need to focus much of their attention on
because it is where most of the learning takes
place.
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It is a process.It is ongoing.It is dynamic.It
involves a lot more than frequent testing.
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Teaching in the 21st century means we have to
move away from standard assessment.
We have not been trained to assess a process.
(Nardone, 2005, pg. 293). In teaching skills
required in the current world, teachers need to
emphasize problem solving, critical-thinking
skills engagement all things that cant be
assessed purely with a summative tool.
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The Josh Ellie Test. (Pollock, 2007, pg. 20)
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Pollocks kids are named Josh Ellie. At a
professional development workshop, she was
broached with the question, Is your classroom
good enough for(insert your childs names.)
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She realized she was failing the Josh Ellie
test because

• Her classroom was not focused on learning

• It was focused on grades and points

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The Lexi, Marlee Morgan test

• As a teacher, I will forever on ask myself if my
  class is focused on learning and not just grades.

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In order to have classrooms that pass that
important test, we need to focus on assessments
that work in the

• 21st Century

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NCLB makes this a challenge
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The NCLB state accountability assessments yield a
single overall proficiency score that is used to
judge the sufficiency of student learning.
(Stiggins, 2005, pg. 3). These same tests are
unable to provide evidence of each students
mastery of individual standards.
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When teachers have to focus on preparing kids for
these summative types of tests, the importance of
formative assessment for learning is lost.
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Current assessments dont do the job. State
testing and accountability are aimed at schools,
not individual student learning. Students cant
improve without constant, real-time assessment
and feedbackformative assessment. (Pearlman,
2006, pg. 3)
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As a result of overvaluing of test results, the
curriculum has narrowed (Nichols Berliner,
2008, pg. 15).
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Nichols Berliner (2008) believe students are
more hard working and persistent when the purpose
of learning is for

• Achievement of personal goals

• Self-improvement

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Nichols Berliner (2008) also maintain that the
high stakes testing climate sends a message
that

• The primary purpose of learning is to

• score well on the test.

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If that is what the NCLB era has done for
education, true classroom learning is in danger!!
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Heres a sad quote

• about NCLB testing for teachers who are
  practicing effective formative assessment

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The sad reality is that almost all of todays
educational accountability tests are
instructionally insensitive, incapable of
detecting the difference between effective and
ineffective instructionthe bulk of learning
benefits from classroom formative assessment
simply wont show up in the test resultsbecause
the tests are incapable of measuring it.

• Popham, 2008, pg. 123

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Even though for now,we still have to abide by
NCLB testing, we need to stay committed to
student learning.

• Heres one way to measure real individual
  learning

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A much more accurate measure of what a student
has learned would be reflected by an assessment
that is curriculum-aligned and administered both
at the beginning and end of the year. (Tucker
Stronge, 2005, pg. 9).
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That strategy would employ a pre-knowledge
assessment, a summative assessment and allow for
a lot of formative assessment in the middle.
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The best of both worlds!
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The real learning is often in the doing or in
the process leading up to the product.

• (Cyboran, 2006, pg. 2)

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Another difficult challenge
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We talk about teaching our students to be ready
for the 21st century, but how have we
deliberately changed our pedagogy?

• Pollock, 2007, pg. 63

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Technology poses problems for some teachers who
think it makes learning harder to assess or who
use it merely as an add-on activity.

• In the 21st Century, we cant let those ideas
  limit the possibilities our information age
  offers.

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Instead, heres a good philosophy to adopt

• Pollock, 2007, pg. 99

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Ive come to believe that students would benefit
more if we moved away from teaching them how to
use technology and toward teaching them how to
use technology to learn and think.
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Here are ways to empower student learning in the
21st century
Pollock, 2007, pg. 99
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Many teachers struggle to quantify learning when
there is no right or wrong answers. Current
employers are looking more for thinking skills
and the ability to find answers rather than
simply possessing all the answers.
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How many golf balls fit in a school bus?
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A friend told me she was asked that bus question
at a recent job interview.
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The interviewer wanted to see critical thinking
skills

• He wasnt looking for a right or wrong answer.

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Any of these questions would have worked by
showing critical thinking skills
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Now that weve talked about the history of
assessment, the definition of assessment, the
problems of assessment in the NCLB era, and the
importance of assessment when there are not
always right or wrong answers, lets look at some
examples one could use.
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Sometimes we design activities in stead of create
learning experiences for our assessments

• If the experiences are built around thinking
  skills, then they have skills that can be
  assessed for understanding
• (Pollock, 2007, pg. 99)

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Pollock shows the differences between a 5th grade
activity and a 5th grade learning experience
in the following two slides
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5th grade activity

• Do an internet scavenger hunt
• Teacher has located websites about immigration
  for the students
• Theyll use those websites to find information to
  answer questions on a worksheet
• Teacher will look to see if theyve answered the
  questions accurately

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5th grade learning experience

• Use the Library of Congress web site together to
  see photos and early films of immigrants
• Next, they will examine numbers and try to
  identify patterns of settlement and assimilation
• They will find that information on other websites
  where theyll take notes
• Theyll graph statistics and draw conclusions
  about benefits of immigration and patterns they
  see today

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The differences

• The activity gives them sites without allowing
  them how to search be discriminate in choice
• The teacher is only assessing based on right or
  wrong answers gleaned

• The learning experience allows for opportunities
  to search
• It forces them to analyze information and draw
  conclusions
• It is inquiry based and assessed

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Instead of a strict summative assessment at the
end of the activity, the teacher could design a
rubric for the learning experience that allows
her to assess different criteria or benchmarks
needed to meet current standards.
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The key is, their learning is still assessed
without a definitive grade attached to it.

• To guide, strengthen deepen understanding
  should be the assessment goal

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Using six facets to build assessments for
understanding

• Wiggins McTighe, 2005, pg. 163, 164

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A student who really under-stands

• can do the following

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can explain
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can interpret
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can apply
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can see in perspective
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can demonstrate empathy
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can reveal self-knowledge
can reveal self-knowledge
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When you analyze your use of classroom
assessment, do those six facets figure in?
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Self-Assessment can be a good

• formative assessment tool

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Using reflection journals can help a teacher
assess student understanding
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support
draft
compare
collaborate
generalize
define
explain
revise
organize
hypothesize
question
research
conclude
practice
connect
reflect
analyze
evaluate
challenge
clarify
consider
solve
examine
listen
refine
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The previous words were just a few skills and
abilities that teachers need to assess everyday.
That variety suggests the teacher may want to
consider many assessment tools during the course
of learning.
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Here are just a few examples of what some
teachers use to assess students in a formative
way.
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Whiteboard response
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Each student has an individual whiteboard. They
use it to respond to teacher questions. The
teacher can take a quick look around the room to
assess how many people understand.(Marzano,
2007, pg. 108-109)
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Traffic signal technique
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Students have three stacked cups on their desk
one green for understanding, one yellow cup which
signifies I have questions, and a red cup which
means, Im really not understanding. Students
self-declare/self-assess their level of knowledge
by placing the appropriate colored cup on top.
(Popham, 2008, pg. 61)
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Clickers
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Clickers are gaining popularity across the
nation. Clickers record data on individual
students, immediately showing a teacher whether a
student really understood what was just
taught. (Wertheimer, 2009)
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Rubrics
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Rubrics meet the demands of objectivity
(Wilson, 2008, pg. 78). Rubrics allow for
conversation and feedback and provide room for
growth. Assessments can happen at the beginning,
middle and end of projects when using rubrics.
The downside of rubrics is they take time to
make.
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Those were just four examples of assessment out
of hundreds of options and ideas.
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Professional Development

• How do we get better?

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Training in this area has been lacking
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In W. James Pophams book, Transformative
Assessment, (2008) he emphasizes three needs

• for any assessment teacher training program

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1. Definitional clarity of assessment
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2. Reliance on assessment-elicited evidence to
help make improvements and adjustments
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• Honest appraisal of the merits
• of particular assessment methods.

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Four levels of assessment in schools
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With employers hiring graduates with exemplary
thinking skills, creating learning environments
that are able to best assess those skills is
important.
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Does that mean formative assessment is best? Or
summative assessment is best? Or a combination of
both?
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You be the judge

• and jury

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A final quote

• Ohler, 2008

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Assessment is a pivotal point in the education
process. It is how we determine how our students
are doing as learners and how we are doing as
teachers. It is also how we communicate with the
public about the status of education in our
communities.
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You can share this presentation with colleagues
or friends. Please find it at www.kittson.k12.mn.
us under the teachers tab.
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