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Lots of ways to assess

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Key Shifts in ELA, Click HERE Achieve the Core.org - Click HERE Lexile Framework for Reading - Click HERE Literacy Design Collaborative, Click HERE Learning Network (New York Times), Click HERE Learn...

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Blog | All Things PLC | Powered by Solution Tree

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Blog | All Things PLC | Powered by Solution Tree

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Answers WHY we formatively assess in PLC model.

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Richard DuFour, EdD, was a public school educator for 34 years. A prolific author and sought-after consultant, he is recognized as one of the leading authorities on helping school practitioners implement the PLC at Work™ process.

I had a conversation recently with a high school faculty that expressed several concerns regarding the idea that teachers teaching the same course or grade level should have common formative assessments periodically to identify students who were experiencing difficulty, to identify strengths and weaknesses in their program, and to give each teacher feedback on the how well his or her students had learned in comparison to all the students attempting to become proficient. Here is a summary of their concerns and my responses.

Common assessments will require lockstep pacing and uniform instruction.

Advocates of professional learning communities do not support either lock-step pacing or uniform instruction. Teachers remain free on a day-to-day basis to make instructional decisions, and PLCs benefit from diversity in instructional techniques so members can begin to observe which of those techniques are most effective in helping students achieve the intended outcomes of the unit and/or course. PLCs do insist that teachers agree to 1) ensure students have access to the same knowledge, skills, and dispositions regardless of the teacher to whom they are assigned and 2) to specify certain benchmark dates when the team will administer assessments to identify students who may be experiencing difficulty or areas of the curriculum needing attention. When teachers first begin this practice, we recommend they start with a minimum of four common assessments per course/subject, per year. Once they begin to see the benefits, they typically add more frequent assessments. So once again, there is no expectation that all teachers must be teaching the same content on the same day or using identical strategies. The expectation is that we will agree to teach certain concepts within the same window of time (perhaps six weeks) so that all students will be prepared for the common assessment.

The common assessments will limit us to a narrow focus or lower-level skills.

Teams are free to use a variety of assessment strategies, and many use performance-based assessments. The assessments can be as rigorous, varied, and authentic as the team decides and should provide the team with the information it will find most helpful in assessing its effectiveness. As an individual teacher, you can use whatever assessments you like all throughout the year, but at least four times a year we agree to use the same common assessment.

We are already assessing too much. This adds to the burden.

Common assessments need not be additional assessments. They should replace some of the individual assessments that teachers have traditionally given. Doug Reeves contends that American students are over-tested and under-assessed. Teachers in PLCs do not test more often, but they do use assessments that are far more powerful.

If we focus on student achievement on assessments, we diminish our efforts to develop the whole student.

This is a false dichotomy. There is no need to choose between academic achievement and developing the character of students, fostering a love or learning, or generating good citizens for a democracy. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois is cited repeatedly as a model professional learning community. It was also cited as a national model for its attention to teaching character (see The Good and Smart High School by Thomas Lickona) and was the only high school in the nation cited by NASSP for two consecutive years for the exceptional service its students provide to the community.

Posted in: Design Assessments

Tags: Common Assessments, common formative assessments, pacing, whole child

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Richard DuFour, EdD, was a public school educator for 34 years. A prolific author and sought-after consultant, he is recognized as one of the leading authorities on helping school practitioners implement the PLC at Work™ process.

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Dipsticks: Efficient Ways to Check for Understanding | Edutopia

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Dipsticks: Efficient Ways to Check for Understanding | Edutopia

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Lots of ways to assess

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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22 Easy Formative Assessment Techniques for Measuring Student Learning

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22 Easy Formative Assessment Techniques for Measuring Student Learning

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Lots of ways to assess

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A few years ago, I came across "10 assessments you can perform in 90 seconds" by TeachThought and really enjoyed the formative assessment strategies they outlined. Using formative assessment strategies in class during instruction-or "simple assessments," as they call them-is easy and provides the instant feedback teachers need to identify which learners need more help and adjust their instruction and lesson plans accordingly. Visit the blog above to get more detail on the following techniques:

1. New Clothes

2. Dos and Don'ts

3. Three Common Misunderstandings

4. Yes/No Chart

5. Three Questions

6. Explain What Matters

7. Big Picture

8. Venn Diagram

9. Draw It

10. Self-Directed Response

Combining these 10 with 10 others we've blogged about in the past gives teachers 20 great formative assessment strategies for checking on student learning. Be sure to click through to learn more about these formative assessment strategies.

Want more? Here are seven more strategies you can use to elicit evidence of student learning.

1. Entrance Tickets. We've blogged about and explained the Exit Ticket, so why not have an Entrance Ticket? Here, the teacher asks a question at the start of a lesson, and students write their responses on index cards or strips of paper. Answers are used to assess initial understanding of something to be discussed in that day's lesson or as a short summary of understanding of the previous day's lesson. The teacher designs the lesson around the fact that information on student learning will be coming in at the start of the lesson and can be used to improve the teaching and learning in that lesson. Be sure to write the question so it is easily interpreted and analyzed, allows time for you and/or the students to analyze the responses, and leaves space for you to adjust the lesson, if needed.

2. Keep the Question Going. With this formative assessment strategy, you'll ask one student a question and then ask another student if that answer seems reasonable or correct. Then, ask a third student for an explanation of why there is an agreement or not. This helps keep all the students engaged because they must be prepared to either agree or disagree with the answers given and provide explanations.

3. 30-Second Share. With this strategy, students take a turn to report something learned in a lesson for up to 30 seconds each. Connections to the learning targets or success criteria are what you'll be looking for in the language used by the student. Make this a routine at the end of a lesson so all students have the opportunity to participate, share insights, and clarify what was learned.

4. Parking Lot. This is an underused strategy for students and one that can surface questions before learning, as well as during and after. This tool also offers an anonymous place for questions that may be directly related to the content or tangential to the current topic and provide insight into student thinking. Simply save a spot on your whiteboard to write down ideas or questions that aren't completely relevant in the moment but should be revisited later.

5. One-Minute Paper. This might be considered a type of exit ticket as it is typically done near the end of the day. Ask your students, either individually or with a partner, to respond in writing to a single prompt. Typical prompts include:

Most important learning from the day and why

Most surprising concept and why

Most confusing topic and why

Something I think might appear on a test or quiz and why

3-2-1. At the end of the learning, this strategy provides students a way to summarize or even question what they just learned. Three prompts are provided for students to respond to:

3 things you didn't know before

2 things that surprised you about the topic

1 thing you want to start doing with what you've learned

Assessment Reflection. This strategy is a post-assessment reflection completed individually first and then shared in a small group. After an assessment, the teacher provides a list of questions so learners can reflect on their assessment experience. During group discussion, ideas are collected as new information to support students to better prepare for and engage in future assessments. Consider the following or similar questions. You might also use strategies such as Plus, Minus, Interesting, or Plus/Delta.

How engaged were you with this assessment? Why?

What did you feel most confident about? Why?

What did you do that led to your success or confidence?

What was the most difficult part of this assessment? Why?

What would you do differently next time?

What was the most confusing? Why?

What do you know about the topic that the assessment didn't allow you to show?

Dig in

All 27 of these formative assessment strategies are simple to administer and free or inexpensive to use. They'll provide you with the evidence of student learning you need to make lesson plan adjustments and keep learning on target and moving forward. They'll also give your students valuable information so they can adjust their learning tactics and know where to focus their energies.

If you're not quite sure where to get started, the following discussion questions can help.

Questions for teachers

How do you use formative assessment data to inform instructional decisions?

How can formative assessment strategies foster a learning environment of collaboration and engagement?

How do formative assessment strategies elicit evidence of student learning?

What is one strategy you could try tomorrow and why?

How do you use formative assessment data to drive school-wide instructional academic decisions?

How can you model formative assessment strategies in staff meetings, PLCs, and meetings with teachers?

What are three formative assessment strategies you could bring to your teachers and staff? Why do you feel these would be most effective at your school?

To learn more, visit the Formative Assessment Archive for Teach. Learn. Grow., and get more formative assessment tips and tricks in our e-book "Making it work: How formative assessment can supercharge your practice."

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27 Easy Formative Assessment Strategies for Gathering Evidence of Student Learning

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All 27 of these formative assessment strategies are simple to administer and free or inexpensive to use. They provide the teacher with the evidence of student learning needed to make lesson plan adjustments and keep learning on target and moving forward.

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Gathering Evidence of Student Achievement - Google Slides

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Gathering Evidence of Student Achievement - Google Slides

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Lots of ways to assess

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Lots of ways to assess