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Using data to inform instruction-learner printables (1)

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November 2005 | Volume 63 | Number 3
Assessment to Promote Learning Pages 19-24

Siobhan Leahy, Christine Lyon, Marnie Thompson and Dylan Wiliam

Second, the information arrives too late to be useful. We can use the results to make broad adjustments to curriculum, such as reteaching or spending more time on a unit, or identifying teachers who appear to be especially successful at teaching particular units. But if educators are serious about using assessment to improve instruction, then we need more fine-grained assessments, and we need to use the information they yield to modify instruction as we teach.

Changing Gears

What we need is a shift from quality control in learning to quality assurance. Traditional approaches to instruction and assessment involve teaching some given material, and then, at the end of teaching, working out who has and hasn't learned it-akin to a quality control approach in manufacturing. In contrast, assessment for learning involves adjusting teaching as needed while the learning is still taking place-a quality assurance approach. Quality assurance also involves a shift of attention from teaching to learning. The emphasis is on what the students are getting out of the process rather than on what teachers are putting into it, reminiscent of the old joke that schools are places where children go to watch teachers work.

In a classroom that uses assessment to support learning, the divide between instruction and assessment blurs. Everything students do-such as conversing in groups, completing seatwork, answering and asking questions, working on projects, handing in homework assignments, even sitting silently and looking confused-is a potential source of information about how much they understand. The teacher who consciously uses assessment to support learning takes in this information, analyzes it, and makes instructional decisions that address the understandings and misunderstandings that these assessments reveal. The amount of information can be overwhelming-one teacher likened it to "negotiating a swiftly flowing river"-so a key part of using assessment for learning is figuring out how to hone in on a manageable range of alternatives.

Research indicates that using assessment for learning improves student achievement. About seven years ago, Paul Black and one of us, Dylan Wiliam, found that students taught by teachers who used assessment for learning achieved in six or seven months what would otherwise have taken a year (1998). More important, these improvements appeared to be consistent across countries (including Canada, England, Israel, Portugal, and the United States), as well as across age brackets and content areas. We also found, after working with teachers in England, that these gains in achievement could be sustained over extended periods of time. The gains even held up when we measured student achievement with externally mandated standardized tests (see Wiliam, Lee, Harrison, & Black, 2004).

Using this research and these ideas as a starting point, we and other colleagues at Educational Testing Service (ETS) have been working for the last two years with elementary, middle, and high school teachers in Arizona, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania. We have deepened our understanding of how assessment for learning can work in U.S. classrooms, and we have learned from teachers about the challenges of integrating assessment into classroom instruction.

Our Work with Teachers

In 2003 and 2004, we explored a number of ways of introducing teachers to the key ideas of assessment for learning. In one model, we held a three-day workshop during the summer in which we introduced teachers to the main ideas of assessment for learning and the research that shows that it works. We then shared specific techniques that teachers could use in their classrooms to bring assessment to life. During the subsequent school year, we met monthly with these teachers, both to learn from them what really worked in their classrooms and to offer suggestions about ways in which they might develop their practice. We also observed their classroom practices to gauge the extent to which they were implementing assessment-for-learning techniques and to determine the effects that these techniques were having on student learning. In other models, we spaced out the three days of the summer institute over several months (for example, one day in March, one in April, and one in May) so that teachers could try out some of the techniques in their classes between meetings.

As we expected, different teachers found different techniques useful; what worked for some did not work for others. This confirmed for us that there could be no one-size-fits-all package. However, we did find a set of five broad strategies to be equally powerful for teachers of all content areas and at all grade levels:

Clarifying and sharing learning intentions and criteria for success.

Engineering effective classroom discussions, questions, and learning tasks.

Providing feedback that moves learners forward.

Activating students as the owners of their own learning.

Activating students as instructional resources for one another.

We think of these strategies as nonnegotiable in that they define the territory of assessment for learning. More important, we know from the research and from our work with teachers that these strategies are desirable things to do in any classroom.

However, the way in which a teacher might implement one of these strategies with a particular class or at a particular time requires careful thought. A self-assessment technique that works for students learning math in the middle grades may not work in a 2nd grade writing lesson. Moreover, what works for one 7th grade pre-algebra class may not work for the 7th grade pre-algebra class down the hall because of differences in the students or teachers.

Given this variability, it is important to offer teachers a range of techniques for each strategy, making them responsible for deciding which techniques they will use and allowing them time and freedom to customize these techniques to meet the needs of their students.

Teachers have tried out, adapted, and invented dozens of techniques, reporting on the results in meetings and interviews (to date, we have cataloged more than 50 techniques, and we expect the list to expand to more than 100 in the coming year). Many of these techniques require only subtle changes in practice, yet research on the underlying strategies suggests that they have a high "gearing"-meaning that these small changes in practice can leverage large gains in student learning (see Black & Wiliam, 1998; Wiliam, 2005). Further, the teaching practices that support these strategies are low-tech, low-cost, and usually feasible for individual teachers to implement. In this way, they differ dramatically from large-scale interventions, such as class size reduction or curriculum overhauls. We offer here a brief sampling of techniques for implementing each of the five assessment-for-learning strategies.

Clarify and Share Intentions and Criteria

Low achievement is often the result of students failing to understand what teachers require of them (Black & Wiliam, 1998). Many teachers address this issue by posting the state standard or learning objective in a prominent place at the start of the lesson, but such an approach is rarely successful because the standards are not written in student-friendly language.

Teachers in our various projects have explored many ways of making their learning objectives and their criteria for success transparent to students. One common method involves circulating work samples, such as lab reports, that a previous year's class completed, in view of prompting a discussion about quality. Students decide which reports are good and analyze what's good about the good ones and what's lacking in the weaker ones. Teachers have also found that by choosing the samples carefully, they can tune the task to the capabilities of the class. Initially, a teacher might choose four or five samples at very different quality levels to get students to focus on broad criteria for quality. As students grow more skilled, however, teachers can challenge them with a number of samples of similar quality to force the students to become more critical and reflective.

Engineer Effective Classroom Discussion

Many teachers spend a considerable proportion of their instructional time in whole-class discussion or question-and-answer sessions, but these sessions tend to rehearse existing knowledge rather than create new knowledge for students. Moreover, teachers generally listen for the "correct" answer instead of listening for what they can learn about the students' thinking; as Davis (1997) says, they listen evaluatively rather than interpretively. The teachers with whom we have worked have tried to address this issue by asking students questions that either prompt students to think or provide teachers with information that they can use to adjust instruction to meet learning needs.

As a result of this focus, teachers have become aware of the need to carefully plan the questions that they use in class. Many of our teachers now spend more time planning instruction than grading student work, a practice that emphasizes the shift from quality control to quality assurance. By thinking more carefully about the questions they ask in class, teachers can check on students' understanding while the students are still in the class rather than after they have left, as is the case with grading.

Some questions are designed as "range-finding" questions to reveal what students know at the beginning of an instructional sequence. For example, a high school biology teacher might ask the class how much water taken up by the roots of a corn plant is lost through transpiration. Many students believe that transpiration is "bad" and that plants try to minimize the amount of water lost in this process, whereas, in fact, the "lost" water plays an important role in transporting nutrients around the plant.

A middle school mathematics teacher might ask students to indicate how many fractions they can find between 1/6 and 1/7. Some students will think there aren't any; others may suggest an answer that, although in some way understandable, is an incorrect use of mathematical notation, such as 1 over 6½. The important feature of such range-finding items is that they can help a teacher judge where to begin instruction.

Of course, teachers can use the same item in a number of ways, depending on the context. They could use the question about fractions at the end of a sequence of instruction on equivalent fractions to see whether students have grasped the main idea. A middle school science teacher might ask students at the end of a laboratory experiment, "What was the dependent variable in today's lab?" A social studies teacher, at the end of a project on World War II, might ask students to state their views about which year the war began and give reasons supporting their choice.

Teachers can also use questions to check on student understanding before continuing the lesson. We call this a "hinge point" in the lesson because the lesson can go in different directions, depending on student responses. By explicitly integrating these hinge points into instruction, teachers can make their teaching more responsive to their students' needs in real time.

However, no matter how good the hinge-point question, the traditional model of classroom questioning presents two additional problems. The first is lack of engagement. If the classroom rule dictates that students raise their hands to answer questions, then students can disengage from the classroom by keeping their hands down. For this reason, many of our teachers have instituted the idea of "no hands up, except to ask a question." The teacher can either decide whom to call on to answer a question or use some randomizing device, such as a beaker of Popsicle sticks with the students' names written on them. This way, all students know that they need to stay engaged because the teacher could call on any one of them. One teacher we worked with reported that her students love the fairness of this approach and that her shyer students are showing greater confidence as a result of being invited to participate in this way. Other teachers have said that some students think it's unfair that they don't get a chance to show off when they know the answer.

The second problem with traditional questioning is that the teacher gets to hear only one student's thinking. To gauge the understanding of the whole class, the teacher needs to get responses from all the students in real time. One way to do this is to have all students write their answers on individual dry-erase boards, which they hold up at the teacher's request. The teacher can then scan responses for novel solutions as well as misconceptions. This technique would be particularly helpful with the fraction question we cited.

Another approach is to give each student a set of four cards labeled A, B, C, and D, and ask the question in multiple-choice format. If the question is well designed, the teacher can quickly judge the different levels of understanding in the class. If all students answer correctly, the teacher can move on. If no one answers correctly, the teacher might choose to reteach the concept. If some students answer correctly and some answer incorrectly, the teacher can use that knowledge to engineer a whole-class discussion on the concept or match up the students for peer teaching. Hinge-point questions provide a window into students' thinking and, at the same time, give the teacher some ideas about how to take the students' learning forward.

Provide Feedback That Moves Learners Forward

After the lesson, of course, comes grading. The problem with giving a student a grade and a supportive comment is that these practices don't cause further learning. Before they began thinking about assessment for learning, none of the teachers with whom we worked believed that their students spent as long considering teacher feedback as it had taken the teachers to provide that feedback. Indeed, the research shows that when students receive a grade and a comment, they ignore the comment (see Butler, 1988). The first thing they look at is the grade, and the second thing they look at is their neighbor's grade.

To be effective, feedback needs to cause thinking. Grades don't do that. Scores don't do that. And comments like "Good job" don't do that either. What does cause thinking is a comment that addresses what the student needs to do to improve, linked to rubrics where appropriate. Of course, it's difficult to give insightful comments when the assignment asked for 20 calculations or 20 historical dates, but even in these cases, feedback can cause thinking. For example, one approach that many of our teachers have found productive is to say to a student, "Five of these 20 answers are incorrect. Find them and fix them!"

Some of our teachers worried about the extra time needed to provide useful feedback. But once students engaged in self-assessment and peer assessment, the teachers were able to be more selective about which elements of student work they looked at, and they could focus on giving feedback that peers were unable to provide.

Teachers also worried about the reactions of administrators and parents. Some teachers needed waivers from principals to vary school policy (for example, to give comments rather than grades on interim assessments). Most principals were happy to permit these changes once teachers explained their reasons. Parents were also supportive. Some even said they found comments more useful than grades because the comments provided them with guidance on how to help their children.

Activate Students as Owners of Their Learning

Developing assessment for learning in one's classroom involves altering the implicit contract between teacher and students by creating shared responsibility for learning. One simple technique is to distribute green and red "traffic light" cards, which students "flash" to indicate their level of understanding (green = understand, red = don't understand). A teacher who uses this technique with her 9th grade algebra classes told us that one day she moved on too quickly, without scanning the students' cards. A student picked up her own card as well as her neighbors' cards, waved them in the air, and pointed at them wildly, with the red side facing the teacher. The teacher considered this ample proof that this student was taking ownership of her learning.

Students also take ownership of their learning when they assess their own work, using agreed-on criteria for success. Teachers can provide students with a rubric written in student-friendly language, or the class can develop the rubric with the teacher's guidance (for examples, see Black, Harrison, Lee, Marshall, & Wiliam, 2003). The teachers we have worked with report that students' self-assessments are generally accurate, and students say that assessing their own work helped them understand the material in a new way.

Activate Students as Instructional Resources for One Another

Getting students started with self-assessment can be challenging. Many teachers provide students with rubrics but find that the students seem unable to use the rubrics to focus and improve their work. For many students, using a rubric to assess their own work is just too difficult. But as most teachers know, students from kindergarten to 12th grade are much better at spotting errors in other students' work than in their own work. For that reason, peer assessment and feedback can be an important part of effective instruction. Students who get feedback are not the only beneficiaries. Students who give feedback also benefit, sometimes more than the recipients. As they assess the work of a peer, they are forced to engage in understanding the rubric, but in the context of someone else's work, which is less emotionally charged. Also, students often communicate more effectively with one another than the teacher does, and the recipients of the feedback tend to be more engaged when the feedback comes from a peer. When the teacher gives feedback, students often just "sit there and take it" until the ordeal is over.

Using peer and self-assessment techniques frees up teacher time to plan better instruction or work more intensively with small groups of students. It's also a highly effective teaching strategy. One cautionary note is in order, however. In our view, students should not be giving another student a grade that will be reported to parents or administrators. Peer assessment should be focused on improvement, not on grading.

Using Evidence of Learning to Adapt Instruction

One final strategy binds the others together: Assessment information should be used to adapt instruction to meet student needs.

As teachers listen to student responses to a hinge-point question or note the prevalence of red or green cards, they can make on-the-fly decisions to review material or to pair up those who understand the concept with those who don't for some peer tutoring. Using the evidence they have elicited, teachers can make instructional decisions that they otherwise could not have made.

At the end of the lesson, many of the teachers with whom we work use "exit passes." Students are given index cards and must turn in their responses to a question posed by the teacher before they can leave the classroom. Sometimes this will be a "big idea" question, to check on the students' grasp of the content of the lesson. At other times, it will be a range-finding question, to help the teacher judge where to begin the next day's instruction.

Teachers using assessment for learning continually look for ways in which they can generate evidence of student learning, and they use this evidence to adapt their instruction to better meet their students' learning needs. They share the responsibility for learning with the learners; students know that they are responsible for alerting the teacher when they do not understand. Teachers design their instruction to yield evidence about student achievement; for example, they carefully craft hinge-point questions to create "moments of contingency," in which the direction of the instruction will depend on student responses. Teachers provide feedback that engages students, make time in class for students to work on improvement, and activate students as instructional resources for one another.

All this sounds like a lot of work, but according to our teachers, it doesn't take any more time than the practices they used to engage in. And these techniques are far more effective. Teachers tell us that they are enjoying their teaching more.

Supporting Teacher Change

None of these ideas is new, and a large and growing research base shows that implementing them yields substantial improvement in student learning. So why are these strategies and techniques not practiced more widely? The answer is that knowing about these techniques and strategies is one thing; figuring out how to make them work in your own classroom is something else.

That's why we're currently developing a set of tools and workshops to support teachers in developing a deep and practical understanding of assessment for learning, primarily through the vehicle of school-based teacher learning communities. After we introduce teachers to the basic principles of assessment for learning, we encourage them to try out two or three techniques in their own classrooms and to meet with other colleagues regularly-ideally every month-to discuss their experiences and see what the other teachers are doing (see Black, Harrison, Lee, Marshall, & Wiliam, 2003, 2004). Teachers are accountable because they know they will have to share their experiences with their colleagues. However, each teacher is also in control of what he or she tries out. Over time, the teacher learning community develops a shared language that enables teachers to talk to one another about what they are doing. Teachers build individual and collective skill and confidence in assessment for learning. Colleagues help them decide when it is time to move on to the next challenge as well as point out potential pitfalls.

In many ways, the teacher learning community approach is similar to the larger assessment-for-learning approach. Both focus on where learners are now, where they want to go, and how we can help them get there.

References

Black, P., Harrison, C., Lee, C., Marshall, B., & Wiliam, D. (2003). Assessment for learning: Putting it into practice. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press.

Black, P., Harrison, C., Lee, C., Marshall, B., & Wiliam, D. (2004). Working inside the black box: Assessment for learning in the classroom. Phi Delta Kappan, 86(1), 8-21.

Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (1998). Inside the black box: Raising standards through classroom assessment. Phi Delta Kappan, 80(2), 139-147.

Butler, R. (1988). Enhancing and undermining intrinsic motivation. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 58, 1-14.

Davis, B. (1997). Listening for differences: An evolving conception of mathematics teaching. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 28(3), 355-376.

Wiliam, D. (2005). Keeping learning on track: Formative assessment and the regulation of learning. In M. Coupland, J. Anderson, & T. Spencer (Eds.), Making mathematics vital: Proceedings of the twentieth biennial conference of the Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers (pp. 26-40). Adelaide, Australia: Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers.

Wiliam, D., Lee, C., Harrison, C., & Black, P. J. (2004). Teachers developing assessment for learning: Impact on student achievement. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 11(1), 49-65.

Siobhan Leahy, Christine Lyon, Marnie Thompson, and Dylan Wiliam ( dwiliam@ets.org) work in the Learning and Teaching Research Center, Educational Testing Service, Rosedale Rd., Princeton, NJ 08541.

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Classroom Assessment: Minute by Minute, Day by Day

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November 2005 | Volume 63 | Number 3 Assessment to Promote Learning Pages 19-24 Siobhan Leahy, Christine Lyon, Marnie Thompson and Dylan Wiliam Second, the information arrives too late to be useful. We can use the results to make broad adjustments to curriculum, such as reteaching or spending more time on a unit, or identifying teachers who appear to be especially successful at teaching particular units.

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Assessment Plan Documents MSU Public Affairs Mission Assessment Plan Instructional Webinar

Assessment is a constant cycle of improvement. Data gathering is ongoing. The goal of assessment, whether for an academic department or a program, is to provide: (a) a clear conceptualization of intended student learning outcomes, (b) a description of how these outcomes are assessed and measured, (c) a description of the results obtained from these measures, and (d) a description of how these results validate current practices or point to changes needed to improve student learning.

Academic departments or programs need to constantly ask: What do we want students to be able to know, do, and appreciate and how do we know that students are achieving the intended learning outcomes? After implementing an assessment plan and measuring student learning outcomes, departments, programs, and units need to analyze the results obtained and use those results to make necessary changes or improvements to the unit or program.

Before beginning, it is important to have the proper structure in place to ensure that the process, once in place, is self-sustaining. For this reason, it will be recommended that each department forms a Departmental Assessment Committee (DAC), which will ideally be comprised of at least one representative from each program. Members of the DAC would understand the purpose and importance of assessment and would be willing to share their knowledge, expertise, and interest in assessment with other faculty members in their department. To alleviate faculty workload on the DAC, a rotating chair model can be implemented. The assessment work and process is more likely to become part of the University culture if faculty collectively buy into the assessment procedures, agree on the important learning outcomes, ways to measures these outcomes, what the data suggest, and what the results mean for program improvement.

The Four Steps of the Assessment Cycle

Step 1: Clearly define and identify the learning outcomes

Each program should formulate between 3 and 5 learning outcomes that describe what students should be able to do (abilities), to know (knowledge), and appreciate (values and attitudes) following completion of the program. The learning outcomes for each program will include Public Affairs learning outcomes addressing community engagement, cultural competence, and ethical leadership.

Step 2: Select appropriate assessment measures and assess the learning outcomes

Multiple ways of assessing the learning outcomes are usually selected and used. Although direct and indirect measures of learning can be used, it is usually recommended to focus on direct measures of learning. Levels of student performance for each outcome is often described and assessed with the use of rubrics.

It is important to determine how the data will be collected and who will be responsible for data collection. Results are always reported in aggregate format to protect the confidentiality of the students assessed.

Step 3: Analyze the results of the outcomes assessed

It is important to analyze and report the results of the assessments in a meaningful way. A small subgroup of the DAC would ideally be responsible for this function. The assessment division of the FCTL would support the efforts of the DAC and would provide data analysis and interpretation workshops and training.

Step 4: Adjust or improve programs following the results of the learning outcomes assessed

Assessment results are worthless if they are not used. This step is a critical step of the assessment process. The assessment process has failed if the results do not lead to adjustments or improvements in programs. The results of assessments should be disseminated widely to faculty in the department in order to seek their input on how to improve programs from the assessment results. In some instances, changes will be minor and easy to implement. In other instances, substantial changes will be necessary and recommended and may require several years to be fully implemented.

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Assessment Plan Documents MSU Public Affairs Mission Assessment Plan Instructional Webinar Assessment is a constant cycle of improvement. Data gathering is ongoing.

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Transcript

If I were the reading king I would have required mandatory, early screening for all children in kindergarten and grade one and grade two. We've had a law like that in Texas since 1997. And what we would do is develop, well, we have developed very short, for early screening we developed short instruments that take less than five minutes, they're teacher administered. They vary depending on what the child needs to know in kindergarten, grade one, and grade two.

And they accurately identify kids who are not at risk. And that may seem odd to talk about identifying kids accurately who are not at risk, but a lot of people worry about over identification of kids at risk. It is far more serious an error to miss a kid who is at risk than to identify a kid not at risk, because you should follow up - an early screening instrument with a re-inventory or progress monitoring and that will tell you which child is going to be developing as they should and which child is still going to struggle.

So missing a child is a far more serious issue than falsely identifying a child. So our instrument is geared towards identifying children who are not at risk and very accurately the false positive rate goes down over time quite a bit, so that the instrument is quite accurate by the middle of first grade.

In Texas we developed the Texas Primary Reading Inventory for schools to use in Texas. It was free to schools in Texas and 1.95 percent of all the school districts in Texas were using it. We then expanded the list in Texas to include other instruments that showed reliability and validity. The idea behind the screen is that it has to reduce teacher burden. It has to be very short, it has to permit rapid triage of the entire classroom, and it does one simple thing in a very automatic way.

It either says that a child is at risk or not at risk. Once you identify children who are at risk, you spend more time doing an inventory or reading assessment or progress monitoring, something like that, because you need to put the child into a surveillance system where you know how all children are doing. And then you can begin to introduce interventions in the general education classroom and then intensify the interventions based on how the child responds to general education classroom instruction.

Submitted by: Schools & Districts

References

Petscher, Y., Fien, H., Stanley, C., Gearin, B., Gaab, N., Fletcher, J.M., & Johnson, E. (2019). Screening for Dyslexia. Retrieved from improving literacy.org.

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What can we learn by screening kids early?

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Transcript If I were the reading king I would have required mandatory, early screening for all children in kindergarten and grade one and grade two. We've had a law like that in Texas since 1997. And what we would do is develop, well, we have developed very short, for early screening we developed short instruments that take less than five minutes, they're teacher administered.

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Four Questions to Ask After Universal Screening

Screening for dyslexia risk should be part of a decision-making framework that answers four fundamental questions.

1. Is the student at risk for dyslexia or not meeting important pre-reading and reading goals expected for the grade level?

2. Is the student making enough reading progress to read proficiently and reach important reading goals?

Frequent reading assessments can monitor students' progress toward overall proficient reading and important reading goals.

These assessments can help determine if students are responding adequately to evidence-based instruction and interventions or if instruction and interventions should be modified or intensified.

3. Is the student reading with sufficient proficiency to meet grade level reading expectations and important reading goals?

Overall assessments can determine if students are reading proficiently and are reaching important reading goals.

4. For students not making adequate reading progress despite intervention, what additional intervention approaches have the best chance of improving the rate of reading progress?

Diagnostic assessments can provide detailed information about students' reading skills for the purposes of developing and implementing individualized interventions for students.

National Center on Improving Literacy (2019). Four questions to ask after universal screening. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, Office of Special Education Programs, National Center on Improving Literacy. Retrieved from http://improvingliteracy.org.

Petscher, Y., Fien, H., Stanley, C., Gearin, B., Gaab, N., Fletcher, J.M., & Johnson, E. (2019). Screening for Dyslexia. Retrieved from improving literacy.org.

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Four Questions to Ask After Universal Screening

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Screening for dyslexia risk should be part of a decision-making framework that answers four fundamental questions. 1. Is the student at risk for dyslexia or not meeting important pre-reading and reading goals expected for the grade level? 2. Is the student making enough reading progress to read proficiently and reach important reading goals?

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Formative Assessment (Strategic Assessment System, Part 1)

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Years ago, I honestly believed that even if the principal of a school wasn't focused on improving student literacy, supporting a few good teachers could still be enough to succeed in driving literacy improvement. But, while it's not impossible to achieve success when the principal isn't committed to leading the way, it is a really tough road.

What does it take for a principal to establish a school-wide culture dedicated to improving literacy?

According to the Wallace Foundation, an organization that supports school leadership research, there is an empirical connection between campus leadership and improved student achievement.

The Wallace perspective suggests that principals need to consistently perform these five practices to implement a school-wide literacy initiative that improves student achievement.

1. Shaping a vision of academic success for all students. An essential element of campus leadership requires developing a school-wide vision of high standards and success for all students. Principals need to communicate the desired (and monitor the actual) direction and destination of all teachers and staff members to ensure ongoing improvement.

2. Creating a climate hospitable to education. Effective principals foster and cultivate a cooperative and solution-oriented environment for staff as well as students. When the culture is toxic, this becomes the number one priority.

3. Cultivating leadership in others. Teachers and staff members need to have a direct responsibility in realizing the school vision. Sharing leadership with faculty provides greater access to collective knowledge and improves teachers' working relationships with one another.

4. Improving instruction. For teachers to teach at their best, and students to learn to at the highest level, principals need to define and promote high expectations, emphasize research-based strategies, and encourage continual professional learning.

5. Managing people, data, and processes. To foster school improvement effective leaders nurture and support their staffs and hire carefully. They rely on campus statistics and supporting evidence to identify problems, to understand cause and effect, and to provide sound solutions.

Effective leaders walk through classrooms on a regular basis often spending less than 10 minutes observing. I've trained hundreds of principals to use an observation form that is tied to eight key characteristics for effective literacy instruction. These campus leaders learn to identify great instructional practices and share constructive input with teachers who require additional support. In addition, these principals review student data with their staff to celebrate success and to identify areas where intervention is needed.

To properly implement early intervention initiatives, a principal must be committed to systemically solving reading problems before it's too late, and play a significant participatory role. The principal needs to be an instructional leader in this process and not just an observer. Without this leadership, the initiative is less likely to succeed.

One thing I've noticed in "beat the odds" building is that many leaders use a stimulus to make a change on the campus. Implementing practices to improve literacy achievement can't be simply mandates handed down from the district office. Good leaders identify 3-4 data points showing low student test scores, and use these reasons as a "call to action" with the teachers. Keep in mind that the closer the need for change is tied to student needs, the easier it will be to motivate your teachers. Be sure that at least one of your teachers has the foundational knowledge required to teach struggling readers, to advise administrators and to coach other teachers.

Take a moment to reflect on your leadership style and how well you work with your staff to improve student achievement. Do you share responsibility and delegate leadership roles to your staff? Is this working? Do you hold all staff members accountable for student success? How do your leadership skills cultivate literacy improvement on your campus? Will your EOY reading benchmarks warrant a celebration or signal the need for instructional leadership improvement and early intervention for Fall 2017?

For more, see:
Dr. Susan Hall is an educational consultant and founder of95 Percent Group, Inc. Follow her on Twitter:@SusanHall_EdD Stay in-the-know with all things EdTech and innovations in learning by signing up to receive the weekly Smart Update

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How Effective School Leadership Drives Literacy Improvement

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Years ago, I honestly believed that even if the principal of a school wasn't focused on improving student literacy, supporting a few good teachers could still be enough to succeed in driving literacy improvement. But, while it's not impossible to achieve success when the principal isn't committed to leading the way, it is a really tough road.

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The following statement must be included in each school district's or charter school's student handbook.

Aiding Students Who Have Learning Difficulties or Who Need Special Education or Section 504 Services

For those students who are having difficulty in the regular classroom, all school districts and open enrollment charter schools must consider tutorial, compensatory, and other academic or behavior support services that are available to all students, including a process based on Response to Intervention (RtI). The implementation of RtI has the potential to have a positive impact on the ability of districts and charter schools to meet the needs of all struggling students.

If a student is experiencing learning difficulties, his or her parent may contact the individual(s) listed below to learn about the school's overall general education referral or screening system for support services. This system links students to a variety of support options, including making a referral for a special education evaluation or for a Section 504 evaluation to determine if the student needs specific aids, accommodations, or services.A parent may request an evaluation for special education or Section 504 services at any time.

If a parent makes a written request for an initial evaluation for special education services to the director of special education services or an administrative employee of the school district or open enrollment charter school, the district or charter school must respond no later than 15 school days after receiving the request. At that time, the district or charter school must give the parent a prior written notice of whether it agrees to or refuses to evaluate the student, along with a copy of the Notice of Procedural Safeguards .If the school district or charter school agrees to evaluate the student, it must also give the parent the opportunity to give written consent for the evaluation.

Please note that a request for a special education evaluation may be made verbally and does not need to be in writing.Districts and charter schools must still comply with all federal prior written notice and procedural safeguard requirements and the requirements for identifying, locating, and evaluating children who are suspected of being a child with a disability and in need of special education. However, a verbal request does not require the district or charter school to respond within the 15-school-day timeline.

If the district or charter school decides to evaluate the student, it must complete the student's initial evaluation and evaluation report no later than 45 school days from the day it receives a parent's written consent to evaluate the student.However, if the student is absent from school during the evaluation period for three or more school days, the evaluation period will be extended by the number of school days equal to the number of school days that the student is absent.

There is an exception to the 45-school-day timeline. If a district or charter school receives a parent's consent for the initial evaluation at least 35 but less than 45 school days before the last instructional day of the school year, it must complete the written report and provide a copy of the report to the parent by June 30 of that year. However, if the student is absent from school for three or more days during the evaluation period, the June 30th due date no longer applies. Instead, the general timeline of 45 school days plus extensions for absences of three or more days will apply.

Upon completing the evaluation, the district or charter school must give the parent a copy of the evaluation report at no cost.

Additional information regarding special education is available from the district or charter school in a companion document titled Parent's Guide to the Admission, Review, and Dismissal Process.

Contact Person for Special Education Referrals:

The designated person to contact regarding options for a student experiencing learning difficulties or regarding a referral for evaluation for special education services is:

Contact Person:

Phone Number:

Each school district or charter school must have standards and procedures in place for the evaluation and placement of students in the district's or charter school's Section 504 program. Districts and charter schools must also implement a system of procedural safeguards that includes notice, an opportunity for a parent or guardian to examine relevant records, an impartial hearing with an opportunity for participation by the parent or guardian and representation by counsel, and a review procedure.

Contact Person for Section 504 Referrals:

The designated person to contact regarding options for a student experiencing learning difficulties or regarding a referral for evaluation for Section 504 services is:

Contact Person:

Phone Number:

The following websites provide information and resources for students with disabilities and their families.

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The following statement must be included in each school district's or charter school's student handbook. For those students who are having difficulty in the regular classroom, all school districts and open enrollment charter schools must consider tutorial, compensatory, and other academic or behavior support services that are available to all students, including a process based on Response to Intervention (RtI).

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FINAL Child Find and Evaluation _11.5.19_accessible-locked_r

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Validity is broadly defined as how well something measures what it’s supposed to measure. The reliability and validity of scores from assessments are two concepts that are closely knit together and feed into each other. Marianne Miserandino’s Ice Cream Personality Test can help illustrate their over…

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Reliability is a term that we as professionals frequently encounter, but just as often can take for granted. Simply, reliability is the consistency of a set of scores that are designed to measure the same thing. Suppose that a family is shopping at a supermarket and as the family makes their way to the produce section, the children decide to weigh a watermelon on five of the scales to figure out how much it costs. Reliability in measurement refers to how consistently the five scales provide the same weight for the watermelon.

WHY DOES RELIABILITY MATTER?

In this example, if each scale gave a different weight for the fruit, the shopper would not know the cost of the watermelon, and thus may not be able to make an informed decision about whether or not to buy it. The decision about how to act on a set of information requires that the information itself is trustworthy. When teachers, school psychologists, or other school personnel administer screeners of reading, there is typically an implicit trust or assumption that the obtained scores from the screener accurately reflect a student's ability, and there is little to no error in the score. In reality, reliability is a statistical property of scores that must be demonstrated rather than assumed.

FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE RELIABILITY

There are two broad factors that may impact the reliability of scores: systematic errors and random errors. Systematic errors include test-maker factors such as how items are constructed, errors that may occur in the administration of the assessment, and errors that may occur in the scoring of the assessment. Systematic errors may also include test-taker factors such as how tired the child is at the time of the assessment. Random errors tend to be more unpredictable in nature, such as the amount of noise in the classroom at the time of assessment. Test makers are charged with minimizing the types of systematic errors through the development and validation process of building screening assessments. Random errors cannot be controlled like systematic errors; however, statistical confidence intervals can be created to measure the uncertainty level of reliability for a set of scores. The wider the confidence interval, the greater the random error in reliability and the narrower the confidence interval the less random error in reliability.

FORMS OF RELIABILITY

At the outset of this brief, we defined reliability as the consistency of a set of scores that are designed to measure something. There are many forms or types of reliability. Internal consistency broadly refers to how well a set of item scores correlate with each other. Alternate form describes how well two different sets of items within an assessment correlate with each other. Test-retest is concerned with how stable two sets of scores are over a fixed period of time. Inter-rater is associated with how two different of observers of a behavior rate the behavior in the same way. Each of the forms of reliability are distinct and useful for their own purposes but should not be used interchangeably.

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Suggested Citation

Petscher, Y., Pentimonti, J., & Stanley, C. (2019). Reliability. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, Office of Special Education Programs, National Center on Improving Literacy. Retrieved from improving literacy.org.

Abstract

Reliability is the consistency of a set of scores that are designed to measure the same thing. Reliability is a statistical property of scores that must be demonstrated rather than assumed.

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Reliability is a term that we as professionals frequently encounter, but just as often can take for granted. Simply, reliability is the consistency of a set of scores that are designed to measure the same thing.

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A Danielson Observation of a TCRWP Second Grade Reading Workshop and Interactive Read Aloud - Pre Conference