# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Integrating diagnostic assessment into curriculum- a theoretical framework and teaching practices

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A beginners guide to sheltered instruction strategies

# data[].attributes.headline
Identifying & Developing Valid & Reliable Assessments 

# data[].attributes.subject
Identifying & Developing Valid & Reliable Assessments 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I am going to start with a rather big claim: asking and responding to diagnostic questions is the single most important thing I do every lesson. This article will be my attempt to convince you why.

For 13 years, I have taught math (or "maths," as I like to call it) to students ages 11 to 18 in the United Kingdom. For much of my career, I did not reflect on why I was doing the things I did. I was a relatively successful teacher, whose students always got decent results and seemed to enjoy their lessons, and that was good enough for me. It was only when I started my Mr Barton Maths Podcast that my cozy little world began to crumble. Interviewing educators from around the world really made me stop and question practices that I had done for many years without really thinking about them. These conversations led to two years of reading hundreds of books and research articles; trying, failing, and tweaking new ideas with my students; and eventually writing a book: How I Wish I'd Taught Maths: Lessons Learned from Research, Conversations with Experts, and 12 Years of Mistakes.

One of those key mistakes I made was to ignore the immense power of formative assessment.

Formative assessment is a phrase that is bandied around a lot. It is something all teachers are told we have to do, but often without any real substance or conviction. It is marketed as a generic teaching strategy-one that can be used across all subjects-and so it is usually accompanied by whole-school training sessions, where us mathematics teachers are presented with examples from English, history, and geography and persuaded that they will definitely work for the likes of equations, percentages, and histograms.

So for much of my career, I steered clear of any mention of formative assessment. Then I came across the work of Dylan Wiliam, an expert on the topic. And it is a good thing I did, because I am now convinced that teaching without formative assessment is like painting with your eyes closed.

In 2016, Wiliam sent the following tweet: "Example of really big mistake: calling formative assessment 'formative assessment' rather than something like 'responsive teaching.' "

Indeed, "responsive teaching" feels like a much better description to attach to the tools and strategies I will discuss here. The word "assessment" conjures up visions of tests and grades. For teachers, it means more work, and for students, more pressure. While it's important to see tests as tools of learning, the association with assessment has probably not helped the development and adoption of this most valuable of strategies.

Paul Black, a prominent researcher on formative assessment, and Wiliam explain that an assessment functions formatively "to the extent that evidence about student achievement is elicited, interpreted, and used by teachers, learners, or their peers, to make decisions about the next steps in instruction that are likely to be better, or better founded, than the decisions they would have taken in the absence of the evidence that was elicited." ¹

Others define formative assessment as "the process used by teachers and students to recognize and respond to student learning in order to enhance that learning, during the learning." ²

Wiliam makes the point that any assessment can be formative, and that assessment functions formatively when it improves the instructional decisions that are made by teachers, learners, or their peers. ³

For me, formative assessment is all about responding in the moment. It is about gathering as much accurate information about students' understanding as possible in the most efficient way possible, and making decisions based on that. In short, it is about adapting our teaching to meet the needs of our students.

Classroom Culture

If students are afraid of making mistakes, how can we learn from their misunderstandings?

We have probably all taught students who leave questions out in tests and homework for fear of being wrong, and we all know that such actions make it incredibly difficult to help them, as we have no indication of how much or in what areas their understanding is lacking. However, in my experience, far more common is a fear of making mistakes away from the written page. Many formative assessment strategies-and indeed the one I am going to focus on here-require students to be public about their answers, displaying their thoughts in front of their teacher and peers in the moment. If students fear making mistakes, and the consequences of those mistakes, then it is highly likely that they will fail to provide us with any useful information at all. After all, for the child who fears failure, not giving a response is far less daunting than having a go.

So how do we create a classroom culture that helps students overcome this problem?

By ensuring that the questions we ask students are seen not as tools of assessment but as tools of learning. We can only hope to achieve this if there are no negative consequences for being wrong. We can do this by not grading or recording students' responses to the formative assessment questions we ask in class, for the presence of a grade or record puts a premium upon success, and they are not needed to inform our decisions in the moment.

There also must be positive consequences for honest participation; mistakes need to be embraced as learning opportunities. I know that sounds ridiculously clichéd, but it is true.

Students opting out

Another factor that can render any assessment strategy-but in particular classroom-based formative assessment-limp and ineffective is the classic opt-out. Some students may choose not to give an answer not for fear of being wrong but, to put it bluntly, because they don't want to think. A shrug, an utterance of "I don't know," or a wall of silence tells us absolutely nothing about a student's understanding of a given concept, and thus leaves us powerless to help.

Allowing such a response also conveys the message that nonparticipation is absolutely fine.

Wiliam argues that engaging in classroom discussion really does make students smarter. ⁴ So, when teachers allow students to choose whether to participate or not-for example, by allowing them to raise their hands to show they have an answer, or settling for a lack of response-we are actually making the achievement gap worse, because those who are participating are getting smarter, while those avoiding engagement are forgoing the opportunities to increase their ability.

Finding comfort in one correct answer

Directly related to students themselves opting out is a common practice among teachers (myself very much included) that essentially does the student's job of opting out for them. See if this scenario rings any bells:

Me: So, does anyone know what -5 - -2 is?
(Three hands go up, one of which is Josie. Josie always gets everything right.)
Josie: Because subtracting a minus is the same as adding a positive, and negative 5 plus 2 gives you negative 3.

Me: Loving your work as ever, Josie. OK, let's move on.

Well, that is exactly how many of my early attempts to assess the understanding of my students proceeded. In one book on formative assessment, a teacher is quoted as describing such a scenario as "a small discussion group surrounded by many sleepy onlookers." ⁵ Likewise, when I interviewed Wiliam for my podcast and asked him to describe an approach in the classroom that he doesn't think is effective, he replied: "Teachers making decisions about the learning needs of 30 students based on the responses of confident volunteers." Rarely have truer words been spoken. I find solace in the fact that I am not alone. Wiliam himself describes a similar experience:

When I was teaching full-time, the question that I put to myself most often was: "Do I need to go over this point one more time or can I move on to the next thing?" I made the decision the same way that most teachers do. I came up with a question there and then, and asked the class. Typically, about six students raised their hands, and I would select one of them to respond. If they gave a correct response, I would say "good" and move on. ⁶

One of professor Robert Coe's "poor proxies for learning" is "(at least some) students have supplied correct answers," and it is easy to see why. ⁷ I am seeking comfort in one correct answer. When Josie once again produces a perfect answer and a lovely explanation, I make two implicit assumptions: first, that this is down to my wonderful teaching; and second, that every other child in the class has understood the concept to a similar level. But, of course, I have no way of knowing that. By essentially opting out the rest of the class, the only information I am left with concerns Josie.

There are ways around this. We can use popsicle sticks or other random name generators to ensure each student has an equal chance of being selected. These adaptations certainly improve my initial process, but they suffer from the same fatal flaw. All students are not required to participate to the same degree, and so the only student's understanding I have anything resembling reliable evidence about is the student answering the question. Researcher Barak Rosenshine's third principle of instruction is: "Ask a large number of questions and check the responses of all students." ⁸ In the past, I often failed to do that. However, the strategy involving diagnostic questions that I am going to outline below has the full participation of each and every student, along with an explicit use of mistakes, built in to its very core.

What Is a Diagnostic Question?

I used to believe two things that fundamentally dictated how I asked students questions and offered them support:

1. For any given question, there were two groups of students: those who could do it and those who could not. Those who could do it were fine to get on with the next challenge, and those who could not needed help. Crucially, they needed the same help.

2. Closed questions are bad, and open questions are good. Closed questions encourage a short response, whereas open-ended questions demand much greater depth of thought. Hence, I spent many years fighting the urge to ask students closed questions in class, and instead opted almost exclusively for things like, "Why do we need to ensure the denominators are the same when adding two fractions?" or "How would you convince someone that ³/₇ is bigger than ⁴/₁₁?"

I will return to the first belief in due course, but first let's deal with the nature of questions.

These two fraction questions are certainly important questions to ask students. But if our aim is to quickly and accurately assess whole-class understanding so we are able to make an informed decision on how to proceed with the lesson, they are not so good.

Their strength is their weakness. The fact that they encourage students to think, take time to articulate, and provoke discussion and disagreement makes them entirely unsuitable for effective formative assessment. How would we go about collecting and assessing the responses to "Why do we need to ensure the denominators are the same when adding two fractions?" from 30 students in the middle of a lesson as a means of deciding whether the class is ready to move on?

Open-ended questions like these are great for homework, tests, extension activities, and lots of other different situations. However, they are not great for a model of responsive teaching.

Nor is it the case that closed questions prevent thinking. Wiliam gives the example of asking if a triangle can have two right angles. ⁹ This is about as closed a question as you can get-the answer is either yes or no. But the thinking involved to get to one of those answers is potentially very deep indeed. Students may consider whether it is possible to have an angle measuring 0 degrees, or if parallel lines will meet at infinity. But this closed question, while it is indeed a brilliant one, is equally unsuited for a model of responsive teaching. If a particular student answered no, would we be convinced that he understood the properties of triangles and angles fully? Or has he just guessed? Without further probing, it is impossible to tell, and hence we are back to the same issues we have with the more open-ended fraction questions above.

So, if open-ended questions are unsuitable for this style of formative assessment, and not all closed questions are suitable, then what questions are left?

Step-forward diagnostic multiple-choice questions, or just diagnostic questions, as I refer to them.

Diagnostic questions are designed to help identify and, crucially, understand students' mistakes and misconceptions in an efficient and accurate manner. Mistakes tend to be one-off events-the student understands the concept or the algorithm, but may make a computational error due to carelessness or cognitive overload. Give students the same question again, and they are unlikely to make the same mistake; inform the students that they have made a mistake somewhere in their work, and they are likely to be able to find it. Misconceptions, on the other hand, are the result of erroneous beliefs or incomplete knowledge. The same misconception is likely to occur time and time again. Informing the students who have made an error due to a misconception is likely to be a waste of time, as, by definition, they do not even know they are wrong. Good diagnostic questions can help you identify and understand both mistakes and misconceptions.

The best way to explain a diagnostic question is to show you one:

Take a moment to look at the question and, in particular, the four different answers. What would each of these answers tell you about the understanding of a student who gave them?

Answer A may suggest that the student understands that angles on a straight line must add up to 180 degrees, and that the student is able to identify the relevant angle, but that he has made a common arithmetic error when subtracting 65 from 180.

Answer B may be the result of students muddling up their angle facts, mistakenly thinking this is an example of vertically opposite angles being equal.

Answer C is the correct answer.

Answer D may imply that the student is aware of the concept that angles on a straight line must add up to 180 degrees, but that the student has included all visible angles in her calculations.

Notice how each of these answers reveals a specific and different mistake or misconception. Imagine you had a group of students who answered A, another group who answered B, and a final group who answered D. Would all three groups require the same intervention from you, their teacher?

I don't think so. Which brings us to my second (erroneous) belief. It is not always the case that students either can or cannot answer a question correctly. Sure, there may be some students who get the question correct for the same or similar reasons. But there are likely to be students who get a question wrong for very different reasons, and it is the reason they get the question wrong that determines the specific type of intervention and support they require.

For example, students who answered B and D may benefit from an interactive demonstration (for example, using GeoGebra) to illustrate the relationship between angles on a straight line. Students who chose B could then be presented with an exercise where they are challenged to match up an assortment of diagrams with the angle fact they represent. Those who selected D may benefit more from a selection of examples and nonexamples of angles on a straight line. But what about students who answered A? Their problem lies not with the relationship between the angles, but with their mental or written arithmetic. This may be a careless mistake, or it may be an indication of a more serious misconception with their technique for subtraction. Either way, it is not a problem that is likely to be solved by giving these students the same kind of intervention as everyone else. However you choose to deal with these students, there is little doubt that there is an advantage to knowing not just which students are wrong, but why they are wrong. And I have never come across a more efficient and accurate way of ascertaining this than by asking a diagnostic question.

So, what makes a question a diagnostic question? For the way I define and use them, there needs to be one correct answer and three incorrect answers, and each incorrect answer must reveal a specific mistake or misconception. I can-and indeed do-ask students for the reasons for their answers, but I should not need to. If the question is designed well enough, then I should gain reliable evidence about my students' understanding without having to have further discussion.

What Makes a Good Diagnostic Question?

Not all diagnostic questions are born equal, and writing a good one is hard. Indeed, the more I use diagnostic questions with my students and colleagues, the more I read about misconceptions in mathematics, and the more experience I get in writing them, the harder I am finding it! I take some solace from the fact that this could very well be the Dunning-Kruger effect ¹⁰ playing out, in that as I grow more knowledgeable, I am also more aware of the difficulty of the challenge as well as my own considerable deficiencies.

At the time of writing, I have written around 3,000 diagnostic multiple-choice questions for mathematics. The vast majority of these I have used with my students either in the classroom or as part of an online quiz on my Diagnostic Questions platform,* and many have been tweaked, adjusted, and binned over the years. Throughout that time, and inspired by the work of Caroline Wylie and Wiliam, ¹¹ I have devised a series of golden rules for what makes a good diagnostic question:

Golden Rule 1: It should be clear and unambiguous.

We all have seen badly worded questions in exams and textbooks, but with diagnostic questions, sometimes the ambiguity can be in the answers themselves. Consider the following question:

At first glance, nothing may appear all that wrong. The wording of the question is clear, and the incorrect answers reveal specific misconceptions. But what is the correct answer? D is clearly correct, and is probably the author's intended correct answer. But how about B? Given that the question does not ask students to simplify their answers, B is a perfectly legitimate correct answer. So, what do we infer if students answer B? Is it that they cannot simplify fractions, or that they did not see D? Do they believe B is the only correct answer, or just one correct answer? The key point is that without asking them, we do not know for sure. And a key feature of a good diagnostic question is that we should be able to accurately infer a student's understanding from her answer alone without needing further student explanation. In its current form, this question may be a good discussion question, but it is not a good diagnostic question.

Golden Rule 2: It should test a single skill/concept.

Many good questions test multiple skills and concepts. Indeed, a really effective way to interleave, which is where topics are studied in short bursts with frequent switching (as opposed to presented in blocks), is to combine multiple skills and concepts together within a single question. But good diagnostic questions should not do this. The purpose of a diagnostic question is to home in on the precise area that a student is struggling with and provide information about the precise nature of that struggle. If there are too many skills or concepts involved, then the accuracy of the diagnosis invariably suffers.

Golden Rule 3: Students should be able to answer it in less than 10 seconds.

This is directly related to Golden Rule 2. If students are spending more than 10 seconds thinking about the answer to a question, the chances are that more than one skill or concept is involved, which makes it hard to determine the precise nature of any misconception they may hold.

Golden Rule 4: You should learn something from each incorrect response without the student needing to explain.

A key feature that distinguishes diagnostic multiple-choice questions from nondiagnostic multiple-choice questions is that the incorrect answers have been chosen very, very carefully in order to reveal specific misconceptions. In fact, they are often described as distractors, although I do not like this term, as it implies they are trick answers. The key point is that if a student chooses one of these answers, it should tell you something.

Golden Rule 5: It cannot be answered correctly while still holding a key misconception.

This is the big one. For me, it is the hardest skill to get right when writing and choosing questions, but also the most important. We need to be sure that the information and evidence we are receiving from our students is as accurate as possible, and in some instances that is simply not the case.

Consider the following question:

On quick inspection, this question looks pretty good. C is the correct answer, B may indicate that students believe multiples start with the given number, and D may indicate that they believe they end with that number. I am not entirely sure what A tells me-maybe an error with the 6 times table-but apart from that, I am pretty happy with this question.

Or am I? If I am going to use this question in class, presumably my purpose is something along the lines of assessing if students have a good understanding of multiples. And yet, something that is not assessed at all in this question is arguably the biggest misconception students have with the topic.

Imagine you are a student coming into your math lesson and you are told that today you are studying multiples. Oh no, you think, I always get multiples and factors muddled up-I can never remember which ones are the bigger numbers. And then you are presented with the question above, and a smile appears on your face. You can get this question correct without knowing the difference between factors and multiples, as there are no factors present. And if I am your teacher, and several of your peers have the same problem, it could well be the case that you all get this question correct and I conclude that you understand factors and multiples, without ever testing to see if you can distinguish between the two concepts.

Interestingly, by presenting my students with this question, they may subsequently infer that multiples are "the bigger numbers" due to the absence of any number smaller than 6, and hence may learn the difference between factors and multiples indirectly that way. However, this is something I would prefer to assess directly, especially if I am trying to discern in the moment if I have enough evidence to move on.

So, a better question might be something like this:

I love this question-not just because it contains factors and multiples, but because of answer B. All of a sudden, dodgy definitions of factors, such as a number that goes into another number a whole number of times, are called into question.

Seeing as I make such extensive use of diagnostic questions, I want to ensure that the information I receive back from my students' answers is as accurate and valid as possible. Hence, putting such time into the creation and selection of good questions is time well spent.

So, that is why I am more than a little obsessed with formative assessment, and my favorite tools for delivering it are high-quality diagnostic multiple-choice questions.

But how do I collect my students' responses? In the past, I would have messed around with electronic voting devices. But all it takes is an empty battery, a dodgy Wi-Fi signal, or a mischievous child, and your lesson can quickly be skidding off the rails. Mini-whiteboards too, while great for students writing down their work, fall prey to faulty pens and an apparently unavoidable adolescent urge to draw something not exactly related to the content of the lesson. No, once again I defer to Wiliam, who, when I interviewed him for my Mr Barton Maths Podcast, advised that students should vote with their fingers, because, as he said, students may forget to bring a pen to a lesson, but they rarely forget their fingers.

So, at the start of each lesson, I project a diagnostic question on my board. I ask students to consider the answer in silence. I then count down from three and ask them to raise their hand high in the air, showing one finger for A, two for B, three for C, and four for D. Quickly, I am able to get a picture of their understanding. I then ask a student who has chosen A to explain his reasoning, then a student who has chosen B, and so on. At the end of this process, we have a revote, and then-because there is a danger that students are just copying the perceived cleverest student in the class-I ask a follow-up question that tests the same skill. Once my students are used to this routine, it takes around two minutes per question, and I always ask at least three questions per lesson. And if some students are still struggling after the follow-up question, I am able to help them over the course of the lesson.

Which brings me to the final reason why I love diagnostic questions so much: the ability to plan for error. In the past, I would often find myself on the receiving end of a completely unexpected answer, while standing in front of a sea of 30 confused faces all looking to me for help. I would be forced to think on the spot-attempting to diagnose the error and think of a way of helping resolve it, all while trying to juggle the hundreds of other considerations tumbling through a teacher's mind in the middle of a lesson. Now, I do not need to. By using diagnostic questions and studying the wrong answers in advance, I can plan for these errors, ensuring I have explanations, resources, and strategies ready to help. My thinking can be done before the lesson, thus making me much more effective during the lesson.

I love good diagnostic questions. I know of no more accurate, efficient way of getting a sense of my students' understanding of a concept, and then adjusting my teaching to meet their needs.

Craig Barton has taught math to secondary school students in the United Kingdom for 13 years. He is the creator of the websites www.mrbartonmaths.com, which offers free math support and resources to teachers and students, and www.diagnosticquestions.com, which contains the world's largest collection of free diagnostic multiple-choice math questions. He is also the host of Mr Barton Maths Podcast, which features interviews with inspiring figures in education. This article is adapted with permission from his book, How I Wish I'd Taught Maths: Lessons Learned from Research, Conversations with Experts, and 12 Years of Mistakes (John Catt Educational, 2018).

*Diagnostic Questions is a free formative assessment platform that contains more than 40,000 diagnostic multiple-choice math questions suitable for students ages 4 to 18. Questions can be used in the classroom to identify misconceptions and promote discussion, or can be used as quizzes through the platform, which immediately returns the results back to the teacher with actionable insights into the students' understanding. To access these questions, visit www.diagnosticquestions.com. ( back to the article)

†For more on the practice of interleaving, see " Strengthening the Student Toolbox" in the Fall 2013 issue of American Educator. ( back to the article)

Endnotes

1. Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam, "Developing a Theory of Formative Assessment," Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability 21 (2009): 9.

2. Bronwen Cowie and Beverley Bell, "A Model of Formative Assessment in Science Education," Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice 6 (1999): 101-116.

3. Dylan Wiliam, Embedded Formative Assessment (Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press, 2011).

4. Wiliam, Embedded Formative Assessment.

5. Paul Black et al., Assessment for Learning: Putting It into Practice (Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press, 2003), 32.

6. Dylan Wiliam, "The 9 Things Every Teacher Should Know," TES, September 2, 2016, www.tes.com/us/news/breaking-views/9-things-every-teacher-should-know.

7. Robert Coe, "Improving Education: A Triumph of Hope over Experience" (lecture, Durham University, Durham, UK, June 18, 2013), www.cem.org/attachments/publications/ImprovingEducation2013.pdf.

8. Barak Rosenshine, "Principles of Instruction: Research-Based Strategies That All Teachers Should Know," American Educator 36, no. 1 (Spring 2012): 12.

9. Wiliam, Embedded Formative Assessment.

10. See Justin Kruger and David Dunning, "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77 (1999): 1121-1134.

11. Caroline Wylie and Dylan Wiliam, "Diagnostic Questions: Is There Value in Just One?" (paper presentation, American Educational Research Association annual meeting, San Francisco, CA, April 11, 2006), www.mrbartonmaths.com/resourcesnew/8.%20Research/Formative%20Assessment/... and Wiliam, Embedded Formative Assessment.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I am going to start with a rather big claim: asking and responding to diagnostic questions is the single most important thing I do every lesson. This article will be my attempt to convince you why. For 13 years, I have taught math (or "maths," as I like to call it) to students ages 11 to 18 in the United Kingdom.

# data[].attributes.headline
Classroom Assessment to Support Teaching and Learning

# data[].attributes.subject
Classroom Assessment to Support Teaching and Learning

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Wiggins & McTighe (2006) Examining the teaching life (1)

# data[].attributes.headline
Contexts of Assessment in a Primary Classroom

# data[].attributes.subject
Contexts of Assessment in a Primary Classroom

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Contexts of Assessment in a Primary Classroom

# data[].attributes.headline
Steps to Designing Authentic Assessments for Students with Disabilities in Music Classes 

# data[].attributes.subject
Steps to Designing Authentic Assessments for Students with Disabilities in Music Classes 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Steps to Designing Authentic Assessments for Students with Disabilities in Music Classes

# data[].attributes.headline
Using and Rejecting Peer Feedback in the Science Classroom

# data[].attributes.subject
Using and Rejecting Peer Feedback in the Science Classroom

# data[].attributes.headline
Utilize Assessment Data in the Classroom

# data[].attributes.subject
Utilize Assessment Data in the Classroom

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
An assessment is characterized as the process of defining, selecting, designing, collecting, analyzing, interpreting, and using information to increase students' learning and development. Through this process administers can gather assessment data to strategically plan and deliver individualized instruction.

Teachers use assessment data as one of the most powerful tools in their classrooms. An important piece of teacher instruction comes from how they utilize this data. Data needs to be collected, evaluated, and then put to use through instruction and student interventions. Learning how to effectively use assessment data will impact student learning in the best way possible.

How can technology help you access assessment data?

Educational technology, like Istation's Indicators of Progress (ISIP™), allows you to automate computer-adaptive testing (CAT) systems that automatically assign assessments to students.

These types of assessment tools should have the following features to promote success:

Monthly assessments are given the first time a student logs on during a calendar month. This is necessary to maintain a consistent stream of assessment data showing individual benchmarks for student progress.

On-demand assessments can be given at any time during the school year between monthly assessments. This feature provides a continuous progress monitoring tool that you can utilize to gather assessment data when needed.

Assessment reports with actionable feedback. This allows your teachers to not only analyze assessment data for an individual student but also share the data with administrators for additional progress monitoring. Teachers can also utilize these reports to observe assessment data patterns and adjust instruction.

5 ways to utilize assessment data

Once you've implemented an assessment tool that allows you to access the right assessment data, you can take the next steps in improving instruction in your classrooms.

Read through our five ways to utilize assessment data to determine these next steps.
1. Plan individual instructional intervention

Whether your school uses an MTSS or an RTI approach, the goal of delivering instructional intervention is the same: help students improve skills they struggle with.

Assessment data gives teachers the foundation for creating their own individualized plan for struggling learners. Personalizing a student's plan can look very different each time but may include a few similar criteria, such as...

skills that need emphasis in the classroom;

additional support strategies for teaching the student; and

a way to track and monitor progress for the student, teacher, and families involved.

Keep in mind that a personalized instructional intervention plan remains flexible. Real-time reporting tools, like Istation's personalized data profiles , provide formative assessment data and relevant statistics to guide instructional interventions delivered in the classroom.
2. Develop daily instructional strategies
Knowing where each student is performing helps teachers see the big picture when developing their daily instructional strategies. This allows them to move from assessing students to grouping students based on relevant assessment data trends.

It's easy to feel overwhelmed when it comes to grouping students and you may hear teachers ask:

How many small groups should I teach?

How am I going to find the time to meet with them?

How do I manage the rest of my class while working with my small groups?

Where do I find resources to meet all of the instructional needs of my students?

Assessment data will provide you with everything you need to answer these questions and start grouping students. This data can help develop instructional strategies to meet the group's needs. Many online reading and math assessments save teachers time by linking ready-to-use resources for small- or whole-group instruction within the assessment reports.
3. Determine targeted goals for students and teachers
Short- and long-term goals guide success for teachers and students. District and campus leaders can analyze assessment data and use the information to set goals for teachers that are specific, measurable, relevant, and attainable. In return, teachers can work to make sure that student goals are aligned.

In a recent podcast , former educator and Istation professional development manager Julie Kalinowski said, "When students start taking ownership of their own goals and assessment data, that's when we see the biggest bang for our buck."
4. Monitor student and teacher progress
Progress monitoring provides leaders with valuable information regarding improvements in critical reading and math skills as well as classroom performance. This type of monitoring should take place often so that it becomes expected and familiar for all parties involved.

When conducting progress monitoring, consider using an all-in-one assessment tool for students. Having this type of assessment tool allows each student to be assessed in the area of content they need to show progress. When the tool adapts to the learner's ability, the student becomes less discouraged and frustration levels are lowered. This ensures that the assessment data gathered during progress monitoring is more accurate.
5. Discover professional development gaps
While many people believe that assessment data can only be utilized to help students improve, at Istation we are seeing another trend. Education leaders are analyzing assessment data and determining where students are seeing the least amount of improvement. This information points them to the overall professional development gaps for teachers.

Many leaders are looking for customized professional development sessions to fill these gaps. Educators are finding it easier to customize these development plans when they partner with their assessment technology provider.

An assessment provider like Istation offers customized guidance and insight into proven educational approaches. They employ specialists with real-world instructional experience that can help create the customized professional development sessions your teachers need.

To learn more about how Istation's program and assessment tools can benefit your students and teachers click here.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
5 Ways to Utilize Assessment Data in the Classroom

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
An assessment is characterized as the process of defining, selecting, designing, collecting, analyzing, interpreting, and using information to increase students' learning and development. Through this process administers can gather assessment data to strategically plan and deliver individualized instruction.

# data[].attributes.headline
How Classroom Assessments Improve Learning

# data[].attributes.subject
How Classroom Assessments Improve Learning

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Large-scale assessments, like all assessments, are designed for a specific purpose. Those used in most states today are designed to rank-order schools and students for the purposes of accountability-and some do so fairly well. But assessments designed for ranking are generally not good instruments for helping teachers improve their instruction or modify their approach to individual students. First, students take them at the end of the school year, when most instructional activities are near completion. Second, teachers don't receive the results until two or three months later, by which time their students have usually moved on to other teachers. And third, the results that teachers receive usually lack the level of detail needed to target specific improvements (Barton, 2002; Kifer, 2001).

The assessments best suited to guide improvements in student learning are the quizzes, tests, writing assignments, and other assessments that teachers administer on a regular basis in their classrooms. Teachers trust the results from these assessments because of their direct relation to classroom instructional goals. Plus, results are immediate and easy to analyze at the individual student level. To use classroom assessments to make improvements, however, teachers must change both their view of assessments and their interpretation of results. Specifically, they need to see their assessments as an integral part of the instruction process and as crucial for helping students learn.

Despite the importance of assessments in education today, few teachers receive much formal training in assessment design or analysis. A recent survey showed, for example, that fewer than half the states require competence in assessment for licensure as a teacher (Stiggins, 1999). Lacking specific training, teachers rely heavily on the assessments offered by the publisher of their textbooks or instructional materials. When no suitable assessments are available, teachers construct their own in a haphazard fashion, with questions and essay prompts similar to the ones that their teachers used. They treat assessments as evaluation devices to administer when instructional activities are completed and to use primarily for assigning students' grades.

To use assessments to improve instruction and student learning, teachers need to change their approach to assessments in three important ways.

Nearly every student has suffered the experience of spending hours preparing for a major assessment, only to discover that the material that he or she had studied was different from what the teacher chose to emphasize on the assessment. This experience teaches students two un-fortunate lessons. First, students realize that hard work and effort don't pay off in school because the time and effort that they spent studying had little or no influence on the results. And second, they learn that they cannot trust their teachers (Guskey, 2000a). These are hardly the lessons that responsible teachers want their students to learn.

Nonetheless, this experience is common because many teachers still mistakenly believe that they must keep their assessments secret. As a result, students come to regard assessments as guessing games, especially from the middle grades on. They view success as depending on how well they can guess what their teachers will ask on quizzes, tests, and other assessments. Some teachers even take pride in their ability to out-guess students. They ask questions about isolated concepts or obscure understandings just to see whether students are reading carefully. Generally, these teachers don't include such "gotcha" questions maliciously, but rather-often unconsciously-because such questions were asked of them when they were students.

Classroom assessments that serve as meaningful sources of information don't surprise students. Instead, these assessments reflect the concepts and skills that the teacher emphasized in class, along with the teacher's clear criteria for judging students' performance. These concepts, skills, and criteria align with the teacher's instructional activities and, ideally, with state or district standards. Students see these assessments as fair measures of important learning goals. Teachers facilitate learning by providing students with important feedback on their learning progress and by helping them identify learning problems (Bloom, Madaus, & Hastings, 1981; Stiggins, 2002).

Critics sometimes contend that this approach means "teaching to the test." But the crucial issue is, What determines the content and methods of teaching? If the test is the primary determinant of what teachers teach and how they teach it, then we are indeed "teaching to the test." But if desired learning goals are the foundation of students' instructional experiences, then assessments of student learning are simply extensions of those same goals. Instead of "teaching to the test," teachers are more accurately "testing what they teach." If a concept or skill is important enough to assess, then it should be important enough to teach. And if it is not important enough to teach, then there's little justification for assessing it.

The best classroom assessments also serve as meaningful sources of information for teachers, helping them identify what they taught well and what they need to work on. Gathering this vital information does not require a sophisticated statistical analysis of assessment results. Teachers need only make a simple tally of how many students missed each assessment item or failed to meet a specific criterion. State assessments sometimes provide similar item-by-item information, but concerns about item security and the cost of developing new items each year usually make assessment developers reluctant to offer such detailed information. Once teachers have made specific tallies, they can pay special attention to the trouble spots-those items or criteria missed by large numbers of students in the class.

In reviewing these results, the teacher must first consider the quality of the item or criterion. Perhaps the question is ambiguously worded or the criterion is unclear. Perhaps students mis-interpreted the question. Whatever the case, teachers must determine whether these items adequately address the knowledge, understanding, or skill that they were intended to measure.

If teachers find no obvious problems with the item or criterion, then they must turn their attention to their teaching. When as many as half the students in a class answer a clear question incorrectly or fail to meet a particular criterion, it's not a student learning problem-it's a teaching problem. Whatever teaching strategy was used, whatever examples were employed, or whatever explanation was offered, it simply didn't work.

Analyzing assessment results in this way means setting aside some powerful ego issues. Many teachers may initially say, "I taught them. They just didn't learn it!" But on reflection, most recognize that their effectiveness is not defined on the basis of what they do as teachers but rather on what their students are able to do. Can effective teaching take place in the absence of learning? Certainly not.

Some argue that such a perspective puts too much responsibility on teachers and not enough on students. Occasionally, teachers respond, "Don't students have responsibilities in this process? Shouldn't students display initiative and personal accountability?"

Indeed, teachers and students share responsibility for learning. Even with valiant teaching efforts, we cannot guarantee that all students will learn everything excellently. Only rarely do teachers find items or assessment criteria that every student answers correctly. A few students are never willing to put forth the necessary effort, but these students tend to be the exception, not the rule. If a teacher is reaching fewer than half of the students in the class, the teacher's method of instruction needs to improve. And teachers need this kind of evidence to help target their instructional improvement efforts.

If assessments provide information for both students and teachers, then they cannot mark the end of learning. Instead, assessments must be followed by high-quality, corrective instruction designed to remedy whatever learning errors the assessment identified (see Guskey, 1997). To charge ahead knowing that students have not learned certain concepts or skills well would be foolish. Teachers must therefore follow their assessments with instructional alternatives that present those concepts in new ways and engage students in different and more appropriate learning experiences.

High-quality, corrective instruction is not the same as reteaching, which often consists simply of restating the original explanations louder and more slowly. Instead, the teacher must use approaches that accommodate differences in students' learning styles and intelligences (Sternberg, 1994). Although teachers generally try to incorporate different teaching approaches when they initially plan their lessons, corrective instruction involves extending and strengthening that work. In addition, those students who have few or no learning errors to correct should receive enrichment activities to help broaden and expand their learning. Materials designed for gifted and talented students provide an excellent resource for such activities.

Developing ideas for corrective instruction and enrichment activities can be difficult, especially if teachers believe that they must do it alone, but structured professional development opportunities can help teachers share strategies and collaborate on teaching techniques (Guskey, 1998, 2000b). Faculty meetings devoted to examining classroom assessment results and developing alternative strategies can be highly effective. District-level personnel and collaborative partnerships with local colleges and universities offer wonderful resources for ideas and practical advice.

Occasionally, teachers express concern that if they take time to offer corrective instruction, they will sacrifice curriculum coverage. Because corrective work is initially best done during class and under the teacher's direction, early instructional units will typically involve an extra class period or two. Teachers who ask students to complete corrective work independently, outside of class, generally find that those students who most need to spend time on corrective work are the least likely to do so.

As students become accustomed to this corrective process and realize the personal benefits it offers, however, the teacher can drastically reduce the amount of class time allocated to such work and accomplish much of it through homework assignments or in special study sessions before or after school. And by not allowing minor errors to become major learning problems, teachers better prepare students for subsequent learning tasks, eventually need less time for corrective work (Whiting, Van Burgh, & Render, 1995), and can proceed at a more rapid pace in later learning units. By pacing their instructional units more flexibly, most teachers find that they need not sacrifice curriculum coverage to offer students the benefits of corrective instruction.

To become an integral part of the instructional process, assessments cannot be a one-shot, do-or-die experience for students. Instead, assessments must be part of an ongoing effort to help students learn. And if teachers follow assessments with helpful corrective instruction, then students should have a second chance to demonstrate their new level of competence and understanding. This second chance helps determine the effectiveness of the corrective instruction and offers students another opportunity to experience success in learning.

Writing teachers have long recognized the many benefits of a second chance. They know that students rarely write well on an initial attempt. Teachers build into the writing process several opportunities for students to gain feedback on early drafts and then to use that feedback to revise and improve their writing. Teachers of other subjects frequently balk at the idea, however-mostly because it differs from their personal learning experiences.

Some teachers express concern that giving students a second chance might be unfair and that "life isn't like that." They point out that that a surgeon doesn't get a second chance to perform an operation successfully and a pilot doesn't get a second chance to land a jumbo jet safely. Because of the very high stakes involved, each must get it right the first time.

But how did these highly skilled professionals learn their craft? The first operation performed by that surgeon was on a cadaver-a situation that allows a lot of latitude for mistakes. Similarly, the pilot spent many hours in a flight simulator before ever attempting a landing from the cockpit. Such experiences allowed them to learn from their mistakes and to improve their performance. Similar instructional techniques are used in nearly every professional endeavor. Only in schools do student face the prospect of one-shot, do-or-die assessments, with no chance to demonstrate what they learned from previous mistakes.

All educators strive to have their students become lifelong learners and develop learning-to-learn skills. What better learning-to-learn skill is there than learning from one's mistakes? A mistake can be the beginning of learning. Some assessment experts argue, in fact, that students learn nothing from a successful performance. Rather, students learn best when their initial performance is less than successful, for then they can gain direction on how to improve (Wiggins, 1998).

Other teachers suggest that it's unfair to offer the same privileges and high grades to students who require a second chance that we offer to those students who demonstrate a high level of learning on the initial assessment. After all, these students may simply have failed to prepare appropriately. Certainly, we should recognize students who do well on the initial assessment and provide opportunities for them to extend their learning through enrichment activities. But those students who do well on a second assessment have also learned well. More important, their poor performance on the first assessment may not have been their fault. Maybe the teaching strategies used during the initial instruction were inappropriate for these students, but the corrective instruction proved more effective. If we determine grades on the basis of performance and these students have performed at a high level, then they certainly deserve the same grades as those who scored well on their first try.

A comparable example is the driver's license examination. Many individuals do not pass their driver's test on the first attempt. On the second or third try, however, they may reach the same high level of performance as others did on their first. Should these drivers be restricted, for instance, to driving in fair weather only? In inclement weather, should they be required to pull their cars over and park until the weather clears? Of course not. Because they eventually met the same high performance standards as those who passed on their initial attempt, they receive the same privileges. The same should hold true for students who show that they, too, have learned well.

Using assessments as sources of information, following assessments with corrective instruction, and giving students a second chance are steps in a process that all teachers use naturally when they tutor individual students. If the student makes a mistake, the teacher stops and points out the mistake. The teacher then explains that concept in a different way. Finally, the teacher asks another question or poses a similar problem to ensure the student's understanding before going on. The challenge for teachers is to use their classroom assessments in similar ways to provide all students with this sort of individualized assistance.

Successful coaches use the same process. Immediately following a gymnast's performance on the balance beam, for example, the coach explains to her what she did correctly and what could be improved. The coach then offers specific strategies for improvement and encourages her to try again. As the athlete repeats her performance, the coach watches carefully to ensure that she has corrected the problem.

Successful students typically know how to take corrective action on their own. They save their assessments and review the items or criteria that they missed. They rework problems, look up answers in their textbooks or other resource materials, and ask the teacher about ideas or concepts that they don't understand. Less successful students rarely take such initiative. After looking at their grades, they typically crumple up their assessments and deposit them in the trash can as they leave the classroom. Teachers who use classroom assessments as part of the instructional process help all of their students do what the most successful students have learned to do for themselves.

Using classroom assessment to improve student learning is not a new idea. More than 30 years ago, Benjamin Bloom showed how to conduct this process in practical and highly effective ways when he described the practice of mastery learning (Bloom, 1968, 1971). But since that time, the emphasis on assessments as tools for accountability has diverted attention from this more important and fundamental purpose.

Assessments can be a vital component in our efforts to improve education. But as long as we use them only as a means to rank schools and students, we will miss their most powerful benefits. We must focus instead on helping teachers change the way they use assessment results, improve the quality of their classroom assessments, and align their assessments with valued learning goals and state or district standards. When teachers' classroom assessments become an integral part of the instructional process and a central ingredient in their efforts to help students learn, the benefits of assessment for both students and teachers will be boundless.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How Classroom Assessments Improve Learning

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Large-scale assessments, like all assessments, are designed for a specific purpose. Those used in most states today are designed to rank-order schools and students for the purposes of accountability-and some do so fairly well. But assessments designed for ranking are generally not good instruments for helping teachers improve their instruction or modify their approach to individual students.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Effective Use of Assessment Results

Using assessment results to inform program changes or improvements is perhaps the most challenging final step in the assessment cycle - commonly referred to as 'closing the loop'. Linda Suskie (2009) provides invaluable reminders to ensure that assessment results are used effectively and appropriately:

Assessment reports that end up briefly perused and then filed without any resulting action are a waste of time.

Assessment results should never dictate the decisions; we should always use our professional judgment to interpret the results to help make appropriate decisions.

Actively discourage inappropriate interpretations or use of assessment results. How results have been used in the past has been shown to have a significant effect on people's willingness to participate in gathering and using assessment information.

Prevent problems with closing the loop by carefully planning your assessment.

While positive assessment results should be celebrated, even more recognition and reward should go to exemplary assessment efforts.

Promote the use of multiple sources of information when making any major decision.

Communicate assessment information widely and transparently.

Suskie, L.A. (2009). Assessing student learning: A common sense guide. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass
The effective use of assessment results starts with thoughtful planning. With the collaborative effort of faculty, assessment plans can be designed to produce actionable results. Sometimes, the use of assessment results can be a challenge, especially when they are perceived as not being relevant, valid or credible. They may be incomplete or not actionable. There may have been limited resources or overly heavy faculty workloads that made the task untenable.
So, a great way to start the planning process is:

Begin with the mindset that the assessment effort is for discovery, hypothesis testing, and ultimately for enhancing student learning and overall program improvement.

Begin with a clear, compelling question(s) about student learning ~ ones that faculty really care about.

Discuss and choose the most effective "method" that will answer this question

Focus on the fact that the method to collect and analyze the data will affect how the results will ultimately be used.

Do a mock-up of the results for discussion. Discuss these hypothetical results with faculty to improvement the methods to be used. Interpret what conclusions might be drawn and anticipate what the program would do if the results fall short of expectations.

It is critical that the entire faculty be involved in the discussion of assessment findings and the recommended actions for making program improvements based upon the findings. There are myriad examples of effective uses of assessment results as they relate to the program's curriculum, budget and resources, academic processes, and promotion and marketing of the program.

Examples of Effective Use of Assessment Results

Curriculum examples might include: Budget and resource examples might include:

Modifying the frequency and schedule of course offerings

Adding or removing course from the curriculum

Pedagogical models or approaches to be shared among faculty and students

Revision of course content or assignments

Academic process examples might include:

Increasing classroom space

Adding lab resources

Hiring or re-assigning faculty or staff

Promotion and marketing examples might include:

Revising course prerequisites

Revising criteria for admission to the program

Revising advising processes or protocols

Communicating and celebrating student performance and success

Communicating student voices and perceptions to stakeholders

Industry feedback from external assessments

Including student work on the program website, recruiting materials, fundraising materials or in the self-study

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Using Assessment Results for Program Improvement | Academic Programs and Planning

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Effective Use of Assessment Results Using assessment results to inform program changes or improvements is perhaps the most challenging final step in the assessment cycle - commonly referred to as 'closing the loop'. Linda Suskie (2009) provides invaluable reminders to ensure that assessment results are used effectively and appropriately: