Welcome!

1. Designing Student Assessments While Implementing a Redo PolicyTexas School Improvement Conference 2011Austin Convention Center8:00 a.m. October 27, 2011 Alan Veach, PhDSouthern Regional Education BoardHSTW/MMGW Welcome!

2. Why Do We Grade?

4. Why do we grade? During this presentation each of you is asked to reflect and develop a response to the following questions: • What does a grade mean in my class? • When is it appropriate to grade students’ work? • How do my grading practices assist students in becoming responsible learners?

5. Guiding Questions • What is assessment? • Why do we assess? • When do we assess? • What is the difference between grading and checking? • What is Checking for Understanding?

6. Do You Believe….? • The threat of a low grade is more likely to motivate high achieving students that low achieving students • There is little or no evidence that repeated failure makes people more responsible.

7. “In standards-based classrooms, students have the opportunity to continuously revise and improve their work over the course of several days.”Doug Reeves, Center for Performance Assessment

8. So…….. What is “Formative Assessment” and what is “Summative Assessment?”

9. Assessments FOR LearningFORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS Happen while learning is still taking place. Assessments that we conduct throughout teaching and learning to diagnose student needs, plan our next steps in instruction, provide student feedback so they can improve the quality of their work and teachers can adjust their instruction. Supports student effort, the grading function is laid aside This is not about accountability – this is about getting better!

10. What are they? Informal, or formative assessments are about checking for understanding in an effective way in order to guide our instruction. They are used during instruction rather than at the end of a unit or course of study. And if we use them correctly, and often, yes, there is a chance instruction will slow when we discover we need to re-teach or review material the students wholly "did not get" -- and that's okay. Because sometimes we have to slow down in order to go quickly.

11. What this means is.. • What this means is that if we are about getting to the end, we may lose our audience, the students. If you are not routinely checking for understanding then you are not in touch with your students' learning. Perhaps they are already far, far behind. • We are all guilty of this one -- the ultimate teacher copout: "Are there any questions, students?" Pause for three seconds. Silence. "No? Okay, let's move on."

12. Assessments OF LearningSUMMATIVE ASSESSMENTS Assessments given to students at the end of the learning—culminating demonstration of what the student has learned. These assessments are used by the teacher at the end of instruction to evaluate a student’s learning, certify competence, and assign grades.

13. SummativeAssessments.. • Typically documents how much learning has occurred at a point in time • Purpose is to measure the level of student, school, or program process Sometimes referred to as “Assessment OF Learning”

14. Forming is helping them learn…. • Summative is to see if they learned it

15. Do What???? A formative assessment is to a summative assessment as a physical is to an autopsy.

16. An assessment OF learning is an autopsy. An assessment FOR learning is a physical. --------------------------------------------------------- !

17. A summative assessment, like an autopsy, can provide useful information that explains why the ‘patient’ has failed, but the information comes too late... at least from the patient’s perspective.

18. A formative assessment, like a physical examination, can provide both the ‘doctor’ and the ‘patient’ with timely information regarding the patients’ well-being and can help with a prescription for an ailing person or assist a healthy person to become even stronger.

19. Remember… Formative Assessment occurs while there is still time to take action. The feedback from a Summative Assessment tells teachers and students who made it to the learning destination and who didn’t.

20. Guskey and Wormeli… • Low grades push students farther away from our cause; they don’t motivate students • Everyone learns at a different pace and in a different manner • Zeros skew the grade to a point where its accuracy is distorted. From Failure to Success

21. “Good teaching is going on whenever students are involved in redoing, polishing, and perfecting their work.”The Pedagogy of Poverty Vs. Good TeachingMartin Haberman What is the research base for asking students to revise work?

22. Re-Doing Work—The Research HSTW Assessment Findings: Students who are given opportunities to re-do work to a level of quality have better student achievement. In October of 2008, HSTW conducted a survey of schools that had implemented some type of policy on re-do or not allowing students to fail.

23. Survey Participation • 554 schools participated • 1 elementary school • 99 middle grades schools • 342 high schools • 50 technology centers • 37 other (7-12, K-8, etc.) • 63% report implementing some type of program at not allowing students to fail.

24. Primary Reason Schools Decided to Implement

25. Components Included in Practice

26. Results, cont.

27. Results

28. Extra Help/Redo Policy • A structured system of extra help must be in place to close achievement gaps and teach all students at a high level. • Must include a well-defined process for referring students to extra help and an equally well-defined method of monitoring progress. • Make attendance at extra-help sessions mandatory for students with a grade of 80 or below. From Failure to Success

29. Why Redoing Work is Essential Important to success of struggling students Promotes more efficient learning Provides feedback essential to learning Instills a sense of persistence and motivation

30. Rationale….. • In real-life, attainment of important milestones (SATs, certificates, drivers’ licenses, CPA, bar exam, medical boards, etc.) allows for multiple opportunities with course corrections along the way.

31. Grading Practices: “Grading is one of the most bizarre aspects of teaching. No two teachers grade alike, and everyone thinks their way is best. Does a grade truly reflect what a student has learned, or how hard they tried, or what they’re capable of doing?” Charlie Lindgren, Secondary Teacher

32. “Grading seems to be the last frontier of individual teacher discretion.” Doug Reeves, Educational Leadership, May 2008

33. What does a grade of “80” represent?

34. Are we grading the learning or the speed of the learning?

35. Standards-Based Assessment—Rationale: • Current methods of grading do not accurately indicate what a student knows and is able to do. • Students are required to achieve standards, but currently not all report cards indicate student performance on standards. • Through ongoing assessment students understand their progression towards success.

36. What Should “Count?” Assessments That Relate to Standards Tests Projects Performances Essays Research papers Presentations Lab experiments Assessment of Other Learning Factors Homework completion and practice Attendance Tardiness Student behavior Effort Timeliness Following class rules Extra credit (for completion only)

37. Recommendations for Making Grading Standards-Based Decide on evidence to be collected. Ask, “Does each assessment measure what was taught?” Distinguish between formative and summative. Develop an overall grading rubric that defines level of quality in relation to each grade. Create a grade book that records evidence in relation to the standards.

38. Teachers Who Give Zeros “How’s that workin’ for you?”

39. Comparing Students If 70 is passing, which students are passing? If progress – not averages – was used, which students should be passing? FAIL Student 1 0 85 90 95 = 67.5 FAIL = 67.5 Student 2 30 75 80 85 PASS Student 3 68 68 72 72 = 70

41. Disproportionate Impact of Zero F C B A 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 Grading Scale: A = 90 - 100 B = 80 – 89 C = 71 – 79 D = 70 F = 0 - 69 D

42. Giving zeros or accepting work below standard isn’t working. • It fails to motivate students to make a greater effort. • Dropout rates are increasing not decreasing. • Teachers report that students not doing/completing work is the number one reason for failure in the middle and ninth grades.

43. No matter if teachers work 3-4 hours per night developing engaging, real-world activities that measure students at the proficient level, if students can OPT NOT TO COMPLETE THE ASSIGNMENT and simply take a zero and go on to the next one, those studentswill not be ready for college prep or college level work.

44. Requiring students to complete work is teaching responsibility and is teaching students how to be accountable.

45. Why do we grade? During this presentation each of you WERE asked to reflect and develop a response to the following questions: • What does a grade mean in my class? • When is it appropriate to grade students’ work? • How do my grading practices assist students in becoming responsible learners?

46. Priority Actions… • What actions can you take to develop: • Formative and Summative Assessments • A Re-do Policy • Mandatory Extra Help • Standards-Based Grading Procedures • A No-Zero Policy From Failure to Success

47. Effective Schools….. • Start School Differently • Plan and Teach Differently • Grade Different

48. The best teacher is not the one who cares the most about a student but the one who gets the most out of a student.

49. THANKS!!! alan.veach@sreb.org