Rick Stiggins allthingsASSESSMENT

1. Rick Stigginswww.allthingsASSESSMENT.info It’s Time to Demand Productive Assessment for Our Students

2. Commonalities • Quality instruction • Formative assessments often that are aligned with the standards • Timely feedback to students and staff • Use of data for all

3. Assessment Dilemma Beliefs and assumptions about sound practice have been flawed. Our vision of excellence has done as much harm to learning as good. It is a travesty to bring new teachers/administrators into our profession without the literacy needed to succeed.

4. Assessment FOR Learning

5. Your experiences Think about a poor assessment experience. • What did the assessor do to make it counterproductive? • What impact did the experience have on you?

6. Think about a positive experience with assessment. • Specifically, what did the assessor do to make it positive? • What impact did this have on you?

7. The student’s emotional reaction will determine what that student does in response. “I understand, I’m OK, and I choose to keep trying.” The target needs to be in reach… “I see, I can’t do this and I will give up.”

8. Creating hope: Assessment FOR Learning (Stiggins 2005) Expected Benefits • PROFOUND ACHIEVEMENT GAINS FOR ALL • LARGEST GAINS FOR LOW ACHIEVERS • SOLID FOUNDATION FOR LIFE-LONG LEARNING • EQUAL OPPORTUNITY TO SUCCEED

9. Big Ideas • Balanced Assessment: How do we build an assessment system that meet the needs of all assessment users? • Quality Assessment is Essential: Assessment is about gathering information to inform instructional decisions. Are we getting accurate information? • Productive Assessment: Dynamics from the students point of view. • Leadership is essential: What kind of leadership is needed to build a productive vision of assessment?

10. We assess to… • Inform instructional decisions • To encourage students to try to learn

11. Classroom User Needs: • Decision? The driving question is what comes next in the learning? To answer that we need to know where they are at currently with their learning. • Who? Student, teacher and parents • Helpful info?Continuous info on EACH student’s progress on their journey to meeting a particular standard.

12. Question?Turn and Talk Might it be a good idea to engage our students in partners with us so they understand what targets we are going to hit? Might it be a good idea to engage our students in the creation of common assessments? Mightit be a good idea for students to understand the implications of the results in the common assessments for their learning?

13. Key to Success • All assessments arise from high quality standards • All assessments produce accurate evidence • All users use assessment to benefit student learning

14. A Revolution in Assessment Dynamics • If assessment isn’t working effectively day to day in the classroom,… If poor decisions arise from unsound assessments during the learning—the other assessment levels are wasted, they become irrelevant. Bad decisions day to day stops the learning. You don’t fix that every couple weeks….teachers it is you that needs to make these decisions.

15. In order to create a quality assessment you need four specific design features: (If not somebody is going to get hurt) • Select a proper method (short essay, multiple choice, personal communication, performance assessment, observation) These methods are not interchangeable. You cannot use your favorite. Don’t begin to think that you can get an accurate picture relying on multiple choice problems. This is assessment literacy that makes assessment sound. • Built of quality ingredients: High quality rubrics, not POOR ones. They didn’t teach us that at teacher’s schools. • We need to sample student achievement appropriately. • We need to prevent bias. Things can go wrong in the scoring process, students have bad days, etc…

16. A bad common assessment is worse that not having one at all. We need the assessment literacy to do it well.

17. Actions/Demands STOP: Abandon report card grades a communication about achievement. They don’t motivate. We know better how to communicate about student learning. We know better than 50 years ago. START: Communicate about learner’s place on the scaffolding at any point and time. The time has come to communicate effectively that promotes the learning. Let the argument begin. Let’s role out the criteria for effective communication. STOP assessing and treating assessment like it’s the adults are in charge of the learning. Stop excluding students START: Understanding that students are data-based decision makers too. They need to be set up to make productive decisions. We need to open up our PLC’s and have students make decisions about this! STOP: Believing that state standards by themselves are sufficient. Are they precise? This is important for certain purposes. START: Scaffolding your instruction STOP: Relying on the intimidation of accountability to drive desire to succeed. True hopelessness always trumps intimidation. START: Assessing to build success and confidence as the primary motivator. This is the future of assessment. It is ahead of the curve. STOP: Believing that assessment quality doesn’t matter. If we have cared about this we would have made sure that every teacher and principal were assessment experts. START: Promoting accuracy and assessment literacy. They must permeate the system. We must do it WELL at all levels.

18. It is time for us to… • Build assessment partnerships. • Define academic success in clear and complete terms • Demand accurate assessment • Demand effective communication

19. Turn and Talk • What are some ways you can begin this journey to improve assessment practices in your current district? • As a school leader or teacher, how do you handle resisters of change?

20. The power of Assessment To Transform Teaching & Learning Dr. Larry Ainsworth

21. Learning Objectives • Consider the “big picture”- looking at common formative assessments as the centerpiece of an integrated standards and assessment system. • Add to our “assessment literacy.”

22. Common findings in successful schools • Formed a Professional Learning Community • Focused on student work (through assessment) • Changed their instructional practice accordingly to get better results • Did all this on a continuing basis

23. Putting the Pieces of the puzzle together • Standards & Assessment • Effective teaching strategies • Data-Driven Decision Making • Accountability for learning

24. Power Standards = “Priority Standards” Course specific learning outcomes

25. How powerful practices work together Power Standards Data-Driven Decision Making Unwrap Standards, Big Ideas, Essential Questions Effective Teaching Strategies Common Formative Assessments Performance Standards Rubrics

26. Turn and Talk • “We are over testing, but under assessing.” • “Data Rich Information Poor” DRIP

27. How Powerful Practices Work Together! 1.Identify essential standards. These become to Power or Priority Standards. 2. Analyze state test data; revise selections as needed. 3. “Unwrap” those standards to identify concepts and skills students need to know and be able to do; Big Ideas & Essential Questions.

28. How Powerful Practices Work Together! 4. Select effective teaching strategies to meet diverse student learning needs. 5. Teach those “unwrapped” concepts and skills through performance assessments guided by Essential Questions. 6. Evaluate student work with rubrics or scoring guides to assess proficiency.

29. How Powerful Practices Work Together! 7. Give common assessments to see improvements within grade, department, school and district. 8. Analyze data and repeat instructional cycle.

30. What Are Common Assessments? • “Not standardized tests, but rather teacher-created, teacher-owned assessments that are collaboratively scored and that provide immediate feedback to students and teachers.” Doug Reeves

31. If you can’t use data tomorrow from your assessment today, then it is not formative. We need to give feedback immediately. Otherwise it is NOT formative assessment.

32. Data Teams: The mechanism for measuring progress • Collect and chart data and results. • Analyze strengths and obstacles. • Set goal for student improvement. • Select effective teaching strategies. (Marzano’s new book) • Determine results indicators.

33. Turn and Talk • After reviewing the research that supports data teams, what are we currently doing to implement this practice? • What additional support is needed to ensure that this happens?

34. The Two Tools of Assessment • “No single assessment can meet everyone’s information needs… To maximize student success, assessment must be seen as in instructional tool for use while learning is occurring, and as an accountability tool to determine if learning has occurred. Because both purposes are important, they must be in balance.” NEA Balanced Assessment: 2003

35. Assess More Often • A number of short assessments given over time will provide a better indication of a student’s learning than one or two large assessments given in the middle and at the end of the grading period. • Marzano, Stiggins, Black, Wiliam, Popham, Reeves

36. Research Support • “Research suggests that, if done well, genuine ‘assessments for learning’ can produce among the largest achievement gains ever reported for educational interventions.” • Lynn Olson, “’Just-in-Time’ Tests Change What Classrooms Do Next,” Education Week, may 2, 2007, p. 22

37. Research Support • “In reviewing 250 studies from around the world, published between 1987 and 1998, we found that a focus by teachers on assessment for learning, as opposed to assessment of learning, produced a substantial increase in students’ achievement.” Paul Black & Dylan Wiliam, (1998) Assessment and Classroom Learning, Assessment in Education: Principle, Policy, and Practice, 5 (1),pp. 7-73.

38. 5 Key Benefit ofFormative Assessments • Clarifying and sharing learning intentions and criteria for success (rubrics & exemplars) • Engineering effective classroom discussions, questions, learning tasks that elicit evidence of learning • Providing feedback that moves learners forward • Activating students as instructional resources for one another • Activating students as the owners of their own learning

39. The Standards-Assessment Alignment Diagram Annual State Assessments District Benchmark Formative or Summative Assessments End or course Summative Assessment School-Based Common Formative (Post) Assessments Conceptual Units of Instruction with Classroom Performance Assessment Tasks and Scoring Guides Data Teams & Effective Teaching Strategies Data Teams & Effective Teaching Strategies School Based Common Formative (Pre) Assessments Unwrapping Standards, Big Ideas, Essential Questions Power Standards State Standards

40. Laying The Foundation:Steps 1-6 • Step 1: Select Important Topic • Step 2: Identify Matching Power Standards • Step 3: “Unwrap” Selected Power Standards • Step 4: Create Graphic Organizer • Step 5: Determine the Big Ideas • Step 6: Write the Essential Questions

41. Writing First-DraftAssessment Items • Step 7: Select Assessment Types • Step 8: Write First-Draft Assessment Items • Step 9: Create Answer Keys and Scoring Guides • Step 10: Review and Revise Common Assessment items

42. Grading: The New FrontierKen O’Conner

43. Why Standards-Based Grading and Reporting? • Mandate • Supports learning • Improves communication • Consistency/fairness

44. Share Grading Scale • Adding a single grade detracts from the communication to parents and students. • One symbol cannot do justice to the different degrees of learning a student acquires across all learning outcomes.

45. Dealing with Late Work • Penalties don’t change the behavior. A better approach would be to provide support. It is a behavioral issue. It should not be included in the “grade” but should be reported out on. Behavior Rubric

46. Homework • This is a formative assessment. It is practice and should not be part of grades. Some students do not need to do the homework. Some students cannot do that homework. Lastly, some students can do it and it will help them. We should not say, “You need to do this because it is part of your grade.”

47. Bonus points on tests or dressing up for a presentation both have no place in grades. • “Group grades are so blatantly unfair that alone they should never be used.” (Kagan, 2004) This may also be challenged in court. “No student’s grade should depend on the achievement (or behavior) of other students.”

48. Formative Assessments • This is used to improve learning and instruction. It should not be used for assigning grades. When formative assessment is done well, students achieve at high levels. Feedback needs to be timely, descriptive and low stakes. Turn and Talk: How does your school/district use formative assessments to support student learning?

49. Grades • Final grades should never be determined by simply averaging the grades from several grading periods. The most accurate information is the most current information. • Second Chance: Students need to demonstrate their understanding so you can provide them a second chance. An example of a standards based report card

50. Grades • Should come from…. A body of evidence + performance standards+ guidelines