The Assessment Work of Professional Learning Communities

1. The Assessment Work of Professional Learning Communities “Standards without assessment are fantasies.” - Douglas Reeves, 2005 Quoted in On Common Ground – the Power of Professional Learning Communities

2. Rick Stiggins quote: “Teachers and students can hit any target they can see and will hold still.” What is the relationship between this statement and the activity in which you just participated?

3. Challenges Before assessment and instruction can be developed, all educators need a clear understanding of what the standards look like in student work and what measurable learning targets are required for students to achieve mastery.

4. Content Standards Data Analysis, Probability, and Statistics NCTM Grade 8 Draw inferences and construct and evaluate arguments based on data analysis and measures of central tendency.

5. Backward Designby Wiggins and McTighe Learning Target Assessment Curriculum Instruction

6. Thinking like an Assessor What will be sufficient and revealing evidence of understanding? What performance tasks must anchor the unit and focus my instruction? How will I be able to distinguish between those who really understand and those who don’t? Against what criteria will I distinguish work? What misunderstandings are likely? How will I check for those? Thinking like a Designer What would be interesting and engaging? What resources or materials are available? What assignments will be given? How will I grade students? Did the activities work? Why or why not? Two Different Approaches

7. 10-2 StrategyFor every ten minutes of new learning provide students two minutes to process the new learning. Research shows that you can either pay attention or make meaning. So time to process is essential to transfer learning to long term memory. Take two minutes and reflect on: Before instruction and assessments can be developed, all educators need a clear understanding of what the standards look like in student work and what measurable learning targets are required for students to achieve mastery.

8. Results Orientated Teaching: Three Stages of Backward Design • Identify desired results. • Determine acceptable evidence. • Plan learning experiences and instruction.

9. Identify Desired Results 1998 Grant Wiggins & Jay McTighe Worth being familiar with… Important to know and be able to do… Enduring and essential understanding…

10. Identify Desired Results: Try It! In order to fully utilize the standards educators must be able to answer the following questions. • What does it look like in student work? • What are the embedded learning targets? • How are standards and targets understood by teachers and shared with students? • Are the targets found in our curriculum maps or pacing guides?

11. Determine Acceptable Evidence • How will we know that students have achieved desired results and met the standards? • What will we accept as evidence of successful and deep understanding?

12. Plan Learning Experiences • What knowledge will students need? • What will need to be modeled and coached? • What does the research tell us about effective instructional strategies for this desired learning?

13. Think-Pair-Share Use the three guiding questions for Learning by Doing Chapter 3. Discuss each with a partner. Share with the group.

15. Student Interviews • What are you doing? • Why are you being asked to do it? • What will it help you do? • How does it fit into what you have previously done? • How will you show that you have learned it?

16. The Importance of Beginning with Targets

17. Is this a target? • Math • Decimals • Page 152 in text • Go on a “decimal hunt” • Correctly read decimals and put them in numerical order

18. Key Questions for Learning Targets • What do my students need to know and understand to be ready to meet this standard expectation? • What patterns of reasoning must my students have mastered to be ready to meet this standard or expectation? • What performance skills must my students have mastered, if any, to be ready to meet this standard or expectation? • What product development capabilities, if any, must my students have mastered to be ready to meet this standard/expectation?

19. Kinds of Learning Targets • Knowledge • The facts and concepts we want students to know • Reasoning • Students use what they know to reason and solve problems • Skills • Students use their knowledge and reasoning • Products • Students use their knowledge, reasoning, and skills to create a concrete product • Dispositions • Students’ attitudes about school and learning

20. Depth of Knowledge Can be applied to Standards (Content Expectations), AND to Assessment Items (Dr. Norman Webb, University of Wisconsin, 1997, 2002) • Recall • Skills and Concepts • Strategic Thinking • Extended Thinking

21. Collaborative Work Time Depth of Knowledge

22. Grade 3: M.PS.03.03 Solve applied problems involving money, length and time. • Target DOK = 2 • Applied • Not naked math • Reasoning Target

23. Grade 8: R.CM.08.03 Analyze global themes, universal truths, and principles within and across texts to create a deeper understanding by drawing conclusion, making inferences, and synthesizing. • Target DOK = 3 • Connections • Target DOK = 4 • Analyze and synthesize • Reasoning Target

24. Collaborative Work Time Depth of Knowledge

25. Monitoring How do we know that teachers are teaching the standards? How do we determine if students understand what they are supposed to learn? Alignment How do we make sure that all students will learn this standard? What is the appropriate level of information they need? What selection of material are we focusing on? Unpacking the Standards

26. Steps to Unpacking the Standards Step 1: Select a learning expectation Step 2: Determine and Define Verbs Step 3: List key terms Step 4: Teacher Speak – Students will be able to… Step 5: Student Speak – I can…

27. Unpacking the Standards Determines the various components of each expectation: terms, facts, principles, processes, procedures, performance. • Validity and utility of assessments • Precision of instruction • Mastery of essential learning

28. Unpacking for Learning • Identify verbs. • Define the verbs. What does it look like in student work? • Define the verb for students. • Rewrite the GLCE or HSCE as “I can” • Repeat for content and skills. • Share and refine as needed.

29. Unpacking the Standards

30. Monitoring How do we know that teachers are teaching the standards? How do we determine if students understand what they are supposed to learn? Alignment How do we make sure that all students will learn this standard? What is the appropriate level of information they need? What selection of material are we focusing on? Unpacking the Standards

31. Clear Targets: Benefits to Students • Students who could identify their learning scored 27 percentile points higher than those who could not (Marzano, 2005) • A student’s success on a standardized math test: 40% is dependent upon mathematics literacy (Jacobs, 2004)

32. Posting Student Speak in Classrooms • Public Declaration • Constant Visual Organizer • Focus of Essential Learning for Students

33. Ineffective Posting

34. Effective Posting

35. Targets Foundation of Instruction, Learning and Assessment…… What is it we expect students to learn? What is it that students expect to learn? Do we have individual goals leading to comprehension of a BIG IDEA? Do students understand the progress toward the BIG IDEA?