Seven Practices for Effective Learning

1. Seven Practices for Effective Learning Created by: Kelly Cassibry Teacher of the Gifted Reeves Elementary LBSD Gifted PLC Presentation April 1, 2014

2. “Like successful athletic coaches, the best teachers recognize the importance of ongoing assessments and continual adjustments on the part of both teacher and student as the means to achieve maximum performance.”

3. Types of Assessments Summative: Summarizes what was learned Diagnostic: Pre-Assessments Formative: Occurs concurrently with instruction

4. Practice 1: Use summative assessments to frame meaningful performance goals. • First, the summative assessments clarify the targeted standards and benchmarks for teachers and learners. • Second, the performance assessment tasks yield evidence that reveals understanding.  • Third, presenting the authentic performance tasks at the beginning of a new unit or course provides a meaningful learning goal for students. 

5. Critical Questions to Ask Yourself: • What do ALL of my students need to KNOW? • What should ALL of my students be able to DO to demonstrate they know? • What standards do I want to measure? • Which outcomes are not being assessed adequately?

6. Practice 2: Show criteria and models in advance. • Rubrics • Examples of Product (Show a variety of examples to prevent copying)

7. Practice 3: Assess before teaching. The teacher will know WHAT to teach. The teacher will know HOW to teach. Can use checklists, pre-tests, KWL charts, questions, etc.

8. Practice 4: Offer appropriate choices. First, teachers need to collect appropriate evidence of learning on the basis of goals rather than simply offer a “cool” menu of assessment choices. Second, the performance assessment tasks yield evidence that reveals understanding. Third, presenting the authentic performance tasks at the beginning of a new unit or course provides a meaningful learning goal for students. 

9. Practice 5: Provide feedback early and often. It must be timely, specific, understandable to the receiver, and formed to allow for self-adjustment on the student's part. 

10. Specificity is key to helping students understand both their strengths and the areas in which they can improve.

11. The learner needs opportunities to act on the feedback.

12. Practice 6: Encourage self-assessment and goal setting. • What aspect of your work was most effective? • What aspect of your work was least effective? • What specific action or actions will improve your performance? • What will you do differently next time?

13. Show students how to assess their own and others' work against the performance standards, expectations or levels. Help students learn “Habits of Success”, how to set goals and both reflect on and monitor their own work

14. Practice 7: Allow new evidence of achievement to replace old evidence. A driver education student fails his driving test the first time, but he immediately books an appointment to retake the test one week later. He passes on his second attempt because he successfully demonstrates the requisite knowledge and skills. The driving examiner does not average the first performance with the second, nor does the new license indicate that the driver “passed on the second attempt.”

15. Students are more likely to put forth the required effort when there is Task clarity—when they clearly understand the learning goal and know how teachers will evaluate their learning (Practices 1 and 2). Relevance—when they think the learning goals and assessments are meaningful and worth learning (Practice 1). Potential for success—when they believe they can successfully learn and meet the evaluative expectations (Practices 3–7).

16. Guidelines for Assessment Practices 1. Use summative assessments to frame meaningful performance goals - in terms of desirable outcomes 2. Show criteria and models in advance to help students understand criteria 3. Assess before teaching 4. Offer appropriate choices 5. Provide feedback early and often - F³ (timely, specific and understandable) 6. Encourage self-assessment and goal-setting 7. Allow new evidence to replace old evidence

17. “The principal limitation of any grading system that requires the teacher to assign one number or letter to represent . . . learning is that one symbol can convey only one meaning. One symbol cannot do justice to the different degrees of learning a student acquires across all learning outcomes.” Tombariand Borich, Authentic Assessment in the Classroom, Prentice Hall, 1999,

18. Bibliography Johnston, Howard. “Best Practices in Grading”. Shaker Regional School District. Education Partnerships, Inc. December 2011. Moore, Barbara. “Effective Grading Practices 12 Fixes for Broken Grades. Southern Regional Education Board. 2014. O’Connor, Ken and McTighe, Jay. “Seven Practices for Effective Learning.” Educational Leadership. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, November 2005.