Formative Assessment in the Classroom

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Formative Assessment in the Classroom
Margaret Heritage
EED Winter Conference Informing Instruction,
Improving Achievement Anchorage, Alaska - January
16 -18, 2007
UCLA Graduate School of Education Information
StudiesNational Center for Research on
Evaluation,Standards, and Student Testing
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Overview

• What is Formative Assessment?
• Elements of Formative Assessment
• Examples of Formative Assessment
• Teacher Knowledge, Skills and Attitudes
• A Conceptualization of the Domain of Teaching for
  Formative Assessment

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What is Formative Assessment?
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What is Formative Assessment?

• An Ongoing Process To
• Evoke evidence about student learning
• Provide feedback about learning to teachers and
  to students
• Close the gap between the learners current state
  and desired goals

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Formative Assessment Must Be

• Clearly and directly linked to instructional
  goals
• Embedded in instruction
• A variety of methods and strategies
• Used to make changes

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Elements of Formative Assessment
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Identifying the Gap

• Formative assessment is the means to identify the
  gap between a learners current status and the
  desired goal
• Different students will have different "gaps"
• (Sadler, 1989)

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The Just Right Gap

• Student perceives the gap as too large - goal
  unattainable
• Student perceives the gap as too small - closing
  it might not be worth the individual effort
• (Sadler, 1989)

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Interpretive Framework

• Teachers need to interpret evidence from
  formative assessment
• Having an interpretive framework means having a
  roadmap articulating the sub goals that
  constitute progression toward the ultimate goal
• Interpretive frameworks provide the touchstone
  for formative assessment strategies
• Evidence is interpreted within the framework

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Interpretive Framework

• Developmental criteria (Harlen, 2006)
• Theory of knowledge in a domain (NRC, 2001
  Shavelson, 2006)
• Ontology (Baker, 2005)
• Clearly articulated progression of learning in a
  domain (Forster Masters, 2004 Wilson Sloane,
  2000)

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Closing the Gap
Formative assessment gathers and uses
information about students knowledge and
performance to close the gap between students
current learning state and the desired state by
pedagogical actions (Shavelson 2006, p.3)
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Matching Action to the Gap

• The zone of proximal development
• Scaffolding instruction within the zone of
  proximal development

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Feedback

• Feedback to teachers about current status to
  adapt instruction
• Feedback to students to respond to instructional
  adaptations

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Feedback Students

• Clear, descriptive, criterion-based feedback to
  students that indicates
• v where they are in the learning progression
• v how their response differed from that reflected
  in desired learning goal
• v how they can move forward

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Feedback Loops
Feedback loops include a teacher who knows which
skills are to be learned, who can recognize and
describe good performance, demonstrate good
performance, and indicate how poor performance
can be improved. (Sadler 1989, p.120)
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Shared Ownership

• Teachers and students have shared understanding
  and ownership of the learning goal
• Students become involved in self-assessment
• Students need to learn the strategies of
  self-assessment
• Students make more knowledgeable decisions
  regarding their current learning tactics
  (Popham, 2006)

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Summing Up
Formative assessment is a means to continuously
gather evidence and provide feedback about
learning so that pedagogical actions can be
adapted to meet learning needs, and so that
students can be active participants with their
teachers in understanding how their learning is
progressing and how improvements can be made.
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Formative Assessment Methods
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Methods

• On-the-fly
• Planned for interaction
• Curriculum embedded

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A Typology of Formative Assessment

• When pasting text from another document, do the
  following
• Highlight the text you want to replace
• Go to the EDIT menu and select PASTE SPECIAL
• Select Paste as UNFORMATTED TEXT

• Performance tasks (teacher observation of
  student(s) carrying out an investigation, oral
  presentation)
• Written tasks (teacher analysis science
  notebooks, history essay, literature response,
  explanation of mathematical strategy)
• Discussions (questions, teacher listens to group
  discussion, teacher/student conferences)
• Tests (quizzes , tests of discrete skills,
  diagnostic tests)
• Student self-assessment

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Assessment Cycles

• To adjust the slide numbering, do the following
• Go to the VIEW menu, MASTER, and select SLIDE
  MASTER
• In the lower right, change the number 28 to your
  number of slides
• Do not change the ltgt character. It generates
  the auto-numbers.

Wiliam, 2006
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Validity and Reliability

• Purpose
• Consequence
• Formative assessments do not stand alone

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Examples of Formative Assessment
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Elementary Mathematics
Heritage Niemi, 2006
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Middle School Science

What would happen to a tennis ball dropped from a
height of 100 feet into 30 feet of water?
New Standards, 1989
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Elementary Science

Bailey Heritage, (forthcoming)
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Elementary Reading
Text The sun was hot. Marco The sun was hot.

Text Pop had a top hat. Marco Pop had a t-o-p
pot hat.
Text Mom had a red wig. Marco Mom had a red
w-i-g---giw.
Bailey Heritage, (forthcoming)
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Middle School Mathematics
Group 1 Division of fifteen-fifths means a
fraction or a division. Fifteen divided by five
is three. Group 2 Division means dividing some
numbers and make it to a smaller number.
Fifteen-fifths is fifteen divided by five. That
makes three. Group 3 Division is opposite of
multiplication. Fifteen-fifths is like five goes
into fifteen and that makes three because three
times five is fifteen. Group 4 Division is when
you flip the number when you divide and when you
multiply. Fifteen-fifths is like five times
something is fifteen, so the answer is
three. Group 5 Division is dividing one number
by another to solve the problem. Like
fifteen-fifths is X so, then five times X equals
three.
Heritage, Silva Pierce, 2006
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Middle School Science
Student response If there is a block of steel,
and you put it in water, it sinks because it had
more mass. If you put a hollow piece of steel of
the same mass, and shaped like a banana, it would
float because it was shaped different, so it
could float. For example, a fish has a swim
bladder. He can let air in and out, and that is
for him to go up or down or sub-surface. Gearhart
et al., 2006
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Characteristics

• Linked to instructional goals
• Integrated into instruction
• Provide ongoing feedback at a level of detail to
  stimulate action for improvements in learning
• Constructed and undertaken within an interpretive
  framework
• Enable descriptive feedback to be provided to
  students
• Involve students in the assessment process

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Teacher Knowledge, Skills and Attitudes for
Formative Assessment
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Content Knowledge

• Knowledge, concepts and skills that need to be
  taught within a domain
• Learning pathway/progression of sub goals
• Knowledge of good performance
• Necessary precursor knowledge and understanding
• Knowledge of student metacognition
  (self-regulation, self assessment, motivation)

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Pedagogical Content Knowledge

• Multiple models of teaching for student
  achievement in content areas
• Gap will differ so multiple, differentiated
  instructional strategies
• Multiple models for teaching student
  metacognitive strategies

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Student Prior Knowledge

• Prior knowledge students bring to the new
  learning
• How to determine prior knowledge

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Assessment Knowledge

• Range of methods/strategies for formative
  assessment (on-the-fly, planned for interaction,
  curriculum- embedded)
• Formative assessment cycles
• Validity purpose and interpretation
• Reliability

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Skills

• Interpretation of evidence
• Adapting instruction
• Determining the zone of proximal development
• Supporting new learning within the zone of
  proximal development (scaffolding) selecting
  the right strategy

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Skills

• Providing clear, descriptive, criterion-based
  feedback
• Feedback indicates to student how they can move
  forward
• Assisting students to develop metacognitive
  knowledge and "learning tactics(Popham, 2006)

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Attitudes

• Formative assessment is worthwhile
• Formative assessment yields valuable and
  actionable information about students learning
• Formative assessment is integral to instruction
• Students are partners in formative assessment and
  in learning

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Toward a Conceptualization of the Domain of
Teaching for Formative Assessment
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Conceptualizing the Domain
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Conceptualizing the Domain
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Conceptualizing the Domain
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Conceptualizing the Domain
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Conceptualizing the Domain
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Conceptualizing the Domain
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Conceptualizing the Domain
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Conceptualizing the Domain
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Conceptualizing the Domain
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