BEYOND THE RIGHT ANSWER:

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BEYOND THE RIGHT ANSWER

• NURTURING CREATIVE AND CRITICAL THINKERS
• Teaching
  That Works Learning that Matters
• 
  May 8, 2008
• 
  Joan Green

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BEYOND THE MARKS

• Ensuring Accountability for Improved Student
  Achievement

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• The power of assessment
• rests in the ability
• to help people identify
• where they are going,
• how to improve the
• journey and
• whether they have arrived.

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• If we know where were going and how were
  expected to get there, we are able to make better
  decisions along the way.

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• Students can hit any target that they can see
  and that holds
• still for them.
• Stiggins

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• Students who have to perform
• or exhibit their knowledge
• and skills get learning in
• their bones active learners
• become life-long learners.
• Rexford Brown

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I recently had my problems on the run, but now
theyve re-grouped and are making another attack.
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What is your best interpretation of the
statement
ALL KIDS CAN LEARN
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• to the level of their ability
• to the extent they take advantage of the
  opportunities provided
• its up to us to see they have the opportunities
  to grow and develop
• we will establish high expectations and high
  standards that we expect all students to achieve

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The Right Answer

• All kids can learn
• so we will establish high standards that we
  expect all students to achieve

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• Access
• Providing support

• Success
• Expecting all to achieve at high levels

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• Teachers who gather accurate information about
  student achievement through the use of sound
  assessment for learning contribute to effective
  teaching and learning. On the other hand, those
  who fail to understand and apply the rules of
  evidence for sound assessment risk doing great
  harm to students.
• Stiggins

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• Weighing a pig does not make it fatter
  assessing per se does not affect student learning.

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• Nobody ever got muscles from watching me lift
  weights
• Arnold Schwartzenegger

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EFFECTIVE ASSESSMENT
What does the information Im collecting tell
me?
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Diagnostic Assessment

• is conducted prior to and during teaching and
  learning to determine
• What existing knowledge, skills, attitudes,
  interests and/or needs the students has
• The range of individual differences
• What program plans and/or modifications are
  required to meet the needs of individuals or
  groups of students

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Formative Assessment

• is conducted throughout teaching and learning
  to
• Keep the teacher and students focused on the
  purpose of the lesson/activity/unit/program
• Provide information to the teacher and students
  about the progress being made
• Determine the effectiveness of instruction in
  helping students to achieve the purpose

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Summative Assessment

• is conducted at the end of teaching and learning.
  It is used in combination with data from
  formative assessment to
• Describe what students know, can do and value
• Evaluate student growth relative to the purpose
  of the lesson/activity/unit/program
• Evaluate student growth relative to the System
  Learning Outcomes

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Assessment
Evaluation

• is the gathering, recording and analysis of data
  about a students progress and achievements, or
  about a programs implementation and
  effectiveness.

• is the application of judgment to the data
  gathered, and its analysis, in order to place a
  value on progress or achievement or
  effectiveness.

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• Assessment For Learning
• Assessment As Learning
• (metacognition)
• Assessment Of Learning

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Assessment Of Learning

• Assessment of learning is assessment for
  accountability purposes , to determine and report
  on a students level of performance on a specific
  task or at the conclusion of a unit of teaching
  and learning.

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• ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING gtgtgtgt
• the aha moment , a breakthrough in
  understanding
• the development of a skill as a result of the
  teachers persistent and well-informed guidance

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FEEDBACK FOR LEARNINGFEEDFORWARD

• Feedback is a natural and necessary component
  of learning and is what makes assessment an
  integral part of the learning processassessment
  for learning and not just of learning

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Assessment For Learning

• Effective ongoing classroom assessment can
  provide inspired and inspiring personal
  interaction between student and teacher as they
  collaborate to improve the students performance,
  one step at a time.

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Assessment For Learning

• Engages and motivates students
• Helps students take responsibility for their
  learning
• Helps students make concerted efforts to improve
  work
• Informs teacher decisions about instruction of
  individual and groups of students

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Assessment For Learning

• Guides teachers in encouraging and supporting
  students
• Helps teachers analyze and communicate the
  characteristics and quality of student work so
  students understand strengths and weaknesses
• Assists teachers explore the habits of mind and
  attitudes of students through focused conversation

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Assessment For Learning and the At Risk Student

• Students who have fallen behind have learning
  needs complicated by issues of motivation and
  self concept
• Assessing for learning and student-teacher
  conversations about quality
• emerging communicative competence student
  understanding of their work and where it needs
  improvement

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Assessment For Learning

• Assessment for learning acknowledges
• that assessment should occur as a regular part
  of teaching and learning and that the information
  gained from assessment activities can be used to
  shape the teaching and learning process.

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THE WELL STREET INDEXOF ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING

• Teachers use what they observe to make
  adjustments to their instructional strategies
• Teachers analyze individual student work and make
  judgments about what would constitute improvement

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• Teachers provide feedback to/dialogue with
  students on the quality and characteristics of
  their work
• Teachers make clear, specific, targeted
  suggestions re improvement based on
• Info gathered through observation of skills and
  habits of mind
• Ongoing conversations
• Analysis of specific pieces of work

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• Teachers systematically follow up on student
  attention to suggestions and resulting progress
• Teachers convey a belief in students capacity
  for improvement
• Teachers persevere in their efforts to encourage
  and support improvement efforts

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Benefits for Students of Formative Assessment For
Learning

• Active involvement with teachers in job of
  improving their performance and sharing
  responsibility for their own progress
• Student conviction that with appropriate effort
  on their part and support improvement can happen
• Students understand and can describe quality
  work
• Students improve their performance as a result of
  strategic and persistent effort and support

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ASSESSMENT AS LEARNING

• If you want to appear accountable, test your
  students. If you want to improve schools, teach
  teachers to assess their students. If you want to
  maximize learning, teach students to assess
  themselves.

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• We must constantly remind ourselves that the
  ultimate purpose of assessment is to have
  students become self-evaluating. If students
  graduate from our schools still depending upon
  others to tell them when they are adequate, good
  or excellent, then weve missed the whole point
  of what education is about.
• Costa Kallick
• If Mind Matters

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THE MISSING PIECEASSESSMENT AS LEARNING

• Self-Reflection
• Self-Assessment
• Self-Evaluation

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• Metacognition is like
• standing outside
• ones head and directing
• how one is going about executing a thinking
  task.
• Costa, Arthur L.

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• A completely different level of
• assessment takes place in the
• individual student, who is
• constantly assessing her own work, deciding what
• is right and wrong, what fits and what does not,
  
• what is a good enough job. This self-appraisal
  is
• the ultimate locus of all standards.
• Berger

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• Accurate self-assessment, self-adjustment and
  self-monitoring are only possible when students
  know what is expected of them and what quality
  looks like.

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The Assessor

• The assessor tries to ferret out all of what the
  student knows and can do by various means.
• The tester, on the other hand, demands of the
  student specific responses to fixed questions of
  the testers choosing. Assessment requires that
  we come to know the student in actionthe purpose
  of assessment is to assist and inform the
  learner.
• Grant Wiggins

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Etymology of the Word Assess

• The etymology of the word assess alerts us to
  this clinical, that is, client-centred-act.
  Assess is a form of the Latin verb assidere,
  meaning to sit with. In an assessment, one
  sits with the learner. It is something we do
  with and for the student, not something we do to
  the student.

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TWO FUNCTIONS OF ASSESSMENT

• To provide a catalyst or lever for improvement.
• 2. To inform parents, students, teachers about
  the performance of students.

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Measuring Performance Against Progress

• The learners performance can be improved only
  when it is measured against progress, not
  growth. And measuring progress means measuring
  backward from the destination- that is, the
  standards and criteria exemplified in models of
  excellent work.
• Grant Wiggins

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Assessing Knowledge and Skills

• While a test in which the student responds to
  pre-fashioned answers tells us what the student
  knows, it does not tell us whether the student
  is on the road to using knowledge wisely or
  effectively. Narrow, one-dimensional probes into
  a students mines of stored information do not
  begin to get at how s/he learns or what s/he can
  do.
• Grant Wiggins

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• It is through formative classroom assessment
  for learning that attitudes, skills, knowledge
  and thinking are fostered, nurtured and
  accelerated - or stifled.

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• Feedback is information that provides the
  performer with direct, usable insights into
  current performance, based on tangible
  differences between current performance and
  hoped-for performance.
• Wiggins, Grant

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• Everything that occurs in a classroom is
  potential evidence of learning.
• Evidence consists of
• observations of students at work,
• the products they create, and
• what they communicate in the conversations about
  their learning.

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Marlup

• A marlup was poving his kump. Parmily a narg
  horped some whev in his kump. Why did vump hopr
  whev in
• my frinkle kump?, the marlup jufd the narg.
  Erm
• muvvily trungy, the narg grupped.
• Er heshed vump norpled whev in your kump. Do
  vump pove your kump frinkle?

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Marlup

• What did the narg horp in the marlups kump?
• What did the marlup juf the narg?

3. Was the narg trungy? 4. How does the marlup
prove his kump?
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TYPES OF ASSESSMENT

• Paper and Pencil
• Standardized tests
• Examinations
• Classroom tests
• Selected response e.g., true/false
• Constucted response e.g., fill in the blank
• Short response to specific questions or problems

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TYPES OF ASSESSMENT
Performance Assessments

• Projects
• Simulations
• Essays
• Presentations
• Exhibitions and recitals
• Oral artifacts

• Music, dance or dramatic performance
• Visual arts product
• Science experiment
• Skills demonstration (e.g., life-saving
• Debate
• Role-playing

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TYPES OF ASSESSMENT

• Personal Communication Between Teacher and
  Student
• Instructional questions and answers
• Interview
• Conference (independent study project)
• Classroom discussion

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TYPES OF ASSESSMENT

• Cumulative Assessments
• Portfolios
• Journals/logs
• Rubrics as Tools

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• the distinction between instruction and
  assessment begins to blur-as well it should. In
  promoting learning, evaluation should be used not
  only as a judgment of students progress but also
  as a springboard for instruction. One follows the
  other in logical progression.
• Badger, E.

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ITS A FACT
Research and Its Implications for
Instruction/Assessment
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Research saysKnowledge is constructed.
Learning is a process of creating personal
meaning from new information and prior knowledge.

• Implications for Instruction/Assessment
• Encourage discussion of new ideas
• Encourage divergent thinking, multiple links and
  solutions, not just one right answer
• Emphasize critical thinking skills analyze,
  compare, generalize, predict, hypothesize
• Relate new information to personal experience,
  prior knowledge
• Apply information to a new situation

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Research says There is great variety in
learning styles, attention spans, memory,
developmental paces and intelligences.

• Implications for Instruction/Assessment
• Provide choices in tasks
• Provide choices in how to show mastery/competence
• Provide time to think about and do assignments
• Provide opportunities for reflection
• Recognize and respect multiple ways of doing
  things

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Research saysPeople perform better when they
know the expectation, see models, know how their
performance compares to the standard.

• Implications for Instruction/Assessment
• Provide a range of samples of student work
  discuss characteristics
• Provide students with opportunities for
  self-evaluation and peer review
• Discuss criteria for judging performance
• Direct students to be improvement-focused
• Allow students to clearly define the standard

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Research saysMotivation, effort and
self-esteem affect learning and performance.
Success breeds success.

• Implications for Instruction/Assessment
• Motivate students with real-life tasks and
  connections to personal experiences
• Encourage students to see connections between
  effort and results
• Encourage students to monitor their own growth
  and learning

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• The goal of assessment is to help students and
  teachers constantly improve.

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The job of the school is to
RAISE THE BAR
AND CLOSE THE GAP
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To achieve excellence one must want to become
good enough bad enough. - Princeton University
Football Coach
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Schools need to adopt the spirit of kaizen, a
Japanese word that connotes an ongoing spirit of
concern with incremental but relentless
improvement, however small.
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NOT JUST GETTING BETTER INFORMATON
BUT RATHER TURNING
INFORMATION INTO INFORMATION THAT

CANNOT BE IGNORED
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By doing just a little every day, I can gradually
let the task completely overwhelm me.
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Real school reformers think for themselves. This
requires community---other people to push back as
you reason your way to a better truth
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A JAZZ BAND NOT A SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
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Reflection on experience and focused data
contributes to the refined action and to the
building of a repertoire of professional craft
knowledge or skillfulness and a culture of
learning
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Every school has a culture. Some are hospitable
to learning and some are toxic. They can work
for or against making things better for learning.
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A dozen healthy cultural norms

• Celebration and humour
• Decision-making involvement
• Important over the urgent
• Traditions and ritual
• Open, honest communication

• Collegiality
• Experimentation
• High expectations
• Trust and confidence
• Tangible support
• Use of knowledge bases and data
• Recognition

- Saphier and King
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Figuring out what promotes human learning
OR Keeping the main thing
the main thing!
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Invitations to Learn
5 Needs Teachers Must Address to Make Learning
Irresistible
Carol Ann Tomlinson Educational Leadership,
ASCD 2002
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Affirmation

• I am accepted and acceptable here just as I am.
• I am safe here physically, emotionally, and
  intellectually
• People here care about me
• People here listen to me
• People know how Im doing, and it matters to them
  that I do well
• People acknowledge my interests and perspectives
  and act upon them

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Contribution

• I make a difference in this place
• I bring unique and valuable perspectives and
  abilities to this place
• I help other students and the entire class to
  succeed
• I am connected to others through mutual work o
  common goals

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Purpose

• I understand what we do here
• I see significance in what we do
• What we do reflects me and my world
• The work we do makes a difference in the world
• The work absorbs me

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Power

• What I learn is useful to me now
• I make choices that contribute to my success
• I know what quality looks like and how to create
  quality work here
• Dependable support for my journey exists in this
  classroom

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Challenge

• The work here complements my ability
• The work stretches me
• I work hard in this classroom
• When I work hard, I generally succeed
• I am accountable for my own growth, and I
  contribute to the growth of others
• I accomplish things here that I didnt believe
  were possible

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Nine Key Instructional/Assessment Strategies for
Improving Literacy

• Direct, Explicit Comprehension Instruction

• Improving students reading comprehension through
  summarizing, identifying text structure and
  visual cues, calling on prior knowledge, and
  using graphic organizers
• Instruction in strategies how they work and when
  to use them
• Comprehension instruction gives students practice
  using strategies
• Teachers withdraw support as students become more
  successful at using strategies independently
• Reciprocal teaching aids students with
  questioning, clarifying, predicting, and
  summarizing. Students apply these to a text in a
  small group and then independently

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Nine Key Instructional/Assessment Strategies for
Improving Literacy

• Effective Instructional Principles
• Embedded in Content

• Good instruction in middle and high school
  integrates comprehension instruction and content
• Use informational and content-area texts when
  teaching strategies (eg. Outlining)
• Provide reading and writing instruction in
  classes (eg. SIM work identification, visual
  imagery, self-questioning, and paraphrasing)

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Nine Key Instructional/Assessment Strategies for
Improving Literacy

• Motivation and Self-Directed Learning

• Image of self as reader/writer strongly predicts
  reading and reading comprehension
• Sense of competence declines with progression
  through school
• Engagement and Self-Directed learning improves
  motivation, sense of competence, reading
  comprehension and strategy use
• Give students choices in reading and writing
  topics
• Students set goals independently for literacy and
  learning with teachers goals
• Self-directed learning coupled with teacher
  feedback on goals is very effective

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Nine Key Instructional/Assessment Strategies for
Improving Literacy

• Text-Based Collaborative Learning

• Improve literacy by using partner or small groups
  for work in literature, math, science, history
• Co-operative learning provides learners with peer
  models and helpers
• Students learn to voice their opinions to peers
  with alternative ideas

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Nine Key Instructional/Assessment Strategies for
Improving Literacy

• Strategic Tutoring

• Tutors are effective in grade 4 up
• Tutors give strategies to read, write and learn
  independently, and gives support to complete
  tasks
• Not necessarily long-term

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Nine Key Instructional/Assessment Strategies for
Improving Literacy

• Diverse Texts

• Students who have read more kinds of texts have
  demonstrated higher reading achievement
• School and classroom libraries that represent a
  wide range of student interest help encourage
  wide and frequent reading
• Increasing the amount and range of books improves
  achievement when combined with effective
  instruction
• Provide access to texts that are age appropriate
  but give a range of difficulty levels for higher
  achievement

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Nine Key Instructional/Assessment Strategies for
Improving Literacy

• Intensive Writing

• Reading, with writing, fosters more critical
  thinking and helps them with comprehension
  strategies
• Students should read multiple texts and
  synthesize them
• Higher quality writing is achieved with clear
  objectives and expectations and activities with
  high-level peer interactions
• More challenging writing assignments inspire
  better work regardless of student ability
• Adolescents should have 10 hours of literacy
  instruction each week with ¼ of those hours on
  writing

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Nine Key Instructional/Assessment Strategies for
Improving Literacy

• A Technology Component

• Technological applications can improve
  adolescents work reading and comprehension
• Effective applications use sound design
  principles and give students individualized
  instruction, skill practice, and reading texts
• Mixing audio, animation and text make greater
  demands on readers attention and comprehension
  processing

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Nine Key Instructional/Assessment Strategies for
Improving Literacy

• Ongoing Formative Assessment of Students

• Continuous assessment of instruction
• Assessment can be informal and occur frequently
• Assessments linked to clear criteria improve
  student learning
• Formative assessments provide detailed
  information about students strengths and
  weaknesses, enabling teachers to plan and adapt
  instruction

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If we keep doing what were doing, were going
to keep getting what were getting. Stephen Covey
Good news and bad news. The good news is, Ive
finally perfected the stone age axe. The bad
news is, its the iron age.
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Evidence Based Leadership

• Aligning Culture, Structures, Strategies and
  Skills

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Our decisions are often based on tradition,
opinions and personal preference.

• Our decisions should be based
• on evidence.

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Building a Culture of Discovery

• evidence is superior to opinion and we have
  nothing to fear from the data
• commitment to evidence and hypothesis testing
• practising Thats an interesting hypothesis.
  Lets test it with evidence.

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Prevailing Hypotheses

• there is too much to do - I dont have time for
  anything new
• the only way to succeed on tests is low-level
  drill
• test scores reflect socioeconomic conditions, not
  teaching

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Hypotheses to Challenge

• poor kids cant succeed
• teaching credentials dont matter
• factors outside of school overwhelm factors
  inside of school

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Facing the Facts

• economic and demographic factors are relevant,
  but not determinative
• mountain of evidence on consistent success by
  poor kids learning in challenging environments
• focus on variables you do influence - mainly
  leadership and teaching

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Ridding Our Schools of

• given the homes they come from, you cant expect
  much
• shes doing the best she can - dont put her
  under too much pressure
• of course he cant meet the standard, but hes
  doing OK all things considered

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Leadership and Learning Matrix
high
Achievement
Losing low results, low understanding of
antecedents
low
high
Understanding of antecedents of excellence
Douglas Reeves
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THE PROMISE .

• HIGH ACHIEVEMENT FOR ALL
• NO MATTER WHAT

DID I DO WHAT I SAID I WOULD?
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School Systems Highly Reliable Organizations

• DO NOT HAVE
• Large numbers of students who drop out of school
• Large numbers of students who do not learn skills
  for higher learning and/or workplace success
• Schools which blame students and families for
  students failures

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School Systems Highly Reliable Organizations

• DO HAVE
• The overwhelming majority of students succeeding
  in school.
• Schools which are accountable for the successes
  and failures of virtually all their students.

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It doesnt matter if youre on the right track,
if youre standing still.
Will Rogers
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Be visionary, not hallucinatory
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Complex times require conspicuous optimism
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New learning destroys old truths
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Moral energy is a renewable resource
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Supporters sustain us resistors make us wise
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A person who has ceased to learn ought not to be
allowed to wander around loose in these
dangerous days.