Alyce Barr
Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies
610 Henry Street
Brooklyn, NY 11231
Creating a System for Performance-based Assessment
How can I help the staff draw on our outside resources and build our collective knowledge of authentic assessment to develop a school-wide system of performance-based assessment?
· The greatest power to influence student learning rests in teacher-designed formative assessment, evaluation that is directly linked to curriculum and daily instruction.
· When teachers use student work to understand what students know and are able to do, they can also see how students think and how and where they become frustrated, confused, or unsuccessful.
· As they gather, analyze and reflect on their individual work samples and the body of their work, students come to understand their own development over time and how their work demonstrates mastery of specific learning targets.
Several factors made this an ideal time for BCS to refine and develop its performance-based assessment practices.
· DOE Mandated Periodic Assessments When the NYCDOE began to require periodic formative assessments, schools were offered the choice to use periodic assessments provided by the DOE or to become DYO (Do Your Own) schools. BCS joined them in partnership with the Center for Inquiry, the research arm of the NY Performance Standards Consortium. Most Consortium high schools have a waiver that enables them to use Performance-based Assessment Tasks (PBATs) for summative assessments, in lieu of Regents exams and as promotional and graduation criteria. BCS hopes to eventually gain such a waiver and in order to become eligible we must have the practice of performance-based assessment in place.
· Expeditionary Learning BCS is an Expeditionary Learning (EL) School.. Formative assessment in EL Schools is communicated to students, staff, families and external monitors, through the use of learning targets, which use simple declarative sentences beginning with “I” to state goals for mastery, i.e., “I can make a pie graph to illustrate the proportionate ethnic breakdown of a school population and can explain the percentages represented in this graph.” Daily goals and clear learning targets provide a structure and vehicle for the implementation of performance-based assessment.
· Ongoing Performance-based Assessment of Reading Using TC Reading Assessments For the past two years BCS 6th - 9th grade teachers have also worked with the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project.. Using short pieces of leveled text for students to read aloud and discuss, teachers have determined reading levels and progress. These formative performance assessments have enabled teachers to match students to appropriate books, to see clearly the reading strategies they have in place and those they need to be taught. The TC assessments have given teachers a basis for structuring guided reading groups and for determining the sequence of mini-lessons for each unit.
Gathering Information
· We created a series of questions about the collection of student work and the use of portfolio assessment to understand whether and how teachers collect work, the kinds of work they saved, and whether and how this work is assembled, evaluated, and shared in portfolios. These questions were used to create an online survey (Appendix A) administered to all staff. The link for the survey follows. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=wJSM9yKMJcXCgncclmijJA_3d_3d
· Teachers, administrators, students and other members of our community interviewed and met with students and administrators in model performance assessment schools to determine how they created the systems they use, what they find most effective, what they find difficult or challenging and how these difficulties might be avoided.
· We compared what we learned from other schools and ongoing Expeditionary Learning professional development to current practices in our school. Current practices were modified to include what we learned from other schools and to make a consistent system for our school.
· We created Staff Learning Targets for the 2008-2009 school year (Appendix B)
Timeline
Summer 2007
· Review current state of BCS’s assessment structures
· Formulate questions regarding performance-based assessment
· Share goal of system development with assistant principals and with NYC Outward Bound Field Director and School Designer
Fall 2007
· Develop Lead Teacher Structure
· Introduce Learning Targets within each department
· Begin EL Assessment Work
· Begin school visits
· Create survey to gather information about current practices in school
· Attend Performance Assessment Consortium Meeting and Center for Inquiry (DYO) meetings
Winter 2007/08
· Convert Progress Reports to Learning Target Language
· Continue EL Assessment Work
· Begin school visits, interviews, and participation in portfolio panels
· Compile survey results and samples of current practices w/in school
· Continue school visits
· Do DYO Moderation Study* with Doug Knecht (Network Achievement Coach)
· Work with Lead teachers and assistant principals to develop pilot system
· Share pilot system with Consultation Committee, SLT, Student Government, and grade level teams
Spring 2008
· Continue EL Assessment Work
· Continue school visits, interviews, and participation in portfolio panels
· Do DYO Moderation Study with Doug Knecht (Network Liaison)
· Work with Lead teachers and assistant principals to develop pilot system
· Share pilot system with Consultation Committee, SLT, Student Government, and grade level teams
· Conduct pilot roundtables
· Gather feedback from teachers regarding calendar needs for next year
Next Steps
· In creating a uniform school-wide system of performance-based portfolio assessment, teachers will continue their move away from more traditional grading systems to one in which understanding and application of concepts and mastery of skills is demonstrated through work and projects that are tied to topics within each discipline. Selection of project and topics will be based on age/developmental appropriateness, relevance to the discipline/subject and when possible, relevance to student’s lives. Data will show increased course pass rates and a higher graduation rate than non-selective schools that rely primarily on Regents and state exams as their measures of success or failure.
· Expeditionary Learning has given teachers the language of learning targets and the use of learning targets provide students and teachers with multiple means of proving mastery of a skill or understanding of a topic. Performance-based assessment is an active and ongoing process that takes place every day of the school year. Growth over time is in the students’ and teachers’ domain and can be modified with changes in curriculum or additional work. Commercially produced tests are externally created instruments that measure performance on a specific day and time. It will take years to build and refine our system and, like all authentic assessment processes, it will evolve as we come to know more about the nature of learning.
Following are examples of the NY State Performance Consortium’s PBAT HS graduation level rubrics.
Appendix B
STAFF LEARNING TARGETS FOR 2008-2009
1. I can teach and model the Expeditionary Learning Design Principles across all environments.
2. I can collaborate with my Grade Team to design a weekly structure in Crew that includes:
· Sustained silent reading
· Critical thinking & numeracy activities
· Class meetings
· Community building activities
· Explicit teaching of student habits and study skills, including use of planner
· Daily check of tools for learning (pens, pencils, paper, etc.)
3. I can provide students with clear assessments and feedback on progress towards learning targets.
4. I can implement the following reading and writing strategies regularly into lessons:
· Cues, questions, and advance organizers to establish connections
· Modeling of reading strategies (text coding, visualizing, determining importance, etc.) to aid student comprehension
· Explicit vocabulary instruction
· Process writing with use of drafts and rubrics leading to final product.
5. I can collaboratively design at least one learning expedition (interdisciplinary unit of study).
Appendix A
Assessment Survey
Response Response
Percent Count
1. Do you have a system for collecting and storing student work?
Yes 89.5% 51
No 10.5% 6
Other 6
2. I collect and store:
All work produced 14.5% 8
Specific items 83.6% 46
Nothing 3.6% 2
3. If you collect and store work, where do you keep it?
4. If you collect and store work, how do you organize it?
5. If you collect and store work, what do you do with it?
- Review it with students 78.8% 41
- Review it with the whole class 42.3% 22
(students looking at each other’s work)
- Review it with colleagues 38.5% 20
- Review it with parents and students during 69.2% 36
student led conferences
- Save examples of exemplary work to 78.8% 41
use with future classes
6. What goes into portfolios in your class?
- Teacher-selected work 37.2% 16
- Student-selected work 16.3% 7
- Combination of teacher-selected and 53.5% 23
student-selected work
- All work 20.9% 9
- Completed projects 51.2% 22
- Completed projects with drafts and revisions 55.8% 24
- Tests 60.5% 26
- Quizzes 44.2% 19
- Homework 34.9% 15
- Journals 16.3% 7
- Specific journal entries 20.9% 9
- Reflection sheet for the pieces 44.2% 19
- Cover sheet for the pieces 14.0% 6
- Cover sheet for the entire portfolio 20.9% 9
- Other 6
7. If a reflection is used, what format do you use?
- Written reflection (a sheet or open-ended) 86.5% 32
- Interview 0.0% 0
- Different pieces have different types of 18.9% 7
related reflection
- Other 1
8. How do you/students use the portfolio?
- Record of finished work 74.4% 32
- Demonstration of concept mastery 53.5% 23
- Determining final grade 25.6% 11
- One component of final grade 44.2% 19
- Container for all work 27.9% 12
- Includes final products and drafts/revisions to 48.8% 21
show growth and process
- Includes only finished, best-quality work 14.0% 6
- Documentation of student work that follows 20.9% 9
the student from grade to grade
9. Students present their portfolios to:
- Panels of students 44.4% 8
- Mixed panels of students and adults 38.9% 7
- Panels that include adults other than teachers 27.8% 5
or staff from your own school
- Other 17
10. Is there anything else you can tell us about how you use portfolios or collections of student work?
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