Presenter: Adam Stephens, Principal South Fulton Middle and High School

Presentation Notes (condensed) from August 24, 2010

Presenter: Adam Stephens, Principal – South Fulton Middle and High School

Assessment Drives Instruction

More appropriately, Assessment Enlightens Instruction

What do my students know?

The Pretest

One of the more disregarded phases of instruction is pretesting.Pretesting is the guide for lesson planning. Without developing anoutline of student understanding, a lesson or unit is constructed arbitrarily which could lead to several problems.

1. Time is wasted.
2. It is imperative for teachers to manage time. Without using data that is collected from a pretest, teachers regularly use valuable class time teaching topics that do not need to be taught.
3. Gaps in understanding could occur.
4. When teachers assume that students possess the necessary background knowledge to proceed with more challenging subject matter, the lesson could be destined to fail before it begins. Gaps in understanding grow exponentially when new subject matter is introduced.
5. Frustration
6. Frustration is detrimental for students and teachers. Frustration can occur from either teaching topics that do not need to be taught or confusing students with information for which they are not ready. When students become frustrated, the lesson is over. You may continue to instruct, but no learning is taking place. It is time to regroup. A teacher must be constantly perceptive of student frustration. The ownership of frustration can rapidly be transferred from the students to the teacher.

All of these difficulties can be avoided with a well-developed pretest.

It is important to realize that in the state of Tennesseeteachers are employees of the state with contractual responsibility for teaching a curriculum that is determined by the employer. In short, teachers do not have the freedom to exclusively teach material they prefer or enjoy. Therefore, all of the standards must be scrutinized by the teacher, a plan of delivery must be determined, and student understanding must be measured.

At first glance, this seems like a very straightforward task. Across all grade levels and subjects from grades K-12, there are State Standards by which all students are ultimately measured at the end of any given course.

As an example, I chose a standard from 6th grade math. In 6th grade math, there are 31 state performance indicators that are used to develop a set a questions that form the math section of the TCAP test.

In the Geometry and Measurement standard, there is a state performance indicator that examines circumference and areas of circles.What do the students need to know to be proficient with this topic?

I start with vocabulary. What terms will be used during the lesson?

Circumference, area, radius, diameter, and pi are the major terms used when teaching this topic.

What background skills do my students need to find circumference and area?

Multiplication, squaring numbers, division, decimals, measurement, and units of measure are the main skills necessary to find circumference and area of circles.

What we have are building blocks that create a foundation that is added to each year a student progresses through school.

Once you have identified the necessary foundation, the pretest has been constructed. The data gained through a pre-assessment will determine the sequence of lessons, which will eliminate wasted time, gaps in understanding, or frustration.

Whether or not you take the time to become skillful in creating and establishing pretesting as a regular part of your teaching, you will ultimately return to the beginning point of your lessons. Without pretesting you are just taking a much more frustrating journey.

The pretest is essential in informing you concerning what needs to be taught. Once you know these facts then teach it. I have heard so many times throughout my career that students can’t do this or that. Who cares? They are here now. It doesn’t matter the skills they brought with them. It is your job to teach what needs to be taught. If you need to teach a skill from 3 years prior, then teach it. Take your students as far as you can take them while they are under your guidance. Go back and go beyond. Teach your students not only the necessary information, but also encourage them to analyze it, discuss it, evaluate it, and use it in their lives.

The truth is this very simple learning objective will most likely turn into a 5 day sequence of lessons with some topics being reviewed before you can complete the lessons. Time management is essential. Although there may only be 30-40 required state standards to teach during the year, I think I have shown how full your year could be making sure that students possess the learning necessary to be proficient.

Don’t think of reviewing topics as wasted time, think of it as accomplishing goals. If students master these skills during these lessons, then they will have a strong foundation for the next topic you need to teach and the building process will be much faster as the school year continues.

Pretesting is a very valuable tool.

Once the lessons have commenced, the next question has to be ….

How are my students progressing in their understanding of THIS subject matter?

The Power of the Formative Assessment(s)

You will soon appreciate the fact there is no such thing as a concrete lesson or unit plan. A lesson plan is just that - a plan, a map, a course of action that will guide you as you teach. These plans are fluid and continuously changing as students’ needs are realized.

Some teachers are quite rigid when they create lesson plans. It becomes their commandments as they teach. They must teach everything that was planned or their entire schedule may implode. Never let your lesson plans dictate your teaching. These plans are self-imposed and you are not in the classroom to serve self. You are there to serve students. If you force the situation and continue teaching to complete your lesson plans, you will have finished what you wanted to accomplish, but you will be the only one who finished the race.

It is critically important to include formative assessments in your lesson plans. Formative assessments are powerful tools that can help further shape your teaching techniques and help students develop the tools needed for self-assessment so they can think and increase their own learning potential, which is the ultimate goal.

What is a formative assessment?

Encarta defines it as the assessment at regular intervals of a student's progress with accompanying feedback in order to help to improve the student's performance.

The key word in that definition is feedback. Formative assessments are not used to gather grades for a report card. Rather they are used for the following:

1. The teacher has an opportunity to evaluate student progress.
2. The teacher has an opportunity to reflect on their teaching strategies.
3. The teacher has an opportunity to adjust lesson plans for re-teaching or expanding topics.
4. The teacher has the obligation to provide meaningful feedback to students so that they can see mistakes and know which areas are in need of improvement.

Westen (1995) stated “The purpose of formative evaluation is to validate or ensure that the goals of the instruction are being achieved and to improve the instruction, if necessary, by means of identification and subsequent remediation of problematic aspects.”

Key words in this definition – improve instruction, if necessary

Formative assessments can show teachers that there are no problems.

When we think of the function of formative assessments, we need to consider their intended use. Beginning teachers sometimes feel that having an abundance of grades in the gradebook is important. However, what is truly important is for the teacher to know where students are in their learning so the appropriate instruction can be provided.

It is my opinion that the grading system used in most schools is flawed. In most classrooms a grade is determined by a number of assignments, tests, cooperation, attendance, etc. and is not reflective of what the child knew when entering the class, and more importantly what the student is capable of after a certain period of time.

When using formative assessments, keep in mind that the student will benefit much more from meaningful feedback from you rather than an arbitrary number at the top of the paper.

Think about this – in most public schools the grading scale provides for about 70 different ways to be a failure and only about 30 ways to experience success. If a child decides they are going to be a failure in school, it is very difficult to prove to that child that success is a real possibility.

Before we discuss summative assessments, let’s explore a few important aspects of creating and using assessments and different types of assessments.

1. Assessments must be fair.

1. You can only assess what you have taught.

There is an inherent danger in using textbook-supplied tests. Make sure the material on these tests have a direct relationship with what you have been teaching.

1. There is no rule that specifies length or type of assessment.

The “as needed” prescription applies to pre-assessments and formative assessments. You can choose the type and length of assessment that will provide you and the student with the necessary information.

1. Formative assessments only work when there is two-way communication.

You must gather data from the assessment and respond to the students so they can apply the information and improve their understanding of the subject matter.

Before we examine various types of assessments, I want to share an exercise with you that emphasizes the importance of connections between teaching and assessing. It will also emphasize the importance of creating connections to past learning and future learning as you plan your lessons.

Meaningfulness Activity/IQ Test

You will have 8 seconds to memorize the lists of words you are about to see. After 8 seconds, write down as many words as you can from the list you memorized. There are four separate lists.

Connections are essential.

1. In the first list, there was no true content or context. You just had to memorize disconnected nonsense.
2. In the second list, there was real content, but it was presented without any context. Another activity of memorization.
3. In the third list, there was a theme present. There was real content within context; patterns were recognized. Connections were present within the list.
4. In the final list, there were full connections. The brain had no problems making connections because the meaning was instantly recognized.

As you design your lessons you need to mindful of what result the activities will have on student learning. Likewise, as you as assess student learning be certain the assessment is measuring what you are intending to measure.

Do my students now possess the knowledge needed to advance to more challenging subject matter?

The Summative Assessment

-Segment from an article written by the National Middle School Association that concisely defined summative assessments.

“Summative Assessments are given periodically to determine at a particular point in time what students know and do not know. Many associate summative assessments only with standardized tests such as state assessments, but they are also used at and are an important part of district and classroom programs. Summative assessment at the district/classroom level is an accountability measure that is generally used as part of the grading process.”

Examples of summative assessments:

• State assessments
• District benchmark or interim assessments
• End-of-unit or chapter tests
• End-of-term or semester exams
• Scores that are used for accountability for schools (AYP) and students (report card grades).

The key is to think of summative assessment as a means to gauge, at a particular point in time, student learning relative to content standards. Although the information that is gleaned from this type of assessment is important, it can only help in evaluating certain aspects of the learning process. Because they are spread out and occur after instruction every few weeks, months, or once a year, summative assessments are tools to help evaluate the effectiveness of programs, school improvement goals, alignment of curriculum, or student placement in specific programs. Summative assessments happen too far down the learning path to provide information at the classroom level and to make instructional adjustments and interventions during the learning process. It takes formative assessment to accomplish this.

Here is a one take on formative versus summative assessments.

"When the cook tastes the soup, that’s formative; when the guests taste the soup, that’s summative."

The summative test of most interest in public schools are the state mandated tests.

Whether it is fair or not, teachers are judged, ranked, and rated by how their students perform on state tests.

At the present time, not all teachers have a summative test by which they are judged. However, within the next decade, it is reasonable to assume that all courses will have a state-mandated test.

The TCAP, TCAP writing, Former Gateway, and all End of Course tests are the beginning and ending point for most educators. Although not all courses have these tests, ideally all educators work together within a school and share responsibility for student learning. That means your name may be on the report, but all teachers have had an impact on student learning.