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FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT: DOES IT
HAVE A ROLE IN TODAY’S
CURRICULUM AND EVALUATION
CAULDRON?
W. James Popham
University of California, Los Angeles
CTA Summer Institute
Instruction and Professional Development Strand
UCLA August 6, 2014
The Lesson Plan for August 6, 2014
• Jim presents persuasive, two-part
rationale for California teachers to use
formative assessment in a Smarter
Balanced era.
• Jim provides informative, enthralling
description of formative assessment.
• Attendees practice applying the
formative-assessment process to
Common-Core-like curricular aims.
Why California Teachers Should
Routinely Employ Formative Assessment
• School Accountability: Because
students’ performances on the Smarter
Balanced tests will play a key role in
determining a school’s success.
• Teacher Evaluation: Because the best
evidence of student growth in teacher
evaluation is apt to be students’ pre-
post performance on classroom tests.
A Turn & Talk Task
Please turn to one or two nearby
colleagues, if possible selecting persons
who seem relatively bright, then take
turns trying to convince each other that
teachers should use formative
assessment on the basis of either (1)
school accountability or (2) teacher
evaluation. Then choose the other reason
and, once more, take turns.
Formative Assessment:
Four Topics, Tersely Tackled
• What It Is and What It Isn’t
• What It Can Do and What It Can’t
• Why Partitioning It Can Pay Off
• Why Learning Progressions Must Lurk
Formative Assessment:
What It Is and What It Isn’t
Formative assessment is a planned
process in which assessment-elicited
evidence of students’ status is used by
teachers to adjust their ongoing
instructional procedures or by students
to adjust their current learning-tactics.
Formative Assessment:
What It Is and What It Isn’t
• It is not a test.
• It is not an interim test administered
every few months by schools or
districts.
• It is not the unplanned, serendipitous
use of student cues to adjust teaching.
FORMATIVE
ASSESSMENT
A Planned
Process to Base
Adjustment
Decisions on
Assessment
Evidence
=
A Turn & Talk Task
Please turn to one or two nearby
neighbors, and assume they are not
educators but, rather, laypeople who
are concerned about public schools.
They have just asked you to tell them
what is meant by this “formative
assessment stuff.” Alternately, describe
to each other what this label means.
Formative Assessment:
What It Can Do and What It Can’t
In a research review based on 250 empirical studies of classroom assessment that had been drawn from more than 680 published investigations, Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam concluded:
“The research reported here shows conclusively that formative assessment does improve learning.” (Assessment in Education, 1998)
Formative Assessment:
What It Can Do and What It Can’t
Two Other Quotes from the Research Review:
• The student gains in learning triggered by formative assessment were “amongst the largest ever reported for educational interventions.”
• “Significant gains can be achieved by many different routes, and initiatives here are not likely to fail through neglect of delicate and subtle features.”
Formative Assessment:
What It Can Do and What It Can’t
It cannot raise scores sufficiently on
instructionally insensitive external
accountability exams. As California
moves toward use of Smarter Balanced
tests, the instructional sensitivity of
those assessments must be monitored.
Instructional Sensitivity Defined
Instructional sensitivity is the degree to
which students’ performances on a test
accurately reflect the quality of
instruction specifically provided to
promote students’ mastery of what is
being assessed.
A Turn & Talk Task
Turning to a colleague (If you seem to be
running out of bright neighbors, you
might move to another group.), assume
that your colleague is not familiar with
instructional sensitivity. Thus, please
explain to your colleague what
instructional sensitivity is, and how it can
intrude on the accurate evaluation of
teachers or schools. Then switch roles.
Why Partitioning It Can Pay Off
We will sneak a quick peek at two
partitioning proposals, a four-levels
approach and a five-applications
approach. Although each of these
cleaves to the essence of research-
ratified formative assessment, they are
intended to help teachers clamber
aboard the formative-assessment
flotilla. Do you think they do?
Four Levels of the Formative-
Assessment Process
• Level 1: Teachers’ Instructional
Adjustments
• Level 2: Students’ Learning-Tactic
Adjustments
• Level 3: Classroom Climate Shift
• Level 4: Schoolwide Implementation
Four Levels
of Formative
Assessment Level 4: Schoolwide Implementation
Level 3: Classroom-Climate Shift
Level 2: Students’ Learning-Tactic Adjustments
Level 1: Teachers’ Instructional Adjustments
Students’ Level 2 Steps
1. Consider adjustment occasions.
2. Consider assessments.
3. Consider adjustment triggers.
4. Adjust learning-tactics?
Teachers’ Level 1 Steps
1. Identify adjustment occasions.
2. Select assessments.
3. Establish adjustment triggers.
4. Make instructional adjustments?
Level 4 Strategies
1. Professional Development
2. Teacher Learning
Communities
Level 3 Shifts
1. Learning Expectations
2. Responsibility for learning
3. Role of classroom
assessment
Learning Progressions
Five Applications of the Process
• Immediate Instructional Adjustments
(based on assessments or self-reports)
• Near-Future Instructional Adjustments
• Last-Chance Instructional Adjustments
• Students’ Learning-Tactic Adjustments
• Classroom Climate Shifts
The
Formative-Assessment
Process
Immediate
Instructional
Adjustments
Near-Future
Instructional
Adjustments
Last-Chance
Instructional
Adjustments
Students’
Learning Tactic
Adjustments
Classroom-
Climate
Shifts
Formative Assessment:
Why Learning Progressions Must Lurk
A learning progression is a sequenced
set of building blocks—that is,
subskills and/or bodies of enabling
knowledge—it is thought students
must master en route to mastering a
more remote, target curricular aim.
These progressions are necessary for
successful formative assessment.
Target Curriculum
Aim X
Enabling
Knowledge
B
Enabling
Knowledge
A
Subskill
A
Subskill
B
An Illustrative
Learning
Progression
A Horizontally Represented
Learning Progression
Enabling
Knowledge
X
Enabling
Knowledge
Y
Subskill
Z
Target
Curriculum
Aim Q
Formative Assessment:
Why Learning Progressions Must Lurk
Learning progressions provide a
framework for the formative-
assessment process because near the
end of instruction directed toward each
of the learning progression’s building
blocks, assessment-elicited evidence
permits sound adjustment decisions to
be made.
To travel more suavely along the
formative-assessment trail, read one or
more of these encapsulations of wisdom:
• Heritage, M., Formative Assessment: Making
It Happen in the Classroom, 2010, Corwin
• Popham, W.J., Transformative Assessment,
2008, ASCD
• Popham, W. J., Transformative Assessment
in Action, 2011, ASCD
• Wiliam, D., Embedded Formative
Assessment, 2011, Solution Tree
A Small-Group Exercise
A written set of guidelines has been
distributed that will provide more details
about this activity. However, the essence
of the exercise is for members of your
group to think through how, by focusing
on smaller-grain curricular targets, an
instructional approach featuring
formative assessment can be employed
to promote mastery of desired outcomes.
Three Tips from the Top
When, two weeks ago, I specifically
asked two high-ranking officials of the
Smarter Balanced Assessment
Consortium what I could tell a crowd of
CTA clods at UCLA on 8/6 to help them
teach toward what’s to be assessed, they
replied: (1) practice test, (2) do the online
panel level-setting, and (3) preview the
digital library.
The Smarter Balanced Practice Tests
Your genial presenter, a technology
dullard, went to Google, entered Smarter
Balanced Practice Tests and even I was
able to find them. I found both training
tests and practice tests. I was told by
Smarter Balanced staff that the practice
tests would be a better choice for you
than the training tests.
Online Panel
for Smarter Balanced Achievement Level Setting
• Why: Opportunity to provide input on how much students should know and be able to do in order to be considered proficient at the grade-level standards
• Who: Thousands of K-12 educators, higher education faculty, parents, and other interested parties
• What: In up to 3 hours online, participants will:– Complete a short orientation – Review test questions– Recommend a score for grade-level proficiency
• When: Register today and select a two-day window between October 6 and 17, 2014
• How: Register today at SmarterBalanced.org/OnlinePanel
Digital Library Resources
Slide 29
• Interactive, multi-media Professional Learning Modules
• Resources for educators, students, and families
• Frame Formative Assessment within a Balanced Assessment
System
• Articulate the Formative Assessment Process
• Highlight Formative Assessment Practices and Tools
Assessment Literacy Modules
• Interactive, multi-media Professional Learning Modules
• Instructional coaching for educators
• Instructional materials for students
• Demonstrate/support effective implementation of the Formative
Assessment Process
• Focus on key content from and shifts in the Common Core State
Standards for Mathematics and English Language Arts
Instructional Modules
• High-quality vetted instructional resources and tools by educators
for educators
• High-quality vetted professional learning resources by educators for
educators
• Reflect and support the Formative Assessment Process
• Reflect and support the Common Core State Standards for
Mathematics and English Language Arts
• Promote online collaboration among educators in member states
Education Resources
Slide 30
The Digital Library preview runs from June 3 to September 30, 2014.
You must be a registered user in a Smarter Balanced member state to participate in the Digital Library preview.
Contact your district assessment coordinator to request your login credentials.
Digital Library Preview
A Final Turn & Talk Task
Why, despite substantial empirical
evidence to support formative
assessment, are most of CA teachers
not actually using it in their own
classes? Please explore this question
in your small group. Can you come up
with any fixes that might ameliorate
this vexing situation?
