We believe tevenson High School - ANTHONY R. REIBEL

PRINCIPLE #1

Adla

i E. S

teve

nson

Hig

h Sc

hool

Succ

ess f

or E

very

Stu

dent

ADLAI E. STEVENSON HIGH SCHOOL • ONE STEVENSON DRIVE, LINCOLNSHIRE, ILLINOIS 60069 • 847-415-4000 • www.D125.org

We believe that successful formative assessment initiative implementation requires a synchronized overhaul of curriculum development, instructional implementa-tion, and assessment practices. In many schools and classrooms, we have seen a lack of clarity regarding formative assessment which begs the need for the changes in our approach to curriculum development and instructional delivery.

The Why of Formative Assessment

In many schools, educators have come to regard formative assessment as just one more thing they have to do before and after their instruction. Without a clear why, there exists no instructional purpose for formative assessment, leaving many of us to assume that formative assessments students is a monitor for learning when it does not collect any reliable evidence of learning. This limited perspective, caused by a lack of coherence and clarity, causes formative assessment to become narrowly focused, and leaves some of us to view it as a mechanism to verify learning. We beleive that there is much more to the Why of assessment. Our teachers outline three Why’s of Assessment when they collaborate:

Does our assessment aim to build knowledge?Does our assessment aim to develop comptency?Does our assessment aim to evaluate comptency?

Our teachers organize each of their assessments into these three why’s as they plan their curriculum. This organization ensures that they are collecting enough of the right evidence.

The How of Formative Assessment

We believe that good, high-quality assessment is a process—a process that takes developed techniques and awareness to master. We believe that the how of successful assessment implementation relies on the understanding that assessment

the course expectations. This means that assessment develops understanding and skills through the intentional manipulation of student produced evidence to create a desired state of comptency.

The What of Formative Assessment

We see formative assessment as a dynamic that strategically changes based on students’ academic needs and output. Our assessments focus on the right questions, and simultaneously draw out students‘ thinking. This structure allows learning to grow and creates teacher awareness of how to incorporate assessment into the instructional experience. Also students develop an empowered

and interpretations.

PRINCIPLE #1

Adla

i E. S

teve

nson

Hig

h Sc

hool

Succ

ess f

or E

very

Stu

dent


Impact of our Assessment Approach

This new understanding and new approach to assessment

By using formative assessment in this way we allow students to fail cheaply, in other words so failure of any kind is not a surprise and even avoided. If a teacher and team of teachers is using formative assessments they can give a student the opportunity to

give them time for the application and reapplication of feedback.

All of this allows for more accurate measurement of student performance which, as we all know, the more accurate something is the more we trust it.

By creating a new perspectivecan begin to shift the focus from testing to the measurement to growth and learning, thereby providing students with the metacognitive experience that is essential to the learning process. To be very clear, we do not believe that anything is wrong with the principles that assessment experts have articulated; in fact, we believe that they are essential to the learning process. However, our experience has been that we can enhance this metacognitive experience for students when we develop and deploy

-

experience:

• Why am I not where I am supposed to be?• What thinking led me to where I currently am?• Knowing this, how am I going to get from where I am now to where I need to be?

When we engage students-

cantly expedite their process of learning. By enhancing assessment experiences with

instructional exchanges between teacher and student.

The main advantage-

tation, in that it requires students not only to know what their stregnths and weak-

and interpretations.

PRINCIPLE #2

Adla

i E. S

teve

nson

Hig

h Sc

hool

Succ

ess f

or E

very

Stu

dent


Students skills, knowledge, and abilities are best measured with assessment processes grounded in

An assessment and once students show that competency, now more assessments are typically needed. This is seen as valid practice because our many of our current assess-

-ciency-based targets, but instead to themes and topics. This improper alignment leads us to ultimately assess students on only part of our expectation (Marzano,

learning.

The fact that traditional assessment systems struggle to be more than just authenticators of learning leads to many missed opportunities to expose students’ thinking as they engage in the assessment process.

We assert that the data that matter most come from the thinking that takes place during the assessment (Schoemaker, 2011). As we have seen for many years,

of our assessment process.

Our assessments are events that assess students on the quality of their thinking rather than the outcome (Schoemaker, 2011). These assess-ments require students to record their thinking during the assessment, state the thoughts that went into the questions, decide between several problem-solving strategies, and even decide how this question relates to all the others that have been asked (Chappuis, 2009). These “thoughts” data allow the teacher to become more aware of student misconceptions and how those misconceptions devel-oped.

a misconception is more valuable in the assessment of a student than interpret-

helps them design instruction that meets the real needs of students and more importantly provide the correct feedback that expedites the learning process. Creating these types of assessment can be done in the following ways:

student to answer on a question, segment of the assessment or the assessment process itself. Some examples include:

b. What may be another way to approach this question?

d. What was the crucial part of the process you took to solve the problem?

PRINCIPLE #2

Adla

i E. S

teve

nson

Hig

h Sc

hool

Succ

ess f

or E

very

Stu

dent


Students skills, knowledge, and abilities are best measured with assessment processes grounded in

student. This gives the student a chance to think about their current state of learning and also gives the teacher the much needed context for any errors a student will make. For example if the student said they are ready to go on but then missed all the questions the teacher can use the context to create the appropriate intervention for the student.

3. Lessen the importance of Outcomes Teachers can assess students on their quality of thinking as much as the quality of their answer by exploring the approach a student uses to arrive at an outcome. This can be accomplished by grouping possible answers, showing the answer and asking students to explain the why other answers are wrong or giving a student a reading and asking them to create the possible answers for the question.

Teachers can ask students to record their thinking directly into a journal as they engage with each segment of an assessment. This log is not simply a why or why not one gets the right or wrong answer, rather it will contain process thinking about how a student reacts to, approaches, and thinks through a question or task of an assessment. Making assessments in such a manner has several main pedagogical advantages:

They assess students’ thoughts in relation to an expectation.

They scrutinize connections between thought and performance.

They make students aware of why they know something.

Remember, assessments that promoting the right thinking are more important for learning than ones that simply promoting thinking.

Resources

Chappuis, J. (2009). Seven strategies of assessment for learning. Portland, OR: Educational Testing Service.

Marzano, R. J. (2006). Classroom assessment and grading that work. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Schoemaker, P. J. H. (2011). Brilliant mistakes: Finding success on the far side of failure [E-reader version]. Philadelphia: Wharton Digital Press.

PRINCIPLE #3

Adla

i E. S

teve

nson

Hig

h Sc

hool

Succ

ess f

or E

very

Stu

dent


We employ a grading system called Evidence Based Reporting, which measures a student’s mastery of the essential standards and targets for a class, or how well a student understands the material in class.

The goal of an evidence-based approach is to provide the teacher, student, and parent as accurate a picture as possible of the student’s learning and to encourage a dialogue about how the student can master the material for the class. In particular, because learning is a process that takes place over time, each evidence-based assess-ments will provide feedback for the student about what to focus on next, apply the feedback and the student will be allowed to show more evidence of mastery. If the

score replaces the old one.

Since Evidence-Based Grading models use formative assess-ments to collect accurate evidence of student performance and academic growth, the teacher must review the evidence presented by each student, in each target, and convert said evidence into a traditional letter grade. The analysis of accurate student performance relies on an accurate interpretation of evidence. Below is how we guide

1. Always ask, “What’s our purpose the assessment?”

levels, to discuss validity of the assessment data or to make decisions about instruc-

-cy in certain learning standards. Discussing is more like brainstorming about how to move forward to promote or supporting an accurate assessment process. And making decisions is the commitment to follow an action plan about instructional stratetgies

2. Engage around the question of ‘How Well’Engaging around the question of “What do we want students to know?” only gets us

question of “How well a student must learn or master a skill or content area?” must immediately follow the question of “What do we want students to learn.”

3. Constantly ask, “Do we have enough of the right evidence for this standard?”Interacting with this question is essential to understanding not only your quality and

the conversation. Assessments are events that provide evidence for the professional interpretation (teacher) of student learning. Assessments that don’t yield plentiful evidence of the learning within a particular standard or standards should be reviewed and redeveloped.

Making sense of assessment data depends on clear appropriate and fair interpretation.

“

PRINCIPLE #3

Adla

i E. S

teve

nson

Hig

h Sc

hool

Succ

ess f

or E

very

Stu

dent


4. Set A Growth Focus for Data Review SessionsTeams should avoid using evidence to set threshold goals, such as “80% of students

not as a threshold to be crossed but a personalized trajectory of learning. A growth

-ing; a student who can, a student who can’t and a student who won’t. All three of

collaborative discussions about student learning. A CAN student is a student who is

providing evidence for reasons such as insubordination, hospitalization, or other social-emotional reasons.

Making sense of assessment data depends on clear appropriate and fair interpretation.

Documents

We believe tevenson High School - ANTHONY R. REIBEL