When I chat with teachers about the power of common formative assessments, the conversations are generally positive. Almost universally, teachers see the value of identifying whether students are learning the concepts and skills that they are targeting in their instruction. They conceptually agree with the practice and value the process of working with a collaborative team to design the assessments and analyze the results. Read more
Topic: Assessment Architecture
Before We Get to Work: Foundational Questions of Quality Assessment Design
Think of a recent assessment design conversation you had with a colleague. What aspect of the assessment process did you discuss? Did you consider which standards to assess? Did you talk about how many questions, or tasks, were needed to determine student mastery? Or, did you examine the content that you would evaluate?
As the director of assessment at a large public high school in the Midwest, I engage in these assessment conversations often with teachers and collaborative teams. While we discuss all aspects of the assessment process, the most common question I hear from teachers is, “What should my assessments look like?” Read more
Learn from Assessments?
Consider an assessment you or your collaborative team recently gave in a grade level or course.
- What did you do with the results?
- What did students do with the results?
- How did the students and the teacher(s) learn from the evidence of student learning?
The Power of Common Formative Assessments
Many researchers have identified formative assessment as one of the more powerful practices to raise student achievement (Black & Wiliam, 1998; Hattie, 2009). When speaking of its power, we often compare formative assessment to summative assessment using metaphorical expressions. For example, formative assessment is like “tasting the soup before serving one’s guests,” or the “practice before the big game.” Others have described formative assessment as the rehearsal before the performance, or the “check-up before the autopsy.” Read more
Simply Deep: Designing Authentic Assessments that are Meaningful and Relevant
“Being able to recall scientific concepts, identify historical events, or memorize mathematics facts and algorithms, while acutely impressive, is no longer sufficient to prepare students for the challenging world they will face. Identifying characters, theme, and symbolism used to be the focus of education, and it was enough. In the past, learners would occasionally have opportunities to collaborate, communicate, critically think, and creatively problem solve, but that was the means, not the end. Read more
Strength-Based Assessment Practices Increase Achievement and Confidence
Assessment that provides information on students’ learning strengths builds confidence and increases achievement.
Too often, students get feedback on all they are doing wrong or their deficits. Assessment, at its best, provides information to students on their strengths. When learners gain insight into what they know and can do, it builds their confidence. Strength-based feedback signals to students that you see their potential and that you believe in them. Read more
Another Test? How to Plan Assessments So Students Can Learn
Ever feel like you are giving assessments all the time? Between the pretest, post-test, quizzes, district benchmarks, state interim assessments, or other nationally normed progress monitoring assessments, when is a student supposed to learn? When is a teacher supposed to teach? Is it possible to have too many assessments? Read more
How many questions should you have on a summative assessment?
I love using Twitter as a way to communicate thinking in a markedly different way than when using blogs, articles, and books. By limiting the number of characters, Twitter forces us to be succinct in our thinking. I’ve discovered that followers often reply or ask a question related to a topic I’ve thrown out for discussion because the tweet only allows me to share a small part of my thinking.
Recently, I was asked an interesting question by a follower related to something I had tweeted. He asked “How many questions should you have on a summative assessment?” Read more
It’s Okay NOT to Reassess
It’s okay NOT to reassess everything all of the time; there, I said it. Now, before I explain more thoroughly let me say that I am fully aware that this post may not make me the most popular kid at the assessment table and that I’m almost certain that the standards-based purity police will be out in full force; doesn’t matter because what I’m about to say needs to be said. Read more
Teaching Better, One Assessment at a Time
Have you ever made soup and had it end up being too salty? Or you realize it needs more flavor? Or, somehow, even though you followed the recipe to a tee, it just didn’t quite turn out like you had hoped? Read more