Assessing What Students Know

How do you assess student learning in your classroom?  What might you do differently to prepare student for the next generation of assessments based on the readings, activities and resources explored?

The perspective about formative assessment presented in the article, "Formative Assessment and Next-Generation Assessment Systems: Are We Losing an Opportunity?" by Margaret Heritage is a refreshing one. Heritage cites a study conducted by Paul Black and Dylan William which concludes, "Student learning gains triggered by formative assessment were amongst the largest ever reported for educational interventions with the largest gains being realized by low achievers." 

Heritage also makes the claim that the current trend of benchmark assessment, frequently referred to as formative assessment, is in fact, a misnomer. These type of assessments are actually interim assessments, administered several times a year. They measure learning on a summative level, assessing all benchmarks, rather than a formative level, which should focus on specific learning targets. I was surprised by this because as a Hawaii school in restructuring, Lanai High & Elementary School receives services from Edison Learning who promotes the collection of data based on monthly benchmark testing. In my language arts class the students are evaluated each month according to the CCSS in reading and their results are broken down into skills areas in order to show areas of weakness that would ideally be focused on by the teachers in classroom instruction. However, as Heritage points out, formative assessment should be happening on an ongoing basis, "hour by hour, day by day, and week by week," not simply in a monthly benchmark assessment.

As a language arts teacher, I make an effort to assess student understanding before, during, and after a lesson. I usually do a diagnostic Q&A to find out what the students already know. I ask many comprehensive questions and encourage students to interact with each other during instruction. I also frequently review and allow students to reflect upon their work after a lesson. I do a lot more formative assessment than summative during the quarter. I administer only two vocabulary quizzes a quarter as well as a quarter final. However, in many instances, the quarter final is an essay that the students have been working on by engaging in scaffolding activities throughout the quarter. 

One of the biggest things that has shaped my curriculum for the last two years as we have moved completely into teaching CCSS is the focus on argument writing. I have created a middle school-friendly graphic organizer that helps students to include all aspects of the argument in their essay. As a middle school team, we have reviewed and agreed to use Edison Learning resources: the writing checklist as well as the writing rubric for argument essays. I have also gone through the process of recreating a performance assessment for my classes in order to help prepare them for the upcoming Smarter Balanced assessment in the 2014-2015 school year.

I love the resources provided on the edusources site. I am especially happy about finding more practice for performance assessments under the "Reading and Writing Project" link. These files will help me to recreate another performance assessment this year and give students even more practice before taking the assessment next year. The Smarter Balanced website also has a wealth of resources I can use to prepare students for the upcoming assessment, specifically a practice exam and sample questions addressing skills they will have to master. 

As I look back upon the shift from HCPS III to CCSS, I realize that assessment has also shifted from heavily summative based to almost exclusively formative based. As a teacher, I must say that the emphasis on performance tasks and student reflection really does account for higher student achievement and less students being left behind.