Teaching Ahead, an interactive project jointly developed by Education Week Teacher and the Center for Teaching Quality, is designed to bring greater exposure to the ideas of standout classroom educators on the future of their profession. Each month, selected teacher panelists will be asked to respond to and discuss key issues in education policy and instructional practice. The discussions are intended to help inform the national conversation on the direction of public schools.
Today's school-reform initiatives often center on using measures of student learning to gauge school and teacher effectiveness. This focus on accountability has in some ways taken away from the more basic purpose of assessment: to figure out what students know and need to learn.
Many schools deal with this gap by instituting benchmark or interim tests, which often mimic the final standardized tests, or tracking specific skills through progress monitoring. Teachers also design their own formative assessments, including anything from informal class questioning to written tests to performance-based tasks.
How do you assess what your students know and are able to do? What tools or methods do you find most helpful in measuring student learning? Are you in favor of school-wide benchmark testing? How can schools and districts support teachers' efforts to reliably gauge student learning? How must assessments evolve in order to measure the knowledge and skills needed for 21st-century success?
November 15, 2011
Rebecca Schmidt
Each April, all 3rd through 5th graders in my school take the DC-CAS—a standardized, summative assessment of grade-level skills in reading and math. It is a grueling eight-day test paralyzing the entire PK-5 community—limiting movement, resource classes, even recess. DC Public Schools uses the results (and administrative evaluations) to determine if our students are learning and if we are effectively teaching.
Assessing student learning and progress each year is important: All students should have the same opportunities to learn and succeed and we educators need to know if our teaching is helping our students develop needed knowledge and skills. Standardized assessment is one (albeit imperfect) way to help us fine-tune our practice, and hold schools and teachers accountable for student learning. However, DC-CAS (and four benchmark tests before April) have my students reading, calculating, and bubbling circles for over 16 days each year—almost a month of school.
With so much time devoted to these tests, and so much riding on them, it's a shame they paint a grossly incomplete picture of student success in our classrooms. The DC-CAS and benchmark tests are helpful and illustrative in math, yet are not true measures of student achievement or teacher effectiveness in reading. Math—being a collection of discrete skills and explicit processes used to arrive at specific answers—lends itself to measurement using the DC-CAS. I can tell if my students struggle with geometry but not measurement, for example. Reading is more holistic. More helpful to examine is our students' reading progress through the year—doing so gives a clearer picture of student learning and teacher effectiveness.
Like many in DC, my 3rd grade class entered with a range of reading abilities. Students read on level A (pre-readers) to above T (5th grade). Even with 1.5 years of growth within a year, a student entering at level C (end of Kindergarten) would only be level K (mid 2nd grade) by the end of the year. That's tons of progress, but not close enough to the end of 3rd grade reading level (P) required for even a chance of success on the DC-CAS.
It's difficult for teachers to celebrate success or respond to failure on DC-CAS or benchmark reading tests. Unlike the math tests, the standardized reading tests don't tell us what reading skills our students have mastered or not. They merely confirm what we already know about our students: Those who can read on a 3rd grade level do well, those that can't, don't. I already know that information, without DC-CAS, benchmark tests, or missing recess.
Our time in school is precious. Student assessment is crucial to improving teaching and learning, but only when the results are relevant and useful to teachers and learners.
Rebecca Schmidt is in her fifth year of teaching in D.C. Public Schools.
Posted by Rebecca Schmidt at 3:20 PM
November 15, 2011
Dan Brown
The cover of John Hattie's Visible Learning boasts the blurb "Reveals teaching's Holy Grail." Everybody in education needs to get it. If Hattie's subtitle, A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement, gives you pause, I can assure you it isn't as scary as it sounds.
In fact, Hattie's exhaustive research into what quality teaching and learning looks like is the best road map I've ever seen for how to get the most out of students. I hope my two-year-old daughter's future teachers have read it; if not I just might be foisting copies on them at Back to School Night.
Standardized tests aren't nearly good enough to measure student learning. Sadly, the outsized emphasis on them in many schools is a destructive force. So what does real learning look like and how can we measure it?
In a powerful conclusion to his chapter on "The Argument [for Visible Teachng and Visible Learning]," Hattie writes: "The teacher needs to provide direction and re-direction in terms of the content being understood and thus maximize the power of feedback ... It [visible learning] also requires a commitment to seeking further challenges (for the teacher and the student)—and herein lies a major link between challenge and feedback, two of the essential ingredients of learning. The greater the challenge, the higher the probability that one seeks and needs feedback ..."
In my high school English classroom in Washington, D.C., I try to bring to life worthwhile challenges and quality feedback in long-term student-directed projects. For example, each year my 12th grade students read a Shakespeare play (currently we're exploring Much Ado About Nothing) and then work in groups to develop an alternate design concept for a new staging of the play. They need to transplant the script of Much Ado About Nothing from old Messina to a new time and place—one that emphasizes or dramatizes key themes in the play. Aided by research, they design appropriate new costumes, sets, and sound cues. Then they organize and offer their visions in written and oral presentations. The class chooses one group's design concept to use for a whole-class production of Much Ado. Each student takes on roles in the cast and crew. They rehearse, become experts on their characters, compose reviews of professional performances, write analytical essays on the text, maintain a reflective journal of their participation, and ultimately perform in public. The curriculum, titled Text Alive! and developed by the Shakespeare Theatre Company, builds in great challenges and constant opportunities for feedback, nudging students to "become their own teachers"—a crucial goal that Hattie identifies.
The multifaceted performance-based Shakespeare project leaves behind a trail of visible learning. It's messier than a bubble test, but true learning should be. As we prepare students for a knowledge-based professional sector, these are the types of tasks that an expert like John Hattie—and common sense—would celebrate.
Dan Brown teaches high school English in Washington, D.C.
Posted by Dan Brown at 2:30 PM |
November 15, 2011
Bill Farmer
Each day, as students enter my biology classroom, someone will inevitably ask the question, "What are we doing today?" My response always attempts to shift their frame of thought from the instructional exercises that they will be engaging in on that particular day to the objectives that I hope they will be learning by the end of the class period. While tracking student learning has long been an integral component of our professional practice as teachers, it has recently received heightened national attention within the educational policy arena. For politicians and policy makers, learning has been rebranded as student growth.
The discussion of student growth by mainstream media outlets tends to give the impression that this area needs greater emphasis in our public education system. States across the country, fueled by Race to the Top money, have been initiating a strong push towards the systematization of assessment tools for the purpose of efficiently measuring student growth and linking it to teacher accountability through their evaluation.
From the perspective of those of us who reside within the classroom, the purpose envisioned by legislators for measuring student learning seems slightly misguided. As teachers, we monitor learning by applying various diagnostic tools to inform and guide our instruction. Our end goal is developing an understanding of the individualized needs of our students to enable us to make professional judgments that will further their learning.
Measuring learning is an immensely complex objective that likely cannot be accomplished by a single state test or even a well-designed series of traditional standardized assessments. Learning is multifaceted in its composition and is very personalized. Therefore it is extremely difficult to develop a one-size-fits-all approach to measure it.
Learning often also varies by discipline. Science education, for example, is in the midst of a transformation to adjust to the 21st century digital learner. Immediate access to the library of science knowledge enabled by technology has eliminated the need for a curriculum largely centered on the memorization of facts. Instead courses are now focusing on a student's ability to utilize their knowledge to practice science and think critically about scientific issues.
In my biology classroom, multiple and frequent forms of assessment are required to get a comprehensive idea of the learning that is occurring. Essentially every interaction I have with a student can provide informal or formal data that provides valuable information. Several instructional strategies have proven to be particularly useful. Each unit begins with critical thinking questions requiring students to access and apply prior knowledge. Their responses on these pre-assessments provide me with a baseline of their initial understanding. Various informal dip-stick assessments, such as remote clicker responders and opener questions, are utilized to gauge student growth, identify misconceptions, and plan future instruction.
In addition, performance based assessments or inquiry lab reports are effective at providing an in-depth analysis of student learning. By using a consistent detailed rubric for these types of assessments, I am able to provide valuable feedback to the student. I am also able to monitor how their performance on these rubrics improves over time which provides clear evidence of the complex learning that is taking place.
Bill Farmer has been teaching biology and chemistry for nine years at Evanston Township High School in Evanston, IL.
Posted by Bill Farmer at 2:30 PM
November 15, 2011
Ryan Kinser
I don't want to teach to the test. Great educators say this all the time. I used to agree. As an idealistic young English teacher, I thought, "Amen! Let's give students real-world skills, help them become better people who can find their passions and contribute to democracy." When I looked over my state-test results after my first year, none of these ideals revealed themselves in the scores, nor did any useful data to improve my teaching.
Now I'm a little older, a smidge more veteran, and my values haven't changed. But I have a confession: Now I think we should teach to the tests. We just need to construct more useful ones—curriculum-embedded performance assessments that are valid, reliable, and accurate measures of what and how students learned. I envision these tests as both formative and summative at the same time. They show student mastery, while helping teachers tailor future instruction. I can still remember my Advanced Placement American History teacher constantly refining his pedagogy despite the daunting breadth of knowledge we seniors needed for the AP exam. He returned to what I now know were Socratic Seminars discussing the Missouri Compromise even after we protested that we could explain the event.
"Yes, but few of you can argue whether or not it was a good decision," he snapped, "if it was truly a compromise, or what alternative solutions might have existed."
In order to reflect 21st Century college- and career-readiness skills, I think we should teach to assessments that capture authentic student voice through what my colleague Barnett Berry refers to as the 3 Cs: creativity, communication, and collaboration. All three of these traits require teachers to assess relevant processes, not just products. I offer students choices not on the content but the method of many assessments. Portfolios, student reflections, conferences, and multimedia project logs help me drive achievement much more than chapter tests. I evaluate my kids on their metacognitive steps, their thinking about my teaching strategies and the students' own learning. I want to know, how did students prioritize and delegate responsibilities? What obstacles did they encounter as teams and as individuals? What further questions did they discover?
The millennium my own teachers dangled as a not-so-distant threat is here. Success in today's world demands students know so much more than content. Students must now demonstrate that they know how to learn and build upon that content to solve problems. They must develop versatile communication skills, work collaboratively and competitively, and be comfortable reinventing themselves over multiple careers. Give me tests that are flexible and transparent, and I'll teach to them.
Ryan Kinser is a 6th grade English teacher at Walker Middle Magnet School for International Studies in Tampa.
Posted by Ryan Kinser at 2:10 PM |November 15, 2011
Jessica Hahn
I believe that effective measurement of student learning is about consistency and complexity. I am always measuring student learning in a variety of ways. I'm assessing during lessons as I listen in to a "turn and talk" or respond to a raised hand. The moment students go off to work on math, my co-teacher and I are scanning the room, checking for similar difficulties, and then grabbing those five or six students to work within a small group. Sometimes we use a checklist or other tracking template, noting their strengths and weaknesses. We use running records throughout the year to gauge student reading growth. We also give unit and district-wide benchmark tests in literacy and math. These tests ask students to write, answer multiple-choice questions, and explain their thinking in short-answer formats.
I actually like our district-wide benchmark math tests for 1st grade. I think they are an example of an effective measurement tool. These tests measure student learning in a very complex, deep way. There are no multiple-choice questions. Students must explain their thinking. And most importantly, these tests ask students to show what they have learned in a variety of ways. The complexity of the benchmark tests holds me accountable for making sure that I am teaching my students in a rigorous way.
While my school does support me in and encourage me to measure student learning in all the ways I have described, they ultimately measure student learning in a very narrow way: the state's standardized test. Currently, our government values standardized testing as showing mastery and therefore so do our schools. I see the tension between what kids know and how they are asked to show it in my own 1st grade classroom. I believe that when my kids read authentic literature, and can summarize, infer, and draw conclusions about the text and its characters that they are showing growth. And I believe that measure of reading comprehension is more meaningful and complex than a series of questions about a decontextualized passage.
Do we need citizens who can answer questions about a passage or citizens who can think and talk critically about text and events? If we do value the latter—if that's the kind of thinking that the 21st century begs—then we are prioritizing tests that don't align to that vision. If we want schools to change the way they measure learning, we as a government and a society need to change what we value about what students know and how they show it.
Jessica Hahn has taught elementary grade children for six years in Phoenix and New York City.
Posted by Jessica Hahn at 12:15 PM |
November 15, 2011
Marsha Ratzel
Student learning is the result of a dynamic interaction between assessment and instruction. Effective teachers use assessment to inform the design and use of classroom lessons. This interaction reminds me of assembling a huge jigsaw puzzle: I know what the final picture looks like but there are many, many pieces that have to fit together. I have to know each piece—its unique characteristics and how it might fit with the others.
Similarly, each student has a complex set of individual needs—emotional and intellectual—that I must understand to build the trust that will make learning possible. Knowing a student's unique characteristics helps me design instructional strategies that will motivate and engage them. And I have to connect the pieces. In a classroom of 31 kids, when one-on-one teaching just isn't possible, I must create small groups that let me deliver targeted mini-lessons based on students' needs.
When I start a unit, I create a clear picture of what students should be able to know and able to do by the end of the unit. I keep that picture at the forefront of my mind. It drives every instructional decision I make, helping me use time wisely and show students what is expected of them. This helps students—and me—track our individual and aggregate processes. It gives us specific things to talk about and guides my coaching of them throughout their learning journey.
An initial assessment tells me where my students are. That way, I can tailor how I teach, expediting the pacing if they come with lots of background knowledge. This initial assessment establishes the partnership I build with students. They have to know that we'll do this together and we're a team. It isn't graded. In my classroom, learning is not about me pouring knowledge into students' heads—it's about a journey we'll take together.
Throughout the unit, I use formative tests, quick measurements of discrete knowledge or skills.
For example, I recently asked students to draw a diagram of how energy is transmitted from the sun, and hand it to me as they exited. I thumbed through their index cards to see if they were visualizing the big ideas of heat transfer. The cards offered immediate information that I needed to design the next day's lesson. Half my students understood the basic concepts, so the next day, they used temperature probes, a globe and some graphing software to measure differences in how the sun heats different parts of the Earth. Meanwhile, I worked with the other half of the class, using a flashlight and globe and asking students to verbalize what they saw. The students and I coached one another: If someone stumbled on vocabulary, we interjected the proper word or offered hints. Using formative assessments this way helps me deliver learning possibilities that match what students are ready to learn.
Of course, summative assessments (at the end of a unit) are also important. In my next post, I'll explain how I handle these.
Marsha Ratzel is a National Board-certified teacher in the Blue Valley School District in Kansas, where she teaches middle school math and science.
Posted by Marsha Ratzel at 11:46 AM |
November 15, 2011
Sarah Henchey
I remember listening to my undergraduate professors as they emphasized the importance of assessment in the learning cycle. There was mention of formative and summative assessments, checks for understanding, rubrics versus checklists, and more. Although I paid attention and took away what I could, it didn't click until I was faced with more authentic circumstances.
Somehow, in my first year as an English language arts teacher, I lost sight of the role assessment plays and thought my "grading" could wait until the weekend. This led to many moments of frustration as I could not accurately gauge my students' needs.
Thankfully, as I gained experience, I finally understood what my college professors had tried to impart—assessment must be a priority in teaching.
Like all teachers, I use a variety of tools to assess what students know and are able to do. I gain the most valuable feedback during my daily lessons and interactions with students. I learn a tremendous amount from puzzled expressions, stop-and-jots, and post-it notes passed to me as I circulate around the room. I frequently use "cold calls" to check for understanding and find exit slips invaluable as I modify and adjust to students' needs.
When planning summative assessments, I've learned to be purposeful and proactive. This year, my professional learning community decided to begin the year with three mini-units focused around the skills students would need in order to be successful.
We used the following steps to plan for each unit:
1. Identify key vocabulary, skills, and goals.
2. Create an assessment that would demonstrate mastery.
3. Use the assessment to construct targeted lessons.
4. Assess students on their ability to apply their learning.
5. Analyze results and determine interventions.
6. Allot an additional week for intervention and enrichment lessons.
We used the following steps to plan for each unit:
1. Identify key vocabulary, skills, and goals.
2. Create an assessment that would demonstrate mastery.
3. Use the assessment to construct targeted lessons.
4. Assess students on their ability to apply their learning.
5. Analyze results and determine interventions.
6. Allot an additional week for intervention and enrichment lessons.
We've found the last step to be crucial. During this week, we provide small-group restructuring based on students' needs and then reassess. Meanwhile, students who demonstrated mastery participate in authentic enrichment activities.
As I've come to understand and appreciate the role assessment plays in student learning, I've been forced to re-prioritize. To truly understand the needs of my students, it's essential that I remain focused on their responses and questions when I'm teaching. I also have to make time each day to regularly evaluate more formal assignments (homework, quizzes, etc.) and determine the degree to which students understand and can apply what we're learning.
Some days, it's tempting to return to my old ways. But I know the difference it makes in my teaching when I understand where my students currently are and where we're going. For this reason, assessment has to be my priority.
Sarah Henchey is a 6th grade language arts teacher in Orange County, NC.
Posted by Sarah Henchey at 9:37 AM
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