Common Formative Assessments
- 1. Lindsay M Anderson Grant Line Elementary Kindergarten Teacher
- 2. “ Oh, no! Not more testing! We’re over-tested already!” Many educators may have this initial reaction regarding common formative assessments because all students take tests that measure aptitude, intelligence, achievement and many other levels of skills throughout their educational days.
- 3. Common assessment is one of the most powerful, high-leverage strategies for improving student learning…..and it is available to all schools.
- 4. It is frequent, common, high-quality formative assessment designed by teachers who are collaboratively working to help a group of students develop agreed-upon knowledge and skills
- 5. are assessments FOR learning that measure a few things frequently.
- 6. How can we create common assessments to monitor and promote student learning?
- 7. Define Purpose…What Do I Want to Assess? Why? Identify “Fair Game” in Terms of Standards or Content Strands. Design a Representative Balance of Assessment Items. Develop an Assessment Blueprint. What is the Instructional Process or Plan to Prepare Students? Actually, the Lesson Planning Phase. Select / Develop Assessment Items. Administer, Score, and Analyze the Assessment Results. Determine What You are Going to Do with the Data……. Make Necessary Instructional Changes.
- 8. The frequency is determined by the particular number of power standards teachers decide collectively to address during each short cycle of instruction. A recommended interval is once every month, but many find that meeting six or more times during a school year is more realistic in the early stages of implementation.
- 9. Item Analysis: After each assessment is completed, teachers conduct item analysis to analyze student proficiency. A good tool: CATS Calculator. Any question that does not have 80% mastery must be re-taught and assessed. Narrative Analysis: In-depth Self Reflection. Goal: Total teacher reflection. Teachers must detail their corrective instructional strategies for their students.
- 10. Teacher / team generated, not textbook generated. All students take the same content assessment regardless of who their teacher may be. Bottom line: Consistency Item analysis occurs at the end of every assessment. Narrative summary / analysis using the data. What’s the next step?
- 11. A formative assessment , like a physical examination, can provide both the “doctor” and the “patient” with timely information regarding the patient’s well-being and can help with a prescription for an ailing person or assist a healthy person to become even stronger.
- 12. Clearly defined goals related to learning and assessment help teachers provide descriptive feedback to students and provides students with concrete information in how to improve. This feedback is due to in-depth analysis of the results. The growth they experience helps build confidence as learners.
- 13. Common formative assessments allow educators to give regular and timely feedback regarding students’ attainment of most critical standards, which allows teachers to modify instruction to better meet the diverse learning needs of all students. CFA’s are multiple-measure assessments that allow students to demonstrate their understanding in a variety of formats. With the use of CFA’s there are constant ongoing collaboration opportunities for grade- level, course, and department teachers.
- 14. If all students are expected to demonstrate the same knowledge and skills, regardless of the teacher to which they are assigned, it only makes sense that teachers must work together in a collaborative effort to assess student learning.
- 15. represent the most effective strategies for determining whether the guaranteed curriculum is being taught…….. and more importantly, learned !!!!
- 17. Common, team-developed formative assessments are such a powerful tool in school improvement that no team of teachers should be allowed to opt out of creating them.
- 18. Common formative assessments inform the practice of individual teachers. They provide teachers with a basis of comparison as they learn, skill by skill, how the performance of their students is similar to and different from other students who took the assessment.
- 19. As a teacher – How do you respond when a student doesn’t learn? As a team – How do you respond when a student doesn’t learn? As a school – How do you respond when a student doesn’t learn?
- 20. Common formative assessments help identify groups of students who need additional support and time to ensure their learning. Everything students might SAY, DO, or CREATE has the potential to be formative because it can provide information about how much they understand and helps the teacher plan the next steps of instruction.
- 21. By implementing a system of common formative assessments, teachers within their schools will be able to improve student achievement and facilitate their own professional development. By aligning content standards with assessments and purposeful instruction, teachers will develop a depth of knowledge about their content standards, improve their ability to design assessments, learn to better link assessments with instruction, and plan for intervention for students who continue to struggle with reading and writing.
- 22. Ainsworth, L. & Viegut, D. (2006). Common formative assessments: How to connect standards-based instruction and assessment . Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Ainsworth, L. (2003). Power standards: Identifying the standards that matter most. Englewood, CO: Advanced Learning Press. Ainsworth, L. (2003). “Unwrapping” the standards: A simple process to make standards manageable. Englewood, Co: Advanced Learning Press. DuFour, R. (1997). Functioning as learning communities enables schools to focus on student achievement. Journal of Staff Development, 18, 56-57. DuFour, R. & Eaker, R. (1998). Professional learning communities at work: Best practices for enhancing student achievement. Alexandria, VA.