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The Wisdom of Giants

As I was entering a session at the 2016 ASCD Annual Conference, I overheard one teacher say to another: “These are the giants in education”. But these giants bring their own seeds and shovels for the hard work of planting and nurturing ideas. The plentiful enthusiasm and generous sharing, from the people I met in the hallways to the keynote speakers, was extraordinary. Here are a few of my take-aways along with some anecdotes through my assessment lens.

Myron Dueck: Creating means there is no obvious right answer. Teachers must provide students with planning formats, clear targets, and assessment strategies that display evidence of learning.
My Add-on: You can learn more about assessing creativity at Edutopia.

Steve Oertle: Engage students in standards-based learning and assessment by deconstructing standards into explicit criteria-based rubrics.
My Tag: Here are some additional resources to support teachers in translating standards into assessable criteria.

Jim Rickabaugh: We can personalize learning by tapping into motivation via interests, ownership, independence, relationships, and rewards.
My Codicil: Personalized learning and student-centered assessment is a continuum, with a gradual release of responsibility for achievement, utilizing self-reflection, metacognition, and feedback.

Pedro Noguera: Equality is about giving children shoes. Equity is making sure the shoes fit.
My Tag: Equity belongs everywhere in education. Personalized and restorative assessment can support that.

Carol Dweck: We are all a mix of growth and fixed mindsets. Developing a growth mindset is a journey.
My Add-on: Learn more about how to connect mindset to Assessment.

Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey: There is a difference between difficulty and complexity. Surface and deep learning can be both.
My Insight: So it is with assessment. Multiple choice questions can require deeper understanding of theories and hypotheses and a performance-based assessment may entail a fact-based task.

Many are hopeful that ESSA will deliver on its promise of reducing Washington’s control over local decisions and offering more flexibility in choosing and using multiple assessments.

Thank you ASCD, for a spectacular conference and to all the participants for sharing their passions, hopes, and solutions. I brought back so many ideas and materials that I have enough to work on… until next year in Anaheim.

Laura, AssessmentNetwork.net

Assess, Teach, Learn, Repeat: Why Assessment Comes First

Imagine you have decided to learn a new skill: Perhaps Medieval cookery or competitive stone skipping. But, how do you begin? An internet search may explain strategies and give you examples of people who achieved prominence. You may also decide to read articles and watch videos of successful performance.  

Then what? Most likely you wouldn’t immediately open a restaurant, join the tournament team, or take a written exam. It is more likely you would try it, practice it, and confer with others. Along the way you might get befuddled or bruised, but like “Horton” in the Dr. Seuss story, you would persist or like the “Beautiful Oops”, learn to make the best from your mistakes.

 Assessment is the route to achievement. I don’t mean a 100 question bubble sheet: Rather, the type of assessment that supports and steers learning. Beginning with pre-assessments to determine the starting point, followed by formative check-ins to inform instructional decisions, and incorporating ongoing measures that provide evidence of learning, these approaches engage learners and encourage improvement.

 Assessments that drive instruction rely on just-right timing and just-right focus. In these settings, goals, assessment, and instruction are seamlessly merged. Rather than judging answers, student’s responses are used to guide their learning. This in turn, informs instructional strategies, pacing, and resources. It is this continuous dip-sticking that confirms progress and identifies lingering gaps. As with Medieval cuisine or stone skipping, the focus remains on individual growth and personal best.

Everything I Know About Assessment I Learned from Star Wars

The Force is Strong
The forces driving educational assessment are powerful. We are bombarded on all sides from testing and measurement packages that promise to deliver results. Repel this force and build your own toolbox of robust and flexible classroom assessment practices.

Teach Like Yoda
Yoda is a patient tutor and also a no-nonsense teacher. By perching on Luke’s shoulder he develops an understanding of the problem from Luke’s view and creates a personalized learning path that is built on step by step progress towards mastery of the Jedi way. Use embedded formative assessments throughout your teaching and learning to continuously monitor students’ fulfillment of their learning goals.

Why Can’t Anakin Learn?
Don’t be like Anakin when he says, “I’ve heard this lesson before” and Obi Wan replies, “But, you haven’t learned anything.” Anakin wants others to think he knows everything but this may be a ruse to avoid showing his weaknesses or fear of making mistakes. Foster growth mindsets to increase resiliency and bolster success.

Obi-Wan’s Truth
There are many viewpoints on fixing education but as Obi-Wan explained, many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view. Seek a balanced and galactic perspective:

• Minimize the politics: Maximize research-based practice
• Gaze through a wide-angle lens: Bring together local needs with large-scale principles
• Teach the whole child: Blend content knowledge with critical thinking, non-cognitive, and social-emotional competencies
• Utilize a comprehensive spectrum of measures: From traditional strategies to on the spot formative assessment

As Yoda said, “That which you seek, inside you will find.”
Source: http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0000005/quotes

Pre-Assessment for a Purpose

Pre-assessment is like assembling the ingredients before you begin baking to make sure you have the right types of leavening and flour. Sometimes, after mixing the ingredients, pouring it in the pan, and popping it in the oven you discover that it is way overcooked when you take it out. Whoops! Forgot to calibrate the oven temperature.

In the classroom, a pre-assessment is generally given at the start of a lesson. Teachers use them, like a thermostat, to check the current status and consider adjustments to the dial. After a KWL, they may back-track to previous content in order to fill in any lingering gaps. In response to a Plickers pretest, students may be regrouped.

Pre-assessment should stretch beyond recall of prior learning. It can be used to pique student’s curiosity and uncover 21^st century skills such as collaboration and critical thinking. Students with well-developed problem solving skills may easily jump into inquiry learning or case studies, while others in the group immediately assert their own answers and solutions. When students are pre-assessed on their ability to sequence the problem solving process, the knowledge and skills they display then informs teaching and learning.

Higher level thinking involves making connections to and building on prior learning. But how does a teacher know their student’s abilities before starting a lesson? Using graphic organizers such as bubbl.us or coggle.it to display incoming thinking can be reciprocally used to assess learning outcomes after instruction. A specific-to-general chart  checks for understanding of the meaning of an event or theory.

The key idea to keep in mind is that there is no one pre-assessment that serves all purposes. When selecting a method consider how you will use it:
**Support standards and learning targets: Check for proficiencies, prior experiences, and dispositions
**Align with the taxonomy: Ask students how is this related, how does it compare, what do you predict?
**Guide instructional strategies: Plan for direct instruction, inquiry, reciprocal teaching, or producing
**Inform interventions, content, chunking, pacing, and resources

Purposeful and targeted pre-assessment is an engaging, fun, and illuminating way to support all learners.