Classroom Assessment Chapter 2
To help us work towards our school goal of improving our understanding and practice of assessment, my principal has provided our staff with a copy of Classroom Assessment for Student Learning: Doing it Right – Using it Well, by Jan Chappuis, Rick Stiggins, Steve Chappuis, and Judith Arter. As I make my way through the book, I will be summarizing my learning as a means of organizing my thoughts and getting clarification on particular ideas.
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| Classroom Assessment for Student Learning Cover. (Accessed 2016). Uploaded to Amazon; Pearson Education. Available online at: https://www.amazon.ca/Classroom-Assessment-Student-Learning-Doing/dp/0132685884 |
Chapter 2 – Assessment for and of Learning
Impact of Formative Assessment on Learning
– students need opportunities to express understanding
– dialogue between teachers and students needs to be reflective and explore understandings
– feedback should be about an individuals work with advice on how to improve; no comparisons to others
– students need to be trained in self-assessment
Formative vs. Summative
1 ) Formative
– informal or formal
– to improve student learning
– reason for assessing
– promote increases
– support growth
– help students meet learning targets
– audience
– students
– focus of assessment
– specific targets selected by teachers to help students develop mastery
– place in time
– a process during learning
– primary users
– students, teachers, parents
– typical uses
– help teachers diagnose and respond
– help parents see progress and support students
– provide students with insight
2 ) Summative
– formal
– to make a judgement about student competency
– reason for assessing
– document mastery
– measure achievement status
– audience
– others
– focus of assessment
– standards for which schools/teachers/students are held accountable
– place in time
– an event after learning
– primary users
– admin, teachers, students, parents
– typical uses
– grading decisions
Formative Assessment only increases students understanding when:
1 ) it aligns directly with the targets to be learned
2 ) the items/tasks match what has been taught
3 ) it is detailed enough to pinpoint misunderstandings
4 ) results are available quickly
5 ) teachers and students take action with the results
7 Strategies of Formative Assessment
1 ) Provide students with a clear & understandable vision of the learning target
– student friendly language
– provide scoring criteria/rubrics
– ask, “why are we doing this?” “what are we learning”
2 ) Use examples of strong and weak work
– anonymous examples
– explain what parts are strong/weak and why
– share the development/revision process so students know that it doesn’t have to be a one-shot deal
3 ) Offer regular descriptive feedback
– direct attention to learning and guide improvement
– during learning
– address partial understandings
– do not do the thinking for the students
– limit info to the amount students can act on at this time; don’t overwhelm them
4 ) Teacher students to self-assess and set goals
– should be done regularly with all students; not just an “add-on”
5 ) Design lessons to focus on one target at a time
– easier to address misconceptions
– make sure students know all parts must come together
* I really like the suggested “agree-disagree-depends-don’t know” pre-test example
6 ) Teach student focused revision
– small group feedback instead of big-scale reteaching
– students can check for errors in work samples
7 ) Engage students in self-reflection and let them keep track and share their learning
– moves work away from the teacher and onto the students
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I WANT TO KNOW:
What exactly do they mean by “audience” when comparing formative and summative assessment?
To me, the audience of a formative assessment would be the students and the teacher and the audience of a summative assessment would be all stakeholders.
What do you think?
Please leave your thoughts below đ