Toward Informative Assessment And A Culture Of Evidence

Strengthening Pre-collegiate Education in Community Colleges (SPECC) is a multi-site action-research project, focused on teaching and learning in pre-collegiate mathematics and English language arts courses at 11 California community colleges. In this report, the author discusses the data gathered over the course of the SPECC project and reflects on the need for new ways to measure student learning. The report includes an appendix with tables showing success, retention and persistence data for each of the 11 SPECC campuses. (Contains 3 tables.).

While there is consensus that institutions need to represent their educational effectiveness through documentation of student learning, the higher education community is divided between those who support national standardized tests to compare institutions’ educational effectiveness, and those who believe that valid assessment of student achievement is based on assessing the work that students produce along and at the end of their educational journeys. This book espouses the latter philosophy—what Peggy Maki sees as an integrated and authentic approach to providing evidence of student learning based on the work that students produce along the chronology of their learning. She believes that assessment needs to be humanized, as opposed to standardized, to take into account the demographics of institutions, as students do not all start at the same place in their learning. Students also need the tools to assess their own progress. In addition to updating and expanding the contents of her first edition to reflect changes in assessment practices and developments over the last seven years, such as the development of technology-enabled assessment methods and the national need for institutions to demonstrate that they are using results to improve student learning, Maki focuses on ways to deepen program and institution-level assessment within the context of collective inquiry about student learning. Recognizing that assessment is not initially a linear start-up process or even necessarily sequential, and recognizing that institutions develop processes appropriate for their mission and culture, this book does not take a prescriptive or formulaic approach to building this commitment. What it does present is a framework, with examples of processes and strategies, to assist faculty, staff, administrators, and campus leaders to develop a sustainable and shared core institutional process that deepens inquiry into what and how students learn to identify and improve patterns of weakness that inhibit learning. This book is designed to assist colleges and universities build a sustainable commitment to assessing student learning at both the institution and program levels. It provides the tools for collective inquiry among faculty, staff, administrators and students to develop evidence of students’ abilities to integrate, apply and transfer learning, as well as to construct their own meaning. Each chapter also concludes with (1) an Additional Resources section that includes references to meta-sites with further resources, so users can pursue particular issues in greater depth and detail and (2) worksheets, guides, and exercises designed to build collaborative ownership of assessment.The second edition now covers: * Strategies to connect students to an institution’s or a program’s assessment commitment* Description of the components of a comprehensive institutional commitment that engages the institution, educators, and students--all as learners* Expanded coverage of direct and indirect assessment methods, including technology-enabled methods that engage students in the process* New case studies and campus examples covering undergraduate, graduate education, and the co-curriculum* New chapter with case studies that presents a framework for a backward designed problem-based assessment process, anchored in answering open-ended research or study questions that lead to improving pedagogy and educational practices* Integration of developments across professional, scholarly, and accrediting bodies, and disciplinary organizations* Descriptions and illustrations of assessment management systems* Additional examples, exercises, guides and worksheets that align with new content

Margaret Heritage presents a practical guide to formative assessment as a process of “inquiry and action” essential to twenty-first century learning. In the wake of the development of the Common Core standards and the effort to develop the appropriate assessments to accompany them, formative assessment has attracted increasing attention from policy makers and practitioners alike. Yet this powerful and promising approach is often applied in ways that fail to capture its potential for improving student learning. In her book, Margaret Heritage presents a practical guide to formative assessment as a process of “inquiry and action” essential to twenty-first century learning. Heritage’s approach is distinctive in that it is grounded in a “children’s rights” framework—that is, the belief that assessment should be in the best interest of all students, that students should be involved in the decisions that ensue from assessment use, and that opportunities to learn, progress, and succeed will be available to all children equally. Accordingly, she addresses the students’ own role in learning about themselves as learners and examines the classroom as a community of practice. The book also includes chapters on learning progressions and the policy contexts that support formative assessment. Skillfully interweaving theory and practice, this book promises to be an invaluable resource for teachers, teacher educators, and those interested in the academic and policy aspects of assessment.

Education is a hot topic. From the stage of presidential debates to tonight's dinner table, it is an issue that most Americans are deeply concerned about. While there are many strategies for improving the educational process, we need a way to find out what works and what doesn't work as well. Educational assessment seeks to determine just how well students are learning and is an integral part of our quest for improved education. The nation is pinning greater expectations on educational assessment than ever before. We look to these assessment tools when documenting whether students and institutions are truly meeting education goals. But we must stop and ask a crucial question: What kind of assessment is most effective? At a time when traditional testing is subject to increasing criticism, research suggests that new, exciting approaches to assessment may be on the horizon. Advances in the sciences of how people learn and how to measure such learning offer the hope of developing new kinds of assessments-assessments that help students succeed in school by making as clear as possible the nature of their accomplishments and the progress of their learning. Knowing What Students Know essentially explains how expanding knowledge in the scientific fields of human learning and educational measurement can form the foundations of an improved approach to assessment. These advances suggest ways that the targets of assessment-what students know and how well they know it-as well as the methods used to make inferences about student learning can be made more valid and instructionally useful. Principles for designing and using these new kinds of assessments are presented, and examples are used to illustrate the principles. Implications for policy, practice, and research are also explored. With the promise of a productive research-based approach to assessment of student learning, Knowing What Students Know will be important to education administrators, assessment designers, teachers and teacher educators, and education advocates.

Research evidence indicates that formative assessment is one of the most effective ways of enhancing student learning. It is, however, difficult to implement successfully, principally because what is tested through summative assessment has such a powerful influence on teacher and student actions. This book scrutinizes the relationship between testing and learning from alternative perspectives to the dominant literature from the major Anglophone countries. It develops the notion of contextually grounded formative assessment practices by analyzing data from schools in the Confucian-heritage setting of Hong Kong. It explores questions such as: • Under what circumstances do tests support or hinder student learning? • How can teachers effectively prepare students for tests and appropriately follow up after tests? • What are the key socio-cultural influences impacting on testing and student learning in the classroom? • How do teachers change in their orientation towards assessment and what support do they require? This text is a valuable resource for education students, professionals and researchers, policy-makers and curriculum developers.

"Formative assessment has changed the culture of my classroom. This book provides a straightforward approach to uncovering what my students know, what they still need to learn, and how to use assessment as a tool for learning instead of evaluating." —Shawn Morgan, Math Instructional Support Teacher Syracuse City School District, NY "Heritage clearly defines the process of formative assessment and uses real classroom applications to turn theory into practice. The reflection questions at the end of each chapter make this book an easy resource to implement in collaboration with colleagues, as well as a tool for self-assessment." —Amanda Whitehead, Principal Fouke Middle School, AR A practical, in-depth guide to implementing formative assessment in your classroom! Formative assessment allows teachers to identify and close gaps in student understanding and move learning forward. Now this research-based book helps educators develop the knowledge and skills necessary to successfully implement formative assessment in the classroom. Margaret Heritage walks readers through every step of the process and offers specific examples to illustrate the implementation of formative assessment across a range of subject areas and grade levels. This book explains how to: Clearly articulate learning progressions, learning goals, and success criteria Select strategies for assessment and provide quality feedback Engage students in self-assessment and self-management Create a classroom environment that values feedback as part of the learning process With guidance for school administrators who want to promote schoolwide implementation, Formative Assessment helps educators effectively target their teaching and improve learning for all students!

How do you know if students are with you at the beginning, middle, and end of a lesson? Can formative assessment offer a key to better teaching and learning during instruction? What if you could blend different formative assessment moves in your classroom, with intention and care for all students, to help make better instructional decisions on the fly and enjoy more teachable moments? Educators Brent Duckor and Carrie Holmberg invite you on the journey to becoming a formative assessor. They encourage you to focus on these seven research-based, high-leverage formative assessment moves: Priming--building on background knowledge and creating a formative assessment–rich, equitable classroom culture Posing--asking questions in relation to learning targets across the curriculum that elicit Habits of Mind Pausing--waiting after powerful questions and rich tasks to encourage more student responses by supporting them to think aloud and use speaking and listening skills related to academic language Probing--deepening discussions, asking for elaborations, and making connections using sentence frames and starters Bouncing--sampling student responses systematically to broaden participation, manage flow of conversation, and gather more “soft data” for instructional use Tagging--describing and recording student responses without judgment and making public how students with different styles and needs approach learning in real-time Binning--interpreting student responses with a wide range of tools, categorizing misconceptions and “p-prims,” and using classroom generated data to make more valid and reliable instructional decisions on next steps in the lesson and unit Each chapter explores a classroom-tested move, including foundational research, explaining how and when to best use it, and describing what it looks like in practice. Highlights include case studies, try-now tasks and tips, and advice from beginning and seasoned teachers who use these formative assessment moves in their classrooms.

The Sage Handbook of Research on Classroom Assessment provides scholars, professors, graduate students, and other researchers and policy makers in the organizations, agencies, testing companies, and school districts with a comprehensive source of research on all aspects of K-12 classroom assessment. The handbook emphasizes theory, conceptual frameworks, and all varieties of research (quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods) to provide an in-depth understanding of the knowledge base in each area of classroom assessment and how to conduct inquiry in the area. It presents classroom assessment research to convey, in depth, the state of knowledge and understanding that is represented by the research, with particular emphasis on how classroom assessment practices affect student achieventment and teacher behavior. Editor James H. McMillan and five Associate Editors bring the best thinking and analysis from leading classroom assessment researchers on the nature of the research, making significant contributions to this prominent and hotly debated topic in education.

This revised and greatly expanded edition of the 1988 handbook offers teachers at all levels how-to advise on classroom assessment, including: What classroom assessment entails and how it works. How to plan, implement, and analyze assessment projects. Twelve case studies that detail the real-life classroom experiences of teachers carrying out successful classroom assessment projects. Fifty classroom assessment techniques Step-by-step procedures for administering the techniques Practical advice on how to analyze your data Order your copy today.

This book provides a critical overview of assessment, taking an evidence-based approach, with balanced and reflective consideration given to arguments around various approaches to assessment in schools. It offers practical advice on how to implement such evidence-based models and helps with reflectively evaluating their success. Evidence-based teaching is fast becoming a new orthodoxy. There are many strong voices, including policy voices, advocating its adoption. Understanding the underlying principles allows you to better evaluate the benefits of different approaches to evidence based teaching and how they relate to your own school context.