Transcript What is Formative Assessment?

Formative Assessment in the Classroom
Margaret Heritage
EED Winter Conference: Informing Instruction,
Improving Achievement
Anchorage, Alaska - January 16 -18, 2007
UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies
National Center for Research on Evaluation,
Standards, and Student Testing
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Overview
What is Formative Assessment?
Elements of Formative Assessment
Examples of Formative Assessment
Teacher Knowledge, Skills and Attitudes
A Conceptualization of the Domain of Teaching
for Formative Assessment
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What is Formative Assessment?
What is Formative Assessment?
An Ongoing Process To:
• Evoke evidence about student learning
• Provide feedback about learning to
teachers and to students
• Close the gap between the learner’s
current state and desired goals
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Formative Assessment Must Be:
• Clearly and directly linked to instructional
goals
• Embedded in instruction
• A variety of methods and strategies
• Used to make changes
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Elements of Formative
Assessment
Identifying the Gap
• Formative assessment is the means to
identify the “gap” between a learner’s
current status and the desired goal
• Different students will have different
"gaps"
(Sadler, 1989)
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The “Just Right Gap”
• Student perceives the gap as too large goal unattainable
• Student perceives the gap as too small closing it might not be worth the
individual effort
(Sadler, 1989)
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Interpretive Framework
• Teachers need to interpret evidence from
formative assessment
• Having an interpretive framework means
having a roadmap articulating the sub goals
that constitute progression toward the
ultimate goal
• Interpretive frameworks provide the
touchstone for formative assessment
strategies
• Evidence is interpreted within the framework
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Interpretive Framework
• Developmental criteria (Harlen, 2006)
• Theory of knowledge in a domain (NRC,
2001; Shavelson, 2006)
• Ontology (Baker, 2005)
• Clearly articulated progression of
learning in a domain (Forster & Masters,
2004; Wilson & Sloane, 2000)
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Closing the Gap
“Formative assessment gathers and uses
information about students’ knowledge and
performance to close the gap between
students’ current learning state and the
desired state by pedagogical actions”
(Shavelson 2006, p.3)
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Matching Action to the “Gap”
• The zone of proximal development
• Scaffolding instruction within the
zone of proximal development
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Feedback
• Feedback to teachers about current
status to adapt instruction
• Feedback to students to respond to
instructional adaptations
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Feedback: Students
Clear, descriptive, criterion-based feedback
to students that indicates:
√ where they are in the learning progression
√ how their response differed from that reflected in
desired learning goal
√ how they can move forward
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”Feedback Loops”
Feedback loops include a teacher who
knows which skills are to be learned,
who can recognize and describe good
performance, demonstrate good
performance, and indicate how poor
performance can be improved.
(Sadler 1989, p.120)
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Shared Ownership
• Teachers and students have shared
understanding and ownership of the
learning goal
• Students become involved in selfassessment
• Students need to learn the strategies of
self-assessment
• Students make “more knowledgeable
decisions regarding their current learning
tactics” (Popham, 2006)
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Summing Up
Formative assessment is a means to
continuously gather evidence and provide
feedback about learning so that pedagogical
actions can be adapted to meet learning
needs, and so that students can be active
participants with their teachers in
understanding how their learning is
progressing and how improvements can be
made.
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Formative Assessment Methods
Methods
• On-the-fly
• Planned for interaction
• Curriculum embedded
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A Typology of Formative Assessment
• Performance tasks (teacher observation of
student(s) carrying out an investigation,
oral presentation)
• Written tasks (teacher analysis science
notebooks, history essay, literature
response, explanation of mathematical
strategy)
• Discussions (questions, teacher listens to
group discussion, teacher/student
conferences)
• Tests (quizzes , tests of discrete skills,
diagnostic tests)
• Student self-assessment
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Assessment Cycles
Type
Focus
Length
Short-cycle
Within a
single
lesson
Five seconds to
one hour
Medium-cycle
Between
lessons
One day to two
weeks
Long-cycle
Between
Two weeks or
instructional more
units
Wiliam, 2006
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Validity and Reliability
• Purpose
• Consequence
• Formative assessments do not
stand alone
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Examples of Formative
Assessment
Elementary Mathematics
Heritage & Niemi, 2006
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Middle School Science
What would happen to a tennis ball dropped from a height of 100
feet into 30 feet of water?
New Standards, 1989
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Elementary Science
How is
sedimentary
rock
formed?
Is igneous
rock onli in
the crust?
Why is there
three cain of
roks?
Why shaps
of animals
are in rocks?
Are there
minerals and
rock?
In the earth
are always
rocks
What are
rocks made
of?
What are
other things
that rocks
are maid of?
What is a
mineral?
Are rocks
old or new?
Bailey & Heritage, (forthcoming)
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Elementary Reading
Text: The sun was hot.
Marco: The sun was hot.
Text: Pop had a top hat.
Marco: Pop had a t-o-p …pot hat.
Text: Mom had a red wig.
Marco: Mom had a red w-i-g---giw.
Bailey & Heritage, (forthcoming)
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Middle School Mathematics
Group 1: Division of fifteen-fifths means a fraction or a division.
Fifteen divided by five is three.
Group 2: Division means dividing some numbers and make it to a
smaller number. Fifteen-fifths is fifteen divided by five. That
makes three.
Group 3: Division is opposite of multiplication. Fifteen-fifths is like
five goes into fifteen and that makes three because three times
five is fifteen.
Group 4: Division is when you flip the number when you divide
and when you multiply. Fifteen-fifths is like five times
something is fifteen, so the answer is three.
Group 5: Division is dividing one number by another to solve the
problem. Like fifteen-fifths is X so, then five times X equals
three.
Heritage, Silva & Pierce, 2006
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Middle School Science
Student response: If there is a block of steel, and you put it
in water, it sinks because it had more mass. If you put a
hollow piece of steel of the same mass, and shaped like a
banana, it would float because it was shaped different, so it
could float. For example, a fish has a swim bladder. He
can let air in and out, and that is for him to go up or down
or sub-surface.
Gearhart et al., 2006
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Characteristics
• Linked to instructional goals
• Integrated into instruction
• Provide ongoing feedback at a level of detail to
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stimulate action for improvements in learning
Constructed and undertaken within an
interpretive framework
Enable descriptive feedback to be provided to
students
Involve students in the assessment process
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Teacher Knowledge, Skills and
Attitudes for Formative
Assessment
Content Knowledge
• Knowledge, concepts and skills that need
to be taught within a domain
• Learning pathway/progression of sub
goals
• Knowledge of “good performance”
• Necessary precursor knowledge and
understanding
• Knowledge of student metacognition
(self-regulation, self assessment,
motivation)
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Pedagogical Content Knowledge
• Multiple models of teaching for student
achievement in content areas
• “Gap” will differ so multiple,
differentiated instructional strategies
• Multiple models for teaching student
metacognitive strategies
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Student Prior Knowledge
• Prior knowledge students bring to the
new learning
• How to determine prior knowledge
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Assessment Knowledge
• Range of methods/strategies for
formative assessment (on-the-fly,
planned for interaction, curriculumembedded)
• Formative assessment cycles
• Validity – purpose and interpretation
• Reliability
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Skills
• Interpretation of evidence
• Adapting instruction
• Determining the zone of proximal
development
• Supporting new learning within the zone
of proximal development (scaffolding) –
selecting the right strategy
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Skills
• Providing clear, descriptive, criterionbased feedback
• Feedback indicates to student how they
can move forward
• Assisting students to develop
metacognitive knowledge and "learning
tactics”(Popham, 2006)
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Attitudes
• Formative assessment is worthwhile
• Formative assessment yields valuable
and actionable information about
students’ learning
• Formative assessment is integral to
instruction
• Students are partners in formative
assessment and in learning
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Toward a Conceptualization of
the Domain of Teaching for
Formative Assessment
Conceptualizing the Domain
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Conceptualizing the Domain
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Conceptualizing the Domain
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Conceptualizing the Domain
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Conceptualizing the Domain
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Conceptualizing the Domain
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Conceptualizing the Domain
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Conceptualizing the Domain
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Conceptualizing the Domain
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