Classroom assessment, WOW training!

IMPROVING
ASSESSMENT
STRATEGIES-
ASSESSMENT FOR
AND OF LEARNING
Sara Ismail
IF we can do something with assessment information
beyond using it to figure grades, we can improve learning.
WOW of students _teachers’ role

CONTENT
 Balanced Assessment system
 Formative Vs. Summative assessment
 Impact of Formative Assessment on Achievement
 Seven Strategies of Assessment For Learning
 Activity
WOW of students _teachers’
role

 Formative assessment has gained great attention over its impact
on achievement, how to create, etc.
 Reality – most assessments used in schools remain summative –
most “count” towards the grade.

A BALANCED ASSESSMENT
SYSTEM
 Who uses assessment
information?
 Teachers
 Parents
 Students
 Administrators
 The public
 No one assessment can fill
everyone’s informational
needs.
 Key forms of assessment are
formative and summative.
 A balanced assessment
system used in districts
promote student success.

A BALANCED ASSESSMENT
SYSTEM

IMPACT OF FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT
ON ACHIEVEMENT
 British researchers Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam have found that
use if formative assessment practices increased achievement if
low performing students on standardized tests.

ON ACHIEVEMENT
 Suggested practices necessary to achieve the gains
by formative assessment.
 Use of classroom discussions, classroom tasks, and homework to
determine the current state of student learning/understanding, with action
taken to improve learning/correct misunderstanding.
 Provision of descriptive feedback, with guidance on how to improve,
during the learning.
 Development of student self- and peer-assessment skills.
These are all practices, not instruments. There is no magic test or tool. Unfortunately, because of
the accountability-saturated environment, we may have left a few good teaching and assessment
practices behind along with some children.

ON ACHIEVEMENT
Distinguishing Between
Formative and Summative
Assessment
Why the distinction Is Important
 Formative Assessment: Formal
and informal processes teachers
and students use to gather
evidence for the purpose of
improving learning.
 Assessment for learning
 Summative Assessment:
Assessment information used to
provide evidence of student
achievement for the purpose of
making a judgment about student
competence or program
effectiveness.
 Assessment of learning.
 Pivotal to realizing gains in student
achievement.
 Following conditions need to be met
for gains to be made:
 The assessment instrument is designed so
that it aligns directly with the content
standards learned.
 All instruments match what has been or will
be taught.
 The instrument provides information to
pinpoint specific problems, such as
misunderstandings, so teachers can make
good decisions on what tasks to take.
 The results are available in time to take
action with the students who generate
them.
 Teachers and students do indeed take
action based on the results.

ON ACHIEVEMENT
What This Has To Do with Clear
Purpose
What Clear Purpose Has To Do
With Achievement
 Establishing the purpose for
an assessment is the first
key assessment quality.
 To ensure high quality
assessment practices, ask
these 3 questions:
 Who is going to use the
information?
 How will they use it?
 What information, in what detail,
do they need?
 “Until we acknowledge the
student’s crucial role-if they
would only show up/try/do
their work-we will continue to
change everything but the
student.” (p.27)
 Formative assessment
practices works because it
changes the students’
interaction with assessment.
WOW of students
_teachers’ role

SEVEN STRATEGIES OF ASSESSMENT
FOR LEARNING
 Formative assessment is essentially feedback.
 The 7 strategies are structured around around 3 formative
assessment questions.
 Where am I going?
 Where am I now?
 Where can I close the gab?

FOR LEARNING – WHERE AM I GOING?
 Strategy 1: Provide students with a clear and understandable vision of
the learning target.
 Share learning targets, objectives, or goals, either at the outset of instruction or before
they begin an independent practice activity.
 Use student-friendly language by defining key words in terms students understand.
 Strategy 2: Use examples and models of strong and weak work.
 Use to demonstrate strengths and weaknesses related to problems students commonly
experience.
 Ask students to analyze these examples for quality and justify their judgments.
 Model the creating process.
WOWof students _teachers’ role

FOR LEARNING – WHERE AM I NOW?
 Strategy 3: Offer regular descriptive feedback.
 Grades do not function as effective feedback.
 5 Characteristics of effective feedback:
 Directs attention to the intended learning, pointing out strengths and offering specific
information to guide improvement.
 Occurs during learning, while there is still time act on it.
 Addresses partial understanding.
 Does not do the thinking for the student
 Limits corrective information to amount of advice the student can act on.

FOR LEARNING – WHERE AM I NOW?
 Strategy 4: Teach students to self-assess and set goals.
 Self-assessment is a necessary part of learning. .
 Self assessment includes having the students do the following:
 Identifying their own strengths and areas of improvements
 Write in a response log at the end of class, recording key points they have learned
and questions they still have.
 Using established criteria, select a work sample for their portfolio that proves a
certain level of proficiency, explaining why the piece qualifies.
 Offer descriptive feedback to classmates.
 Use your feedback, feedback from other students, or their own self-assessment to
identify what they need to work on and set goals for the future.

FOR LEARNING – HOW CAN I CLOSE
THE GAP?
 Strategy 5: Design lessons to focus on one learning target or
aspect of quality at a time.
 When assessment information identifies a need, adjust instruction to target
that need.
 Strategy 6: Teach students focused revisions.
 Some ways to help students practice revision include the following:
 Have students work in pairs to critique an anonymous sample and revise it using
their own advice.
 Ask students to write a letter to the creator of an anonymous sample they have just
critiqued, suggesting how to make it stronger for the aspect of quality discussed.
 Ask students to analyze your won work for quality and make suggestions for
improvements. Revise your work using their advice. Ask them again to review it for
quality.

FOR LEARNING – HOW CAN I CLOSE
THE GAP?
 Strategy 7: Engage students in self-reflection, and let them keep
track of and share their learning.
 This reinforces the learning and helps them develop insights into themselves
as learners.
 Some examples:
 Students write a process paper, detailing how they solved a problem or
created a product or performance. This encourages them to think like
professionals.
 Students write a letter to their parents about a piece of work, explaining where
they are now with it and what they are trying to do next.
 Students track their own progress toward mastery of learning targets.
 Students help plan and participate in conferences with parents and/or teachers
to share their learning.
WOW of students _teachers’
role

THE SEVEN STRATEGIES AS A
PROGRESSION.
“It enables students to take control of their own learning by providing
a clear vision of the learning targets they are to attain, teaching them
to assess where they are with respect to the target, and offering
strategies they can use to close the gap between where they are
and where they need to be.”

ACTIVITY
Activity 1
After reading through the Seven Strategies of Assessment for
learning, think about the extent to which each of the characteristics
of effective feedback is part of your regular classroom practice.

CLEAR TARGETS
Sara Ismail
“Students can hit any target they see and
that holds still for them.”

CONTENT
 Learning Targets
 Types of learning target
 Activity

LEARNING TARGETS
 Learning targets are statements of intended learning
 Curriculum documents are the roadmap and assessment is the
GPS
 Effective formative and summative assessments depend on a
good curriculum and clear learning targets
 If the curriculum side is in disarray, the assessment side will be
equally messy
WOW of students
_teachers’ role

TYPES OF LEARNING TARGETS
 You must understand the
type of learning target in
order to:
 1. Examine the target in your
own curriculum and
determine if it is clear
enough
 2. Understand if you need to
break a target into smaller
teachable parts
 3. Select the appropriate
assessment method
 Learning Target Types:
 1. Knowledge Targets
 2. Reasoning Targets
 3. Skill Targets
 4. Product Targets
 5. Disposition Targets

KNOWLEDGE TARGETS
 Knowledge targets include factual information, procedural knowledge, and
conceptual understandings.
 Knowledge targets form the foundation for each other type of target.
Factual: knows, lists, names, recalls,
identifies
Procedural: knows how to, uses
Conceptual: understands, explain the
concept
Knowing via Reference: Not everything
we know needs to be learned “by heart”.

REASONING TARGETS
 Mastering content knowledge is not the sole aim of education
today; we want students to develop the ability to apply knowledge.
 All subject area curriculum includes reasoning processes, such as
predict, infer, classify, hypothesize, compare, draw conclusions,
summarize, estimate, analyze, justify.

Six Patterns of
Reasoning
Inference
Analysis
Comparison
Classification
Evaluation
Synthesis
There is not a hierarchy of difficulty in the patterns of reasoning.
However, some depend on other to be carried out effectively.

SKILL TARGETS
 Skill Targets refer to learning targets where a real demonstration
or physical performance is at the heart of the learning.
 Examples:
 Performing Arts
 P.E.
 Word Languages
 Oral fluency in reading
 Giving an oral presentation

PRODUCT TARGETS
 Some content standards specify the creation of a project. For
product targets, the specifications for qualities of a good product
are the focus of teaching and learning.
 Product examples include:
 Create tables, graphs, scatter plots
 Lab reports
 Create a personal wellness plan
 Research report
 Assessment Unit plan 

DISPOSITION TARGETS
 Disposition targets may not be written in the curriculum; however,
they represent the byproducts of students’ educational experience
 Sometimes they are overarching goals of schools, often found in
mission statements
 Examples:
 “I look forward to coming to school each day!”
 “I like reading.”
 Wants to participate in reading club, community
 theatre, sports
 Views themselves as capable of doing math

ACTIVITY
 IDENTIFY TYPES OF TARGET IN THESE EXAMPLES

THE FOLLOWING
EXAMPLE IS WHICH TYPE
OF LEARNING TARGET?
 Knowledge
 Reasoning
 Skill
 Product
 Disposition
Compares and contrasts points of view from a
historical event.

REASONING TARGET

THE FOLLOWING
OF LEARNING TARGET?
 Knowledge
 Reasoning
 Skill
 Product
 Disposition
Capitalizes appropriate words in titles.

KNOWLEDGE TARGET

THE FOLLOWING
OF LEARNING TARGET?
 Knowledge
 Reasoning
 Skill
 Product
 Disposition
Measures properties of objects using balances and
thermometers.
WOWof students _teachers’ role

SKILL TARGET

THE FOLLOWING
OF LEARNING TARGET?
 Knowledge
 Reasoning
 Skill
 Product
 Disposition
Creates a timeline to show the order of early
explorations and settlements.

PRODUCT TARGET

GOOD CURRICULUM GUIDES
 All teachers should have assess to a practical curriculum guide
that provides a clear vision of intended learning.
 A good curriculum map will link each year’s learning targets to the
previous and following year’s targets.
 A good curriculum will also link to whatever standards form the
basis for your accountability testing.
 Learning targets in the curriculum should be stated so that
everyone who teaches a subject interprets them the same way.

PROCESS FOR DECONSTRUCTING
STANDARDS
Check your work for accuracy and reasonableness.
Identify the prerequisite or underlying knowledge,
reasoning, and/or skills.
Determine the ultimate target type represented in the
standard.

COMMUNICATING LEARNING TARGETS
TO STUDENTS
 Once the learning target is clear to you, you need to make sure it
is clear to your students!
 Without an understanding of the learning targets, students lack
the information they need to self-assess, set goals, and act on
descriptive feedback.

WHEN THE WRITTEN CURRICULUM IS
NOT THE TAUGHT CURRICULUM
 Your curriculum is your first assessment guide.
 Without an easily understood curriculum, many teachers rely on
the textbook, a list of activities or projects to fill its role.
 Many problems arise:
 1. Textbooks contain too much content to teach in one year
 2. Textbooks don’t provide guidance on which information is most important
 3. If activities are not carefully designed, we may not be teaching what is most
important to learn

THE BENEFITS OF CLEAR LEARNING
TARGETS TO TEACHERS
1. Knowing what to teach
2. Knowing what to assess
3. Knowing what instructional activities to plan
4. Avoiding “coverage” at the expense of learning
5. Ability to interpret and use assessment results
6. System for tracking and reporting information.
7. Common ground for working collaboratively with other
teachers.

TARGETS TO STUDENTS
1. Understanding what they are
responsible for learning.
2. Understanding and acting on
feedback.
3. Being prepared to self-assess
and set goals.
4. Being able to track, reflect on,
and share their own progress.

TARGETS TO PARENTS
1. Helping children at home.
2. Understanding grades.
3. Focusing discussions at
conferences.

WITHOUT CLEAR LEARNING
TARGETS…
 We can’t
 Know if the assessment adequately covers what we taught
 Correctly identify what students know and don’t know and their level of
achievment
 Plan next steps in instruction
 Give detailed descriptive feedback to students
 Have students self-assess or set goals
 Keep track of student learning
 Complete a standards based report card

TYPES OF
ASSESSMENT AND
TIPS TO IMPROVE
ASSESSMENT
Sara Ismail
How much do you measure? And in what way?

FAILURES BECAUSE OF FAULTY
TEST
“13% of students who fail in class are caused by faulty test
questions”
WORLDWATCH
The Philadelphia Trumpet
August 2005

1. Multiple Choice
2. True or False
3. Matching Type
4. Fill-in the blanks (Sentence Completion)
5. Essay
5 Most Commonly used
Test Format
Source: Turn-out of Test Questions in SSI (2003-2007)

GENERAL STEPS IN TEST
CONSTRUCTION
OUTLINE
DRAFT
ORDER
TEST ANALYZE
SUBMISSION
PRODUCE A
T.O.S.

OUTLINE:
 the unit learning objectives or
 the unit content or major
concepts to be covered by the
test

TABLE OF SPECIFICATIONS (TOS)
 A two way chart that relates the learning outcomes to the course
content
 It enables the teacher to prepare a test containing a
representative sample of student behavior in each of the areas
tested.

 Don’t make it overly detailed.
 It's best to identify major ideas and skills rather
than specific details.
 Use a cognitive taxonomy that is most
appropriate to your discipline, including non-
specific skills like communication skills or
graphic skills or computational skills if such are
important to your evaluation of the answer.
TIPS IN PREPARING THE TABLE
OF SPECIFICATIONS (TOS)

 Weigh the appropriateness of the distribution of
checks against the students' level, the
importance of the test, the amount of time
available.
 MATCH the question level appropriate to the
level of thinking skills

EXAMPLES OF STUDENT ACTIVITIES
AND VERBS FOR BLOOM’S COGNITIVE
LEVELS
TABLE 2.1 IN JACOBS & CHASE
(1992:19)Bloom’s Cognitive
Level
Student Activity Words to Use in Item
Stem
Knowledge Remembering facts,
terms, concepts,
definitions, principles
Define, list, state,
identify, label, name,
who?, when?, where?,
what?
Comprehension Explaining/interpreting
the meaning of material
Explain, predict, interpret,
infer, summarize, convert,
translate, account for,
give example, paraphrase
Application Using a concept or
principle to solve a
problem
Apply, solve, show, make
use of, modify,
demonstrate, compute

Examples of Student Activities and
Verbs for Bloom’s Cognitive Levels
Table 2.1 in Jacobs & Chase (1992:19)
Bloom’s Cognitive
Level
Student Activity Words to Use in Item
Stem
Analysis Breaking material down
into its component parts to
see interrelationships/
hierarchy of ideas
Differentiate,
compare/contrast,
distinguish ____from
____, how does
____relate to ___, why
does ____work
Synthesis Producing something new or
original from component
parts
Design, construct, develop,
formulate, imagine,
create, change, write a
poem or short story
Evaluation Making a judgment based
on a pre-established set of
criteria
Appraise, evaluate,
justify, judge, which would
be better?

The following array shows the most common
questions types used at various cognitive
levels.
Factual Knowledge Application Analysis and
Evaluation
Multiple Choice
True/False
Matching Type
S. Completion
Short Answer/RRT
Multiple Choice
Short Answer
Problems
Essay
Multiple Choice
Essay

DRAFT
THE QUESTIONS COVERING THE CONTENT
IN THE OUTLINE

ORDER THE SELECTED QUESTIONS
LOGICALLY.
 Place simpler items at the beginning to ease students into the
exam.
 Group item types together under common instructions.
 If desirable, order the questions logically from a content
standpoint (e.g. chronologically or by conceptual groups, etc.)

TEST
 PUT the questions away for one or two days before rereading
them or have someone else review them for clarity.
 TEST the questions by actually taking the test.

ANALYZE the items to give you an idea whether the
questions were well-written or poorly written as well as if there
were problems in understanding instruction.

GENERAL RULES IN WRITING TEST
QUESTIONS
Number test questions continuously.
Keep your test question in each test group
uniform.
Make your layout presentable.
Do not put too many test questions in one test
group.
 T or F: 10 – 15 questions
 Multiple Choice: max. of 30 questions
 Matching type: 5 questions per test group
 Others: 5 – 10 questions

MULTIPLE CHOICE TEST

GENERAL RULES

TRUE OR FALSE

Give emphasis on the use of quantitative
terms than qualitative terms.
Avoid using of specific determiners which
usually gives a clue to the answer.
 False = all, always, never, every, none, only
 True = generally, sometimes, usually, maybe, often
Tips in Making True/False Tests

Discourage the use of negative statements.
Whenever a controversial statement is
used, the authority should be quoted.
Discourage the use of pattern for answers.
Tips in Making True/False Tests

ASSESSMENT OF TRAINING
SESSION
 Your assessment starts now!

FEEDBACK
 Have a nice day

Classroom assessment, WOW training!

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