The term "firsthand" and "secondhand data sources"(p. 11) really helped me think of how powerful our conversations with parents and the community can be. I must admit, I have spent a great amont of time moaning about not being trusted as a professional, yet I have never tried to do anything about it. The idea that I know my students best, but a single test on a given day ends up being the final say on my students' ability has always upset me. However, I have complained and never even tried to find a better way to put my words and practices together to come up with a solution to help parents, community and students (stakeholders) see the importance of formative assessment. Maybe now I can begin that journey.
What are you thinking?
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ReplyDeleteI assess my kids all the time. From the moment they walk in my room, I assess them. I can tell whether or not someone is in a bad mood, whether or not someone is engaged in their SSR, or whether or not someone understands our class discussions by the informal questions I ask. However, the term assessment generally has a negative connotation--test! I thought one of the most powerful quotes was found on page 1..."I realized that assessment wasn't the enemy; it was the way it was being used to judge and punish instead of inform and help educators get smarter about teaching and learning." This is so true. However, I will say that Kristy and I have really looked at our primary assessments this year. We are able to code what questions they got wrong and what standards those questions corresponded to. Thus, we ask ourselves was it a bad question or could the teaching of that standard be better.
ReplyDeleteTovani makes great points in this chapter about how as teachers we can make better guesses about a student if we look at written types of assessment than multiple choice assessments. We are able to look at handwriting and see their thoughts vs. what might be just guesses. (page 4 and 5). This is so true, so then why do all high stakes testing end in Multiple Choice and why isn't the SAT writing configured into their score?
Great question, Ashley. Could we use our collective voices as educators, community members, and parents to change this?
ReplyDeleteBecause teaching is an art, sometimes a reaction, it is hard to assess it. What elicits response for some kids doesn't for others. Good teaching cannot be measured; yet everyone, especially those who know little to nothing about our jobs, tries to assess it. They think because they were once students, they are equipped to judge teaching.
ReplyDeleteIn my other grad level class, we tutor elementary students in reading. This is where formative assessment happens. I watched Jessica, my partner in the tutoring class, listen to Jalen read and within minutes after consulting a chart she can tell his weaknesses based on his miscues (mispronunciations and the like). Since this is my first witness to this process I've not seen the errors. But Dominee, a program that houses this information, seems to be on target. She watches Jalen to find if he comes up with the answers to her comprehension questions on his own or whether he consults the text. There is a lot of observation going on. All done one-on-one. I've been impressed by the program and Jessica. Elementary teachers are the bomb.
And multiple choice tests are not fair. Every time I give a common assessment, one of my honors students tells me their response is just as correct as the "right" one and they can prove it. And they can. But since their thinking is different, it is wrong and they cannot be given credit for it. It goes against everything I hope to acheive as a teacher. It's not always getting the right answer, it is the thinking we should encourage.
One of my parents emailed me and asked how his student was doing. I sent him his average. He asked again. Puzzled, I sent him a response stating the child does his work, with a smile, but won't make A's till he bothers to look at a rubric or grading chart. His father's response? "That's what I was looking for."
Good answer!
Tovani is right, (as always. I LOVE her!)assessment that will serve the student best is not found on multiple choice tests. But how do we assign numbers to it? As is required by our government leaders.
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ReplyDeleteAshley, my thoughts on your question about high-stakes summative assessment always being MC would be this...the format has a fast turn-around time. Tovani even alludes to this on p. 6 when referencing her MC vocabulary tests, "After school, I quickly graded the assessment and thought, No wonder some people love these kinds of tests. They take no time at all to grade." This is the only justification I can find to support testing students with a MC format, which to me is EXACTLY the reason to NOT test that way. But, with the massive number of tests the state grades each year, maybe I get the fact that the format may not ever change.
ReplyDeleteAnd Paula, yes, I think we can attempt to change this on a local level, but it will take a vast buy-in by teachers to commit to grading written answers on common assessments, as opposed to quickly grading MC tests. As far as changing it on a higher level, I don't know.
Terri, I think the question you asked about assigning numbers is a HUGE struggle for teachers right now, especially ones in our school district. I think a lot of us are really seeing the benefits of constant formative assessment, but we are all struggling with reconciling this with the traditional grading system. Right now, numbers rule and (right or wrong) grades are still the indicator of success in the classroom. Therefore, I think one of the places we as teachers need to "put our heads together" is in creating some rubrics and grading practices that can be used to provide an accurate reflection of what the students really know.
For example, one teacher and I had a conversation about how to "grade" a chart used to assess a student's ability to identify mistakes in his/her writing, as well as provide corrections and identify what type of corrections were made (run-on, fragment, punctuation, capitalization, etc.) Traditional grading says take the number of boxes, divide 100 by that number, then assign a point value to each box and go from there. But, through our discussion, we realized that a student who knows how to correct his writing before the final draft may only have two of the 6 boxes filled in because he only had one mistake. But, a student who is prone to more mistakes or does not carefully check before publishing may have all six boxes filled up. Using the traditional way, the second student receives a better grade. But, the first student has shown just as much mastery (if not more because of the editing done before the final draft) as the second student. So, we decided that the chart needed to be graded with more of a holistic rubric so the "grade" would better reflect the ability of the student.
I think the grading conversation is going to be HUGE over the next few years, especially with the push towards performance credentialing. So, I am open for much needed and wanted discussion on the subject.
That being said, the thing from Chapter 1 that stuck with me the most is this...on page 14 Tovani says, "In education, a lot of things are beyond classroom teachers' control...However, they do have control over how they use formative assessment...They [formative assessments] feed teachers and, more importantly, feed students so they can grow. That is a lot of control, and a lot of power." I feel like we all so often get caught up in the things we cannot control, and I know that in my darkest places as a teacher I have been unable to get past the things that are out of my control, and this is so not the place I want to be. So, when I read this paragraph, I immediately thought of the Serenity Prayer, "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference." No matter what our religious beliefs may be, this statement holds a lot of wisdom...instead of being overcome by the things I can't control, I want the courage to take hold of the things I can control and use them to do what's right by my students. And, I want others around me to hold me accountable for being able to tell the difference
ReplyDeleteAs several of you have stated, multiple choice tests, in many instances, are not fair. It isn’t fair that a student’s “entire future could be altered if they don’t do well” (pg. 9) as Tovani’s administrator puts it. Most of us have no say in the questions on EOC tests, SAT tests, etc., but we do have a hand in creating the questions on our own tests. Ashley mentioned that she and Kristy have looked at their primary assessments and were able to flag questions that may have been “bad,” and Terri mentioned that many of her students can make arguments for several correct answers to one question. I think this is because a good multiple choice question evaluating English standards is difficult to create. It takes extensive thought and consideration in creating the question and the answer choices. We are different from other subjects as our standards require interpretation and analysis. Many times I think test writers fly through the process of creating English multiple choice questions and don’t provide the necessary reflection and brain power for good multiple choice questions. I know many of us have witnessed this as we analyze the common assessments I believe in many instances a multiple choice test can be a fair assessment of a student’s knowledge, but the questions MUST be perfectly written (which is time consuming and rarely can an English multiple choice test fully accomplish this).
ReplyDeleteTovani states on page 12 that “Unfortunately, the pressure to raise test scores is driving public school officials and teachers to put more stock into numerical data from the right hand side than the anecdotal data from the left-hand side (referring to the chart on page 11).” I find this to be extremely frustrating. As a fairly new educator (this is my third year), this is something that I have been quite surprised by. In college, they did not inform me that such a large focus of my efforts as an educator would be on common assessments. As we all know, this is what we focus on in every collaborative planning. As I stated earlier, creating English multiple choice questions is time consuming and difficult, so I understand it requires a great deal of effort and time which is why we focus on it so much in collaborative planning; however, many times I wish we could cover other types of assessments. I would love the opportunity to hear other ideas for formative assessments not just in our school (which I would love too ) but throughout the district. To hear what other teachers do for work folders, response journals, exit slips, silent-reading response sheets, inner-voice sheets, etc. would hopefully provide me with many fresh ideas and formative assessments which ultimately provide the scaffolding for student success on the summative assessments. As Tovani states, “Each audience [teachers and district officials]has different needs, and depending on the needs, different assessments are valued (pg. 11)” Hopefully someday soon we will all be on the same page.
The way that Cris divided her assessments (p. 10 and 11) really got me to thinking about how I assess my students. It makes me sad that the focus is not on what students are learning but on what score they make on a multiple choice standardized test that is one day out of their lives. Earlier in the chapter when she had the kids write about themselves as test takers (p. 2-3) I thought that the students were very perceptive and understood their own strengths and weaknesses. It is unfortunate that they get assessed in such a manner when there will be no other time (outside of school)in their own lives when they will be given a multiple choice test that will have so much power over them and those around them. But on the other hand, I also understnad the need for continuous assessment and I do understand why governmental agengies feel the need to regulate schools in such a manner. While it is not important to dwell on standardized test scores, it is important to give the students all of the tools that they will need to do well on them.
ReplyDeleteEmily, Terri, Jamie and Ashley,
ReplyDeleteCommon Core State Standards include sample performance tasks which serve as assesments. I am hoping the national and state "test makers" take notice.
Emily, I think we will be looking at different types of assessments in collaborative planning soon.
The last time I heard Tovani speak she did mention that state departments were leaning more towards performance assessments so I think maybe common core is pushing that-which I love to hear!
ReplyDeleteI have always struggled with assessment myself because I resented the fact that outside test makers were given control over MY students. Therfore, I didn't really prep my students for the tests and only focused on giving them good quality instruction. I know realize that I was doing them an injustice-these tests aren't going away and although I think teachers and parents need to stand up against these standardized tests and get political-I need to teach my students about taking these tests!
I like how Tovani mentions "the power brokers" P. 11. We have to realize that these test scores do matter and have consequences, but it's HOW we teach students to become successful on these tests that matters.
For me in my classroom, I think there is a disontinuity between what I'm teaching and the standardized tests and I need to do a better job of linking the two.
Emily, I agree, I think the collaborative assessments, the mulitple choice ones, can be valuable, but look at how much time it's taken us to create ONE and we haven't spent any time on the instruction leading up to that one assessment. I think that's where the inconsistencies lie.
As I was reading everyone’s comments, I started thinking about the district common assessments we’ve been working on for several collaborative planning sessions. In the English IV session, we repeatedly noted that some of the multiple choice questions would have been good if they weren’t multiple choice questions. But then my thoughts jumped to what Tovani thought in response to the administrator who said, “kids’ lives depend on these scores”-- “not their future--just mine and yours” (9). I’ve always been a little confused about the difference between summative and formative assessments, and the autopsy metaphor (pg. 12) really made it all perfectly clear. It also clarified for me what is most important, and what is most important is what we should spend the most time on. I think, above all, our goal should be to help students make improvements, and it seems logical that we’d spend the majority of our time working on something that will help students. I feel like I am constantly conducting formative assessments. I enjoy talking to my students and being able to let them know how they are doing. I, personally, would like more development in using these assessments to identify specific problems and in helping students fix those problems in order to progress. According to Terri, it looks like elementary teachers get that kind of development, but it must be kind of put aside at the high school level, unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteCandace, I’m so glad you mentioned the lack of attention to instruction during collaborative planning. If we are moving to common assessments, we should also be moving towards a form of common instruction. What I mean by that is not a day-by-day pacing guide or instructions as to how to run our classrooms, but the opportunity to collaborate with each other on effective strategies, focus lessons, workshops, etc. I don’t understand how we can expect common assessments to positively affect the learning environment without first looking at classroom instruction. I’ve always felt that instruction should dictate the test, and focusing solely on common assessment makes it seem like we’re moving towards letting the tests dictate instruction.
ReplyDeleteI, like a few of you have already stated, don’t like multiple choice assessments for many reasons. Terri, I also have students challenge certain questions. They are able to successfully defend their answers against the answers on the answer key by explaining their thinking or interpretation of the questions. By questioning the answers, these students are doing exactly what we, as educators, want them to do—they are learning to think for themselves—so why are they punished for it?
Another reason I have come to dislike MC assessments is that they offer little to no insight into what students do/do not understand about the material. Tovani makes a good point on page 12 when she says, “Sadly, even though the results have been deciphered, they’re often rendered useless to the average classroom teacher.” MC assessments don’t provide the teacher with enough information to determine if a missed question means the student didn’t grasp the concept, didn’t understand the question, or just didn’t feel like reading the question in its entirety before choosing an answer. Assessments that allow students to write their responses, explain their thinking, and support their arguments, provide teachers with a much better idea of concepts or skills that are causing problems for students.
I understand that high stakes tests are multiple choice and students need to be prepared for those tests, but it’s the formative (and open-ended summative) assessments that allow us to monitor and adjust our teaching and the students’ learning before it’s too late (back to Tovani’s autopsy vs. physical metaphor).