Proposal for a procedure of formative assessment in the junior grades
Submitted for EDU6293, Dr. Tasha Ausman at the University of Ottawa
Abstract
This paper identifies research-based principles of effective assessment, articulating a formative assessment procedure for use in planning instruction in the junior grades. The key components of formative assessment include clear learning goals and success criteria, evidence of learning, feedback, responsive action, and opportunities for revision. The objective of this procedure is to support student learning and create environments that engender self-regulated learners. A critical interpretation is at the forefront of this process, positioning the purpose of instruction not in improving test scores, but in the creation of 21st century citizens.
Introduction
In my teacher training program, I was exposed to few ideas about planning for instruction: we studied backwards design, universal design for learning, and planning for differentiation; however we did not discuss assessment very specifically. Assessment was imagined as a sort of given: named and dismissed; a measure of what students had learned; a mechanism of teacher accountability. The terms assessment as learning, assessment of learning, and assessment forlearning were menu items; presented as though it didn’t matter much which we integrated into our lesson plans.
The Ontario Ministry of Education’s guide, “Learning for All”, describes formative assessment as “the process of gathering evidence about a student’s learning from a variety of sources, using a variety of approaches, and interpreting that evidence to enable both the teacher and the learner to determine: where the learner is at in their learning, where the learner needs to go, and how best to get there” (2013, p. 28). In my view, the meat of this guide lies not in its description of assessment but in its instruction for creating a class profile and student profile. The argument made is that by knowing your students’ strengths, needs, and learning styles, educators will be able to offer more personalized and effective instruction. In the 70-page document, formative assessment is superficially addressed in all of four pages, with the most specific and useful information distilled to a 7-point checklist. The information is not incorrect, however formative assessment is so much more. In a way, the guide mirrors my education in assessment up until this point. My experience is not uncommon, as a disconnect in planning, teaching, and assessment activities is known to be prevalent among many educators (Fennel, Swartz, McCord Kobett, & Wray, 2015).
More deeply, formative assessment is an intentional, planned process of gathering data about learning, and acting on the data to improve student understanding of the learning objective. It could almost be considered as a philosophy of teaching and learning, offering pathways for developing learner autonomy and learning how to learn (Egan, 2011). Formative assessment is driven by three foundational questions that both the educator and student must circle back to throughout the learning process: “where am I going?”; “where am I now?”; and “what strategies can help me get where I need to go?” (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). Challenging transmission style-teaching, it is a pedagogy that defines “competency as the ability to understand, correct, reflect, not as the ability to regurgitate didactic facts and figures” (Egan, 2011, p. 10). It is a process of engaging students in divergent assessment practices, where actionable feedback and the opportunity for revision aims to engage the pupil in their own learning. This framework invites a culture of error that normalizes and values learning from errors and misunderstandings. Formative assessment moves us away from a model of learning where what matters is ‘being right’ (Hodgen & Marks, 2009).
Edwards (2011) describes how classrooms, schools, and teachers act as historical carriers of culture, embedding culture in pupils’ thinking and action. He argues that education environments “operate as cultural systems which afford particular ways of… being a learner.” Drawing from Vygotsky, Edwards asserts that we do not simply act on the world, but do so in line with how we make sense of it. As we enter the digital age knowledge economy, we seek to prepare young people with skills and aptitudes in 21st century learning; graduates with the ability to apply ideas to a complex problem, work with other people to frame a solution, test it, learn from it, and develop a product or solution (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016).
Linda Darling Hammond frames this well in her TEDx Talk, “Testing, Testing”, where she describes recent research that demonstrates that there was more knowledge created between 1999-2003, than there has been in the entire history of the world preceding those years. She argues that the education system cannot keep pace with the speed at which knowledge is being created; that there is more information to know than can ever being covered in twelve years of schooling. “It means our young people are going into a world where they will use knowledge that hasn’t been discovered yet, and technologies that havent been invented yet, to solve complex problems that we have not managed to solve” (Darling-Hammond, 2015). This sort of education requires the ability to take risks, to learn how to learn, to test an idea and revise without penalty. Leaving us to question our practice, “what kind of instruction are we reinforcing?” Formative assessment provides scaffolding for these outcomes.
Planning for Formative Assessment using evidence-based techniques
Andrade & Heritage (2018) establish five key components of formative assessment: clear learning goals and success criteria, evidence of learning, feedback, responsive action, and opportunities for revision. These components scaffold my proposed formative assessment procedure featured below. The diagram is modeled more after the Formative Assessment/Instructional Process design by McKenzie, Kremer, & Ramaekers (2018). The strengths of their diagram lie in the illustration of a recursive routine, the critical juncture of interpreting evidence to determine if the learning gap is open or closed, and the responsive action feedback loop. My proposed process model differs only slightly in that it is simplified overall and includes the pivotal role of revision.
Step 1: Establishing learning goals and success criteria
Identify curriculum standards and learning progression
Effective formative assessment begins with clear learning goals that are developed by targeting curriculum standards and identifying a learning progression. Ideally, learning goals should be short, or accomplishable in one or more class periods, and developed from an understanding of the incremental building blocks or changes in students’ thinking. Anticipating the steps and missteps towards the learning goal helps teachers know how to address misconceptions as they arise. Knowledge of learning progression is essential to being able to answer the guiding question, “where are we going?” and identify where the student is in the spectrum of progression (Moss & Brookhart, 2009).
Diagnostic Assessment
Engaging diagnostic assessment is important to do before instruction begins. This assessment gathers information about where students currently are in their understanding of the subject matter, so that the planning can better target their needs. The Ontario Ministry of Education recommends consideration of various school board assessments, reading comprehension assessments such as PM Benchmarks and running records, conversation with previous teachers, and administering pre-tests (2013). Diagnostic assessments can also be less formal, such as a Kahoot, KWL charts, informal reading assessments, writing prompts, or drawing from observation of student work.
Establish learning goals, performance criteria, and product criteria
Establishing learning goals in concert with students supports a mastery-approach orientation and development of the persistence required for self-regulation (Egan, 2011). However, performance criteria must be determined in alignment with learning goals, helping students and teachers to recognize if learning was successful or not, and answering the question, “where are we going?” Product criteria offers indication of the quality of student work and successful performance. Andrade & Heritage (2018) establish that providing the rubrics and success criteria alone is non-effective, “learners need to intellectually engage with them in order to really get it” (p. 55). Moss & Brookhart (2009) outline a number of methods for engaging students with learning targets and success criteria: through questioning; student-led planning and envisioning; using examples of strong and weak work and employing students to sort them into quality levels; as well as using rubrics, or having students self-assess using the rubrics.
Success Criteria
1
2
3
4
Feedback
Demonstrates an understanding of the topic, including use of “expert vocabulary”
Develops the topic with facts that clearly support the topic
Uses topic sentences to clearly organize information
Figure 2. Example of success criteria for informative writing, Grade 5; a single-point rubric with a 4-point scale
Step 2: Instruction
Step 3: Elicit evidence of learning and interpret
Step 3 is a process of planning learning tasks and gathering data to determine what has been learned. Assessment products that demonstrate student thinking can take many forms from assignments where students are asked to write a summary or reflection, to organize information in lists and graphic organizers, to visual representations of information e.g. a “Science Poster”; and other collaborative activities where students are asked to create and demonstrate what they know in communication with their peers. Informal assessment pieces can also be obtained through teacher observations during group work, the think-pair-share activity, purposeful discussion and questioning, or having students list three misunderstandings a student might have. Planning varied assessment pieces is essential to supporting and affirming the diversity of learners in our classrooms. In this phase interpretive listening is required, and “the teacher’s attention is focused on what she or he can learn about the student’s thinking from their response” (Black & William, 2009, p.12). The aim is to determine ““where am I now?”; is the learning gap open or closed?
In this phase, peer and self-assessment have a role to play in determining evidence of learning and moving learning forward. Andrade & Heritage (2018) describe this as a formative process where students reflect on the status of their learning and the degree to which it meets the stated goals and criteria. Students take “control of their learning by finding the gaps between their current thinking and the goals, and then use their own feedback to close the gaps. By engaging in self assessment his way, students are self-regulating their learning” (Andrade & Heritage, 2018, p. 88). On peer and self assessment Black & William (2001) note that these processes are “particularly relevant to the development of students own capacity to learn how to learn and to learner autonomy” (p.8).
Figure 3. Science poster on forces causing movement, Grade 3, Lady Evelyn Alternative School
Step 4: Is the learning gap is open or closed?
Here the road splits: if the learning gap is closed students will receive feedback and move on towards the next learning progression; if the gap is open, students need feedback, and greater scaffolding of learning is required. Often it is the case that the class is divided, and the students who have ‘got it’ need to be directed towards projects that deepen or extend their learning, while the other students require responsive action and more intensive supports towards the learning goals.
Step 5: Feedback
In this phase we consider how we might provide actionable feedback to move student learning forward. Research identifies feedback as the single most powerful factor effecting student achievement (Hattie, 2009); however what feedback describes is critical to its efficacy. Feedback which comments on the process, or on self-regulation is the most effective to enhance learning, as opposed to feedback which comments on task completion or the self (e.g. praise) (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). Feedback should be centered on the intended learning goals, and must attribute successes and failures to corresponding effort and practices (Egan, 2011). Feedback must be offered within a timely manner so that there is time to act on it in a revision process or incorporate the learning into the lesson or shortly thereafter. Chappuis (2012) warns that “it isn't the giving of feedback that causes learning gains, it is the acting on feedback that determines how much students learn”, identifying the necessity of a clear connection to the opportunity for revision. In this learning process, “learners must be rewarded as ardently for identifying their misunderstandings and correcting misconceptions, as they are for demonstrating competencies” (Egan, 2011, p. 3). The question that teachers and learners are asking is, “what strategies can help me get where I need to go?”
Andrade & Heritage note that many assessment tools tell students what is wrong with or weak about their work, but note that the really good assessment tools identify how to take action to bring the work to the next level (2018), as in the examples below. Additionally, pointing out what a student has done correctly or noting their success in foundational skill, such as in Chappuis’ (2012) “Stars & Stairs” form, can enhance feelings of self-efficacy, motivating students toward improvement.
Figure 5. Stars & Stairs assessment tool.Source: Chappuis, 2012, redesigned for this essay by the author.
Step 6: Responsive action
If the learning gap is still open, Andrade & Heritage (2018) identify three choices for courses of action: 1) to continue with the lesson as planned, 2) to make immediate instructional adjustments, or 3) to make plans for subsequent lessons. Educators can engage in “modelling, prompting, questioning, telling, explaining, directing, and feedback” (Andrade & Heritage, 2018, p.103). In this phase educators prompt students to make corrections, rethink their strategies, and make revisions in support of learning goals and success critieria. They make adjustments to instruction, and at times learning goals, with motivation in mind and adjusting to a degree of difficulty that supports learning.
Step 7: Revision
Chappuis (2005), advocates that we “teach students focused revision” allowing them to revise their work before “being held accountable by a final grade”. The recursive process of formative assessment provides the architecture for revision, which can be accomplished by revisiting learning goals and product criteria, providing examples of strong and weak work, focusing on a single aspect of quality, and working in pairs to create a revision plan.
Discussion
The formative assessment instructional process positions the teacher as researcher in a learning system, engaged in continual cycles of gathering data and responsive action. Both teacher and student are crafting a feedback rich environment, continually asking “where am I going?”; “where am I now?”; and “what strategies can help me get where I need to go?”
Underpinning this process is a classroom culture where students have trust in their teachers and feel safe to make mistakes. When we are approach assessment not as measurement, but as feedback that leads to taking action, we create environments where space is made for creativity, risk-taking, critical thinking, and learning from failure and error. Embracing a culture of error is a key quality that leads to more learning and skill development (Andrade & Heritage, 2018).
In classrooms that implement the formative assessment process, students are encouraged to be “the owners of their own learning” (Black & William, 2001, p.8) and also to take responsibility for each other’s learning. Cultivating student agency and “really implementing formative assessment necessitates a transformation of the authority relationships” (Hodgen & Marks, p.41), this means approaching teaching less as a traditional leader and more as a facilitator of the learning environment. At times, this may look like refusing to be “the intellectual authority” (Gipps, p. 82), and nurturing a culture of self-efficacy.
Concluding Thoughts
If today is a typical day on planet Earth, we will lose 116 square miles of rainforest, or about an acre a second. We will lose another 72 square miles to encroaching deserts, as a result of human mismanagement and overpopulation. We will lose 40 to 100 species, and no one knows whether the number is 40 or 100. Today the human population will increase by 250,000. And today we will add 2,700 tons of chlorofluorocarbons to the atmosphere and 15 million tons of carbon. Tonight the Earth will be a little hotter, its waters more acidic, and the fabric of life more threadbare.
The truth is that many things on which your future health and prosperity depend are in dire jeopardy: climate stability, the resilience and productivity of natural systems, the beauty of the natural world, and biological diversity.
It is worth noting that this is not the work of ignorant people. It is, rather, largely the result of work by people with BAs, BSs, LLBs, MBAs, and PhDs.
- David Orr (1991), “What is Education for?”
What is education for, if not to learn how to learn? To develop students who no longer require a teacher’s assistance but who can take control of their own learning, set targets, find the gap between where they are and where they want to be; who can reflect on the quality of their products, and take corrective action. Formative assessment offers students an orientation to the world, an invitation towards goals of autonomy and self-determination.
Despite many media pieces offering, “7 Quick Formative Assessment Strategies to use right now”, formative assessment is not a quick grab. It is a deliberate, planned process to embed in teaching routines, comprised of clear learning goals and success criteria, evidence of learning, feedback, responsive action, and opportunities for revision. Feedback in particular plays a critical role in influencing learning, inviting students to develop a productive relationship to our errors and misunderstandings. The way we approach learning matters; formative assessment moves us away from a model of learning where what is valued is ‘being right’ that we may focus on loftier goals of transformative learning.
References
Andrade, H.L., Heritage, M. (2018). Using formative assessment to enhance learning, achievement, and academic self-regulation. New York: Routledge.
Black, P., William, D. (2009). Developing the theory of formative assessment. Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Accountability, 21, 5-31.
Brookhart, S., Moss, C., Long, B. (2008). Formative assessment that empowers. Educational Leadership, 66(3), 52-57.
Chappuis, J., (2012). How am I doing? Educational Leadership, 70 (1), 36-41. Retrieved fromhttp://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/sept12/vol70/num01/£How-Am-I-Doing¢£.aspx
Darling-Hammond, L. (2015, June 29). Testing, testing. TEDx Talks. [YouTube]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G_vWcS1NTA
Egan, R. (2011). Adjusting curricular design to “CREATE” a culture of self-regulation. The Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 2(2), http://dx.doi.org/10.5206/cjsotl-rcacea.2011.2.
Fennel, F., Swartz, B. A., McCord Kobett, B., & Wray, J.A., 2015. Classroom-based formative assessments – guiding teaching and learning. Teaching Children Mathematics, 21(6), 325-327.
Gipps, C. (2002). Sociocultural Perspectives on Assessment. In G. Wells and G. Claxton. Learning for life in the 21st century: Sociocultural perspectives on the future of education. New Jersey: Blackwell Publishers
Hattie, J. (2009). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. Oxford, UK: Routledge.
Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77 (1), p. 81-112. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.3102/003465430298487
Heritage, M., Kim, J., Vendlinksi, T., Herman, J. (2009). From evidence to action: A seamless process in formative assessment? Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 28(3) 24-31.
McKenzie, J.W., Kremer, J.D., & Ramaekers, L., (2018). Formative assessment/instructional process. Central Rivers Education Agency. Retrieved from https://www.centralriversaea.org/curriculum/assessment/formative-assessment-instructional-process/
Ontario Ministry of Education (2013). Learning for all: A guide to effective assessment and instruction for all students Kindergarten to grade 12. Retrieved from http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/general/elemsec/speced/LearningforAll2013.pdf
Ontario Ministry of Education (2016). Towards defining 21st century competencies for Ontario. Retrieved fromhttp://www.edugains.ca/resources21CL/About21stCentury/21CL_21stCenturyCompetenc
Orr, David, (1991). What is education for? Six myths about the foundations of modern education, and six new principles to replace them. In Context, (Winter), p. 52. Retrieved from https://www.eeob.iastate.edu/classes/EEOB-590A/marshcourse/V.5/V.5a%20What%20Is%20Education%20For.htm