The document discusses moving away from traditional grading systems towards standards-based assessment and formative feedback. It provides examples of teachers having conversations with students about learning, mastery of standards, and areas for growth rather than focusing on grades. The document also discusses the benefits of collaborative assessment design between teachers to ensure equal opportunities for students and high-quality questions and assessments. Formative assessment tools and approaches are highlighted that provide fast, ongoing feedback to enhance learning.
4. “The more any
quantitative social
indicator is used for
social decision making,
the more subject it will be
to corruption pressures
and the more apt it will be
to distort and corrupt the
social processes it is
intended to monitor.
Donald T. Campbell
American Social Scientist
7. Devices: Reaching Critical Mass
As we rid ourselves of the grades, risk taking and questioning became a
natural part of the process.Sackstein, Starr. Hacking Assessment: 10
Ways to Go Gradeless in a Traditional Grades School (Hack Learning
Series Book 3) (p. 15). Times 10 Publications. Kindle Edition.
A CHANGING
CULTURAL TIDE
8. Devices: Reaching Critical Mass
As we rid ourselves of the grades, risk taking and questioning became a
natural part of the process.Sackstein, Starr. Hacking Assessment: 10
Ways to Go Gradeless in a Traditional Grades School (Hack Learning
Series Book 3) (p. 15). Times 10 Publications. Kindle Edition.
Assessment as a
Conversation about Learning
Sackstein, Starr. Hacking Assessment: 10 Ways to Go Gradeless in a Traditional Grades School
(Hack Learning Series Book 3) (p. 14). Times 10 Publications. Kindle Edition
.”..a narrative that enhances students’ understanding of what they know,
what they can do, and what needs further work. Perhaps even more
important, they need to understand how to make improvements and how
to recognize when legitimate growth has occurred.”
9. Devices: Reaching Critical Mass
As we rid ourselves of the grades, risk taking and questioning became a
natural part of the process.Sackstein, Starr. Hacking Assessment: 10
Ways to Go Gradeless in a Traditional Grades School (Hack Learning
Series Book 3) (p. 15). Times 10 Publications. Kindle Edition.
Assessment as a
Conversation about Learning
Sackstein, Starr. Hacking Assessment: 10 Ways to Go Gradeless in a Traditional Grades School
(Hack Learning Series Book 3) (p. 14). Times 10 Publications. Kindle Edition
No Grades | Standards-Based Grading | Embedded Feedback
10. Assessment as a
Conversation about
Learning
GOING
GRADELESS
Black, P., Harrison, C., Lee, C., Marshall, B., & Wiliam, D. (2004). Working inside the black box: Assessment for learning in the classroom. (Cover
story). Phi Delta Kappan, 86(1),
“When the emphasis is placed on mastery and not
on grades, students actually perform at much
higher levels.”
11. Assessment as a
Conversation about
Learning
“It is essential that we develop
a learning space where failure
is positive, as it is a catalyst for
growth and change.
Students need to recognize
that taking a risk and not
succeeding does not mean
they are failing: It means they
need to try another way.”
Starr Sackstein
16. Assessment as a
Conversation about
Learning
After this process, some students
continued to ask what they “got”
or what I thought of their
assignments, but I steadfastly
replied...
“It doesn’t really matter what I
thought, so much as it matters
what you learned. What did you
learn from this learning
experience?”
Starr Sackstein
17. Assessment as a
Conversation about
Learning
“By mid-year, students
could articulate their
growth and challenges in
ways I had never
experienced in my 13 years
as an English teacher, and
it wasn’t only my most
articulate students, it was
all of them. “
Starr Sackstein
21. Devices: Reaching Critical Mass
As we rid ourselves of the grades, risk taking and questioning became a
natural part of the process.Sackstein, Starr. Hacking Assessment: 10
Ways to Go Gradeless in a Traditional Grades School (Hack Learning
Series Book 3) (p. 15). Times 10 Publications. Kindle Edition.
Assessment that is Embedded,
Authentic, Ongoing
DuFour, Richard. In Praise of American Educators: And How They Can Become Even Better (p. 159).
Solution Tree Press. Kindle Edition
“Ample research evidence is now at hand to indicate emphatically that
when the formative assessment process is used, students learn better—
lots better.”
22. Devices: Reaching Critical Mass
As we rid ourselves of the grades, risk taking and questioning became a
natural part of the process.Sackstein, Starr. Hacking Assessment: 10
Ways to Go Gradeless in a Traditional Grades School (Hack Learning
Series Book 3) (p. 15). Times 10 Publications. Kindle Edition.
“Assessment should be deliberately designed
to improve and educate student performance,
not merely to audit as most school tests
Grant Wiggins
23. Devices: Reaching Critical Mass
As we rid ourselves of the grades, risk taking and questioning became a
natural part of the process.Sackstein, Starr. Hacking Assessment: 10
Ways to Go Gradeless in a Traditional Grades School (Hack Learning
Series Book 3) (p. 15). Times 10 Publications. Kindle Edition.
What does “right-sizing”
assessmentlook like?
24.
25. “Assessments are shifting to be online, embedded, and performance-
based. Data and associated analysis serve as building blocks for
learning that is personalized, individualized, and differentiated to
ensure all learners succeed.”
32. The
Innovator
Avoiding adding cognitiveloadby having
several different programs to learn
“If the digital platform is too complicated, requires students
to consider too many ideas at once, or is confusing in
structure or content, the likelihood of learning decreases
(Chu, 2014; Peng & Chou, 2007) “
33. When the rigor of each assessment is left to the discretion
of each teacher, the variance from classroom to classroom
makes a mockery of a school’s promise to provide students
with equal access to educational opportunity.
EQUITY
?
DuFour, Richard. In Praise of American Educators: And How They Can Become Even Better
(p. 175). Solution Tree Press. Kindle Edition.
35. The
CO-CREATORS
Assessment experts arevirtuallyunanimous in
recommending that the bestforum for thislearningis
the collaborative team process.
Black,P.,Harrison,C.,Lee,C., Marshall,B.,&Wiliam,D.(2004). Workinginsidetheblackbox:
Assessmentforlearningintheclassroom.PhiDeltaKappan,86(1),
36. “When members of a team work together to consider how they
will approach assessing the skills and knowledge of their students,
when every item or performance task is vetted by the entire team
before it becomes part of the assessment, there is a much greater
likelihood that the end result is a quality assessment compared to
assessments that isolated teachers create.”
HIGH-QUALITY
QUESTIONS
37. The
CO-CREATORS
Sharing high-quality questions maybe the most significant thing we
can do toimprovethe quality of student learning.
Wiliam,Dylan.Embedded FormativeAssessment (p. 104).Solution TreePress.
38. 6 BENEFITS OF TEAM-DEVELOPED
COMMON FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS
1. GuaranteedandViable Curriculum
2. BetterAssessments
3. GreaterEquityforStudents
4. Diminished LikelihoodEducatorsWill Blame PoorPerformanceonthe Qualityof
the Test
5. ResultsVitaltoProviding StudentsWithAccess toanEffectiveSystemof
Interventions
6. DataThatAre TurnedIntoInformation
40. Theyfound that regularassessment (two to five times per week) with follow-up action produced a substantial
increasein student learning.
When teachersset rules about how theywould review the data and the actions that were to follow before they
assessed their students, the gains inachievement were twice as great as those cases in whichthe follow-up action
was left to the judgmentof the individual’s teacher once the data had been collected.
Wiliam, Dylan. Embedded Formative Assessment (p. 35). Solution TreePress. Kindle Edition.
Aggregated findings of 21 research studies:
41. QUICK RUN
“Theteam has the results of the assessment within
twenty-four hoursof administering it...then apply
this data analysis protocol.”
DuFour, Richard. In Praise of American Educators: And How They Can
Become Even Better (p. 167). Solution Tree Press.
45. QUICK RUN
COLLABORATIVE
authoring
“Students expressed much higher levels of interest in the class after the conclusion of the digital formative
assessment unit, as compared to their responses after the traditional formative assessment unit.”
Morreim,Jillian G., "HowDigital FormativeAssessmentIncreasesStudentAchievementandMotivation" (2016).Schoolof Education StudentCapstonesandDissertations.Paper4131.
Ten years ago, we bought software that helped us digitalize OPERATIONS. We stopped using paper gradebooks and went digital. We stopped clearing off a wall in the faculty lounge to do scheduling, and we did it online. But now – these aren’t rocket science anymore. Every system can track student information now. The bigger question is – what will IMPROVE OUTCOMES, which is our ultimate mission.
