Alignment and Frequency of Assessment of Competency Understanding

Competencies at their basis come down to a goal, an assessment and a plan to get to the goal. A lot of work has been done in recent years on the first step--establishing the goal. Different groups will be ready at different times but the logical next step is to examine assessments. If your group is ready to examine assessments these are 2 simple activities that could help.

Inspired by the work of Larry Ainsworth.

If you look at the link above and scroll to page 70 and 71 you will see two activities that check common assessments for alignment to Power Standards (our word is competencies and I will use it from here forward) and for frequency of assessment of competencies.

Activity 1 Alignment
This is a check for whether or not current assessments align to the competencies. Teachers could bring some assessments and go through this activity. I would suggest that the groups would be small and used to working with one another. This is not a "gotcha" activity. The idea is to see where we are now and what we might want to do to improve.

1. How many of our assessment items align to the competencies? Which ones?
2. How many of our assessment items do not align to the competencies? Which ones?
3. Do our assessment items directly match the "unwrapped" concepts and skills of the competencies?
4. Do our assessment items math the level of rigor required by particular "unwrapped" competency skills, such as evaluate or analyze?
5. Do our assessment items use the same terms that appear in the standards as opposed to more student-friendly wording (i.e., identify rather than label)?
6. Do our assessment items align with or resemble the formatting of our district and state assessments so the such formats will be familiar to students?
7. What does this tell us? Are our assessment items matched to our intended instructional purposes (the targeted competencies)?
8. What do we need to do next in this regard? Which items do we keep? Which items do we need to replace or modify so that they do align with our competencies?

Activity 2 Frequency
Again teachers could look at the assessments that they currently give and go through these questions.

1. How many of our assessment items match each competency?
2. Are certain competencies underrepresented? Which ones?
3. Are certain competencies overrepresented? Which ones?
4. Are we trying to address too many competencies in this one assessment?
5. What does this tell us? Do we need to redistribute our assessment items so that the appropriate number of competencies are more equally represented?
6. What do we need to do next in this regard? Which items do we keep as they are? Which items do we need to replace or modify so that there is a better balance between the actual number of items and each of the targeted competencies?
   

Now What?

OK--so I went to this great conference--see previous post from Nov. 1--now what do I do?

The conference on assessment either confirmed some ideas that I was trying to work on in my teaching or reminded me that there are things that I need to do better on.

Confirmed

• Zeroes--Doug Reeves calls assigning zeroes toxic. I now have more confidence than ever to continue not assigning zeroes.
• Averaging only--I will continue to look at progress and the most recent evidence to compute student scores. This is made more difficult by an electronic grade book that only averages but I will go back to paper if I have to.
• Formative assessment--the most important thing to focus on.

Reminded

• Assess means to "sit beside." I need to work on giving even more timely feedback to my students. I will work on making contact with each student at least once during a 90 minute period. During this contact I will try to really ascertain whether they are getting it or not.
• Randomization. Student participation needs to be random. This lets kids know that they can be called on at any time so they stay more involved. I will finally buy the Popsicle sticks that I have been meaning to get, and put each students name on one of them. This is how I will draw their names randomly.
• Hands down except to ask a question. No one can raise their hands. I will pull the Popsicle stick and call on them.
• Pass on a question. I have always allowed students a pass. But I will change this policy so that my response will be, "OK, but I'll come back to you at the end." This means that they need to stay engaged and listening to the others because I will come back to them and say, "What did you think was the best answer of those three and why?"
• Non-fiction writing. I knew that writing was important but I did not know of its profound effect on all subject areas. Thank you Doug Reeves for this one! Even in physics and math (and science) an increase in non-fiction writing about the subject increases student scores. I do a lot of non-fiction writing but I will improve upon what I do and make it more systematic. The first thing I am going to do is to have students write about the most important thing that they learned in our class during the first semester. They will post these on the wall outside of our room. We will do this on Monday. A second thing that I would like to work on is a blog of student work. This may begin as a paper newsletter but I hope I will be able to morph it into a publication at some point.
• Graphing of student performance. I do a little of this now but I need to improve what I do and make it, again, more systematic. I will create a one page sheet for each competency and begin having students graph their performance.

School Wide

• At the Beyond ABC conference in 2006 we were told that one thing that we should change immediately is progress reports. If they include a number they are not progress reports. Reports with a number are fine by the way--they just aren't progress reports. I will work harder than ever to finally make real progress reports a reality again at Concord High School. I have great respect for the progress report committee of last year (I have to my wife was on it) but their findings are in opposition to the research. I feel that we do not need to discuss this one. A leader should simply explain the following: 1. We give students an achievement report every day through our online system Parent Connect, 2. This means that we do not need to print off a special "paper" achievement report at a given time, 3. What we do need is an official day where teachers are encouraged to sit beside students and discuss progress. NOT the grade, but progress. How is the student doing in relation to meeting the competencies? How is the student doing in relation to the Habits of Mind?, 4. We value this progress conversation so much that we are setting aside 4 days per year and we want you to use these days to sit and converse with students about how they are doing.
• 101 point grading system. I will work to continue to educate teachers, students and parents about the fallacy of the reliability of the 101 point system. If the AP board thinks that 5 levels are OK then we don't need to continue to do 101.
• 1-5 scale. I will work to continue to educate people on the logic and the reduced subjectivity of the 1-5 scale.

I should have this all accomplished by the end of the week. Maybe 2 weeks.

Anne Davies

27 April 2007

Thursday and Friday I attended a conference on assessment with Anne Davies of the Assessment Research Group or ARG. I refrained from pirate jokes for two days but it was difficult. Thoughts aren't organized yet and I haven't gone through my notes but here are some scattered reflections.

One important thing that I learned was to involve students more in setting criteria. Davies reminded us that it is the person that makes the criteria or rubrics that really understands them. This has certainly been true for me as I agonize over criteria for various assignments.

Another interesting thing that I want to work on is the idea of continuum ranges of examples. This would be a booklet or a set of pieces of work on the wall that would show a progress continuum. In a writing example it would go from a low level, maybe two levels below grade level, to a high level. Students would move along the continuum and it would be clear that there would be no end.

Davies also showed us many great examples of students self assessing. A way to assess student work more, to give more feedback, while not increasing teacher time in doing it. With good criteria it is possible for grade one students to do this kind of work. She had many videos to show it.

Need to think more on what to do with it all. She and her colleagues recommended an approach that might be helpful for our graduation standards and competency work. Every time we add something we should be clear as a school what we are then going to not do or to do differently.

How to fit this all in, how to use it without overwhelming is the key.