Standard 11: Utilize Assessment in a Standards-Based Environment

Standard 11 - Teacher leaders utilize formative and summative assessment in a standards-based environment.

Prior to this program, I have had limited practice using standards-based assessment, especially as it pertains to formative assessment. I had taken courses on various instructional strategies, so I have learned about various formative assessments, but not really how to incorporate it into the structured an overall unit. Through this program, and specifically the standards-based assessment class, I have seen the value of formative assessment and learned how to incorporate this in our unit plans. The course began looking through Embedded Formative Assessment (Wiliam, 2011) and creating our learning progression. 

This process of looking through the trajectory of a unit and determining what the steps in the progression of learning looks like was a new task, particularly laying it out in some sort of format other than just looking through the book or curriculum provided. For me, this represented a start to really looking deeply at the focus standards of a unit and laying out what each step in reaching that standard looks like. My learning progression (Learning Progression) began as a rather well-defined process to get from one step to another, however, I was not sure how to determine whether my students had learned the material. I was afraid that my assessment of student understanding would not tell me what students had learned, similar to the story of Jy (Wiliam, 2011, p. 47). Through feedback provided by my peers, I was able to create formative assessments that I believe will be beneficial in correctly determining where my students are at in the progression. We then looked at ways to incorporate peer and self-assessment into the learning. This was once again aided by feedback received by peers and the professor and the opportunities that I have provided, I believe, are quality and will help me and my students a great deal to gauge learning. 

The other major area we looked at was through our assessment into action paper. For this, I decided to research how to provide quality feedback to my students. This was a focus because I feel like I have either provided feedback that is too specific and does not really require thought to figure out, or too vague and is not useful in helping my students get to the next level of their learning. In order to figure out how to provide useful formative assessment, I found some good resources that allowed me a bit of insight into what it means to provide quality feedback. One of the articles I found provided some great information with a quote, “Feedback functions formatively only if the information fed back to the learner is used by the learner in improving performance” (Wiliam, 2012, p.120, emphasis in original). This quote really struck me because I had not come to the realization that it does not matter what sort of feedback I provide if it is not useful to help students improve their understanding. In my paper, (Assessment Into Action), I looked through several different resources, mainly articles by a couple authors, Dylan Wiliam and Susan Brookhart. Both authors have similar approaches to providing feedback which boil down to about three elements; feedback occurs while students are learning, feedback is appropriate for the understanding of a student (not too high or too low), and feedback must be used by students. One more element that I really had not thought about was provided by Brookhart (2012), where she asserts that feedback, “can’t work if students don’t have an immediate opportunity to use it” (p. 26). This was another element of new learning for me as I did not really think about immediate practice being necessary to build learning (although this seems a bit naïve now). The elements necessary for feedback to be high quality and effective are really informative and important to my practice moving forward. 

This course really helped out with my approach to assessment, particularly formative assessment. We were constantly working with program standard 11, utilize formative and summative assessment in a standards based environment. This work is really important for me in becoming the teacher I want to be and will have a high level of impact on my practice moving forward. I will be able to utilize this information in any class and at any level. Overall, this class has provided me with a great deal of information to help improve my teaching, my analysis of where students are in their understanding, and ways that I can provide feedback to students to help them improve their understanding. Ultimately, my students will reap the benefit of this shift in approach as they will be able to build on their understanding far more independently than they could previously.  

Additionally, my progression through the teacher leadership program has allowed me to become further adept at assessing where my students are in their understanding in a variety of ways. The importance of formative assessment has been emphasized time and again throughout this program and as Bolkan, Goodboy, and Kelsey (2016) state, "Despite instructors doing their best to provide students with effective instruction, some may be surprised to learn that their teaching does not result in the outcomes they had imagined" (p. 130). As I have developed as a teacher through this program I have learned that assessment must have several characteristics, namely that it must be related to an educational goal, easily understandable, useable, timely, constantly occurring and consistently occurring (Wiggins, 2016). Whether formative or summative assessment, students must be able to utilize the feedback provided in order to build on their understanding to meet or exceed the standards required.

Bolkan, S., Goodboy, A. K., & Kelsey, D. M. (2016). Instructor clarity and student motivation: Academic performance as a product of students’ ability and motivation to process instructional material. Communication Education, 65 (2), 129-148. doi:10.1080/03634523.2015.1079329

Brookhart, S. (2012). Preventing feedback fizzle. Educational Leadership, 70 (1), 24-29.

Wiggins, G. (2012). Seven keys to effective feedback. Educational Leadership, 70 (1), 10-16.

Wiliam, D. (2011). Embedded formative assessment. Solution Tree Press, Bloomington, In.

Wiliam, D. (2012). Feedback: Part of a system. Educational Leadership, 70 (1), 31-34.