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19 Dec 2005 - 14:46
the OECD weighs in
summary of Black & Wiliam (full passage quoted below)
source:
The Concept of Formative Assessment by Carol Boston
key worsd: gapology
James Milgram on long division & time
can you cram math: learning a year of math in 2 months
overlearning
remediating Los Angeles algebra students
Inflexible Knowledge: The First Step to Expertise by Daniel Willingham
Matt Goff & Susan S on remediating gaps
Anne Dwyer on diagnosing gaps & request for 'gap' stories
failing algebra in Los Angeles
formative assessment
formative assessment in a nutshell
Back to main page.
Please consider registering as a regular user.
Look here for syntax help.
Catherine, thank you for this summary page! -- CarolynJohnston - 20 Dec 2005
HI! This is going to be a useful post to print out when I'm proselytizing folks in the school district. At this point, I think formative assessment is the heart and soul of effective teaching. The reason Engelmann knows that DI works is that he uses formative assessment. At the micro level, he revises individual lessons and examples using the feedback he gets from formative assessment. Presumably there are other pedagogies that work as well as DI, at least for some teachers & some students; we would be able to know this when we use formative assessment to see what students are actually taking in. -- CatherineJohnson - 20 Dec 2005
Speaking of formative assessment, I just remembered what my son's Kindergarten teacher told us when we asked whether she would be talking to the first grade teacher about her assessment of our son. She said that most teachers like to form their own opinion, so we should wait a month (!?!) before going in and talking with her. (about providing more; i.e. differentiated learning) -- SteveH - 20 Dec 2005
boy, I now think that's wrong on the face of it although she's got a point about not prejudicing opinion I'm a dog with a stick on the subject of formative assessment at this point find out what they know find out if they understood and learned the material you just taught then do it again tomorrow -- CatherineJohnson - 20 Dec 2005
The other thing I like about formative assessment is that it allows me not to be a 'micromanager'......I'm not in there telling teachers how to do their jobs. I'm in their telling them I need to see if they've succeeded in doing their jobs. When push comes to shove, I don't care how they teach if what they're doing is working. Ms. Duque, our BRILLIANT 5th grade teacher (now at UES in LA) used to give speeches on this. She'd say, "It doesn't matter if the teacher stands on her head." "All that matters is: are the children learning?" Of course, I'd add a criteria that they're learning briskly & efficiently. Same thing: perform formative assessment on a frequent and regular basis to find out whether standing on your head is teaching math. -- CatherineJohnson - 20 Dec 2005
A tangent: I really dislike the term, "formative assessment". It strikes me as bureaucratic obfuscation of meaning. How strongly rooted is this term? Can we kill it and replace it with something that a parent will understand without explanation? -- DougSundseth - 20 Dec 2005
I'm not crazy about the term either. The problem is that 9 out of 10 people won't understand the term's meaning in the absence of a deinition. -- KDeRosa - 20 Dec 2005
How strongly rooted is this term? Can we kill it and replace it with something that a parent will understand without explanation? It's a lousy term, but for my purposes it works. The obfuscation makes it sound important, and, at the same time, far less threatening than a clear term like "Direct Instruction." Or, even worse, "scripting." -- CatherineJohnson - 20 Dec 2005
btw, I don't say this to be cynical or sarcastic. I had an object lesson in the importance of not-so-clear language back at NAAR, when I edited an article Eric London wrote about vaccine. He's used 'doctor language,' and the piece didn't read well. I cleaned up all the language, making it direct, readable, and smooth—and we got killed. People were furiously angry at us; we were villified all over the country. When I re-read the article, I could see why. I was dealing with a subject that is profoundly important to parents who believe their children's autism was caused by vaccine (they could be right; I have no idea what's going on with vaccine & autism). To brush aside their position using confident, quick-moving prose was completely wrong. The situation with 'formative assessment' bears some analogies. For one thing, when you want to change or reform a school district and its teaching, you are automatically accusing everyone of doing a bad job. When you use a term like 'formative assessment' you automatically soften that judgment. Parents & teachers & probably administrators hearing 'formative assessment' aren't going to be stricken with anger (parents) or guilt (teachers & administrators) that they aren't already doing it. The 'jargon-layer' protects everyone's feelings. -- CatherineJohnson - 20 Dec 2005
I take your point about bureaucratic necessities, but I think that even changing the term to, say, "diagnostic assessment" would be beneficial. "We're trying to find out what isn't working so we can fix it" shouldn't be any more threatening than, "We want you to do yet another ill-defined task." And the latter term would at least point people in the right direction in a way that "formative assessment" doesn't. (IMO, of course.) -- DougSundseth - 20 Dec 2005
I take your point about bureaucratic necessities, but I think that even changing the term to, say, "diagnostic assessment" would be beneficial. That's not half bad. We want you to do yet another ill-defined task. ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!! -- CatherineJohnson - 20 Dec 2005
The one problem with 'diagnostic assessment' is that diagnostics never happen on a daily basis. Diagnostic assessment is probably going to have the connotation of something you do once in a long while (and hence something being done already) PLUS I fear it puts the responsibility back on the child..... What do you think? -- CatherineJohnson - 20 Dec 2005
I agree that 'formative assessment' is completely and totally devoid of meaning. Of course, that defangs the word 'assessment' to some degree. 'Assessment' is, unfortunately, all too rich with meaning. -- CatherineJohnson - 20 Dec 2005
And what do you make of 'summative assessment'? That's the term for GRADING. Summative. Oh! I know where these things come from. "Formative' is probably intended to indicate the process by which knowledge is 'formed.' 'Summative' probably means the sum total of what you've learned this chapter, semester, or year. -- CatherineJohnson - 20 Dec 2005
btw, I've already road-tested 'formative assessment' a bit.....it gets people's attention. -- CatherineJohnson - 20 Dec 2005
how about continual [something] assessment -- KDeRosa - 20 Dec 2005
Continual progress assessment? It's not the fact of progress but the rate of progress that's being assessed. (Implied by the "Continual progress" part of the phrase.) -- DougSundseth - 20 Dec 2005
I like: continual [something] assessment With the brackets. And the [something]. -- CatherineJohnson - 20 Dec 2005
Actually, 'continual' is a good word. As far as I can tell there's nothing immediately offputting about it, and it does give people a feeling for what's being promoted.... Continual progress assessment That might do it. Progress is an actively good word; that's why it was chosen for 'NAEP,' because they thought they were going to be measuring progress. Turned out they were measuring a steady decline for the next....10 years, was it? -- CatherineJohnson - 20 Dec 2005
I suspect that "continual [thingy] assessment" isn't culturally appropriate for NY. Too bad. -- DougSundseth - 20 Dec 2005
yes, the [something] subtlely gets across the point that our schools have little idea what is going on in their classrooms. -- KDeRosa - 20 Dec 2005
[feedback] ? -- SusanJ - 20 Dec 2005
snort -- CatherineJohnson - 20 Dec 2005
continual [something] assessment does make the point, doesn't it? -- CatherineJohnson - 20 Dec 2005
I got this from the Direct Instruction Reading book which came in last night: There are three types of assessments: 1. screening and placement assessments
for initial placement 2. diagnostic assessments
for remediation 3. progress-monitoring assessments
Frequent
a. program specific
b. generic So continual progress-monitoring assessment is probably the most accurate and descriptive designator we have so far. -- KDeRosa - 21 Dec 2005
yeah, that's good I've got to get this list up front (or does it belong inside this summary?) -- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005
My only problem with 'continual progress-monitoring assessment' is that it's a mouthful. For the time being, what I'm going to do is introduce the topic witih the expression 'formative assessment,' which is intimidating in a good way (if you know what I mean, and you probably do). Then I'll follow up with the equally pretentious but more comprehensible term 'continual progress-monitoring assessment.' Having two phrases like this is going to be more effective than having just one. This is why Ed blows people out of the water, btw. He slings the lingo. He doesn't b*s; he doesn't use a huge amount of jargon. He can speak naturally in formal prose. I should practice that skill myself, except I'm not exactly sure how to practice it. I speak colloquially and (I hope) clearly, which is a disadvantage in settings like the upcoming PTSA forum. I suspect it's also a disadvantage in terms of my sex. In these settings I am a MOM, and I need to shift people's cognitive sets out of Another Ticked-off Mom Complaining About Whatever. -- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005
Educators do love their edujargon/edubabble. I see your point about the jargon, so in that case you might want to use continual, progress-monitoring, program-specific/generic to define what you mean by "formative assessment." -- KDeRosa - 21 Dec 2005
It's not just the educators (in fact, it's not them at all). It's the other parents. You see what's on the PTSA list; that's what our parents want. I'm not exactly leading a band of Direct Instruction fanatics here. Parents in Irvington often get what they want. My problem is, nobody wants what I want. -- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005
Educators already have the concept of assessment-as-information-not-punishment in their heads. They haven't honed in on it; they haven't decided they need to establish a formal, systematic program of formative assessment. For our administrators to decide that they should do this isn't necessarily a paradigm shift. I'd say that it would be a paradigm shift for the parents. -- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005
Educators already have the concept of assessment-as-information-not-punishment in their heads. They haven't honed in on it; they haven't decided they need to establish a formal, systematic program of formative assessment. For our administrators to decide that they should do this isn't necessarily a paradigm shift. I'd say that it would be a paradigm shift for the parents. -- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005
The other day I was talking to a mom about all this, and I said something about how kids in middle school need to be taught to mastery & not 'graded on a curve.' Instantly she said, 'But that's the way it is in college. That's the way it is in the real world.' Well, number one, that's not the way it is in college. Not any more. And number two.....I don't think grading-on-curve probably captures adult life, either. BUT NUMBER THREE—so what if it's true? THIS IS MIDDLE SCHOOL WE'RE TALKING ABOUT. I told her that if the elementary school had graded on a curve, only 5-10% of the kids would have learned to read. That didn't make a strong impression (or not strong enough). I think it would with enough spaced repetition. But I'm going to have to be repeating myself a lot. -- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005
I can do that. -- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005
In college you've already eliminated the bottom three standard deviations of the curve, not so in middle school. Plus, in college the kids have been sorted by SATs, so the groups are much more homogeneous. And, no one can show that there are any advantages to grading on the curve in any event. -- KDeRosa - 21 Dec 2005
Ed had a conversation with an architect here who taught at RISD for awhile. He said IMS reminds him of an open-enrollment city college. Everyone enrolls, and you're just waiting to see who The Fallen are. He said, 'It's look to your left, look to your right. Are the people you came in with still standing? Or are they gone?' -- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005
He taught at RISD for awhile. His view was that gatekeeping doesn't become a good idea until you get to that level—I think he was talking about graduate level work. (This guy went to Harvard, undergrad, I think...) At that point, he said, you really are doing the student a favor washing him out. He said you can see that some students 'have it' and some don't. (I assume that the job market in design is pretty tight.) His strong feeling was that up to that point an educator's job is to take students as far as they possibly can go. Leave the gatekeeping to the real world..... -- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005
I'm reading a fantastic book from the Sputnik era (which I'll post up front at some point). He says that the THREE essential skills a student needs to gain from school are:
I think that curve-grading may be a useful way for a new teacher to calibrate difficulty. Once you know what the students should be able to do, though, it should no longer be necessary. What matters to the teacher of the next class in the series, or the employer after you leave school, or the customer that buys your product is whether you learned enough, not how your learning compares to that of the other students in the class. -- DougSundseth - 21 Dec 2005
He says that the THREE essential skills a student needs to gain from school are: * the ability to read analytically * the ability to express himself clearly in writing * the ability to solve mathematical problems All students need these abilities, period. This is so true. I know many engineers who no longer wanted to do engineering work and found they were highly desirable in other fields because of their strong analytic/problem solving abilities -- KDeRosa - 21 Dec 2005
I know many engineers who no longer wanted to do engineering work and found they were highly desirable in other fields because of their strong analytic/problem solving abilities interesting when you narrow it down this way, you really see it our schools are so loaded with bells and whistles it's hard to remember the goal -- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005
I think that curve-grading may be a useful way for a new teacher to calibrate difficulty. Once you know what the students should be able to do, though, it should no longer be necessary. Right, that would be useful information... What matters to the teacher of the next class in the series, or the employer after you leave school, or the customer that buys your product is whether you learned enough, not how your learning compares to that of the other students in the class. YES -- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005
I went to the wedding of a mate from engineering school two years after we all graduated. There were ten of us there from engineering school, and we worked out that only one of us was actually working as an engineer (and it wasn't the groom either). Incidentally the proper engineer was one of the girls. -- TracyW - 21 Dec 2005
formative assessment
the OECD weighs in
The educational gains associated with formative assessment have been described as “among the largest ever reported for educational interventions.”
source:
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
summary of Black & Wiliam (full passage quoted below)
- formative assessment: all activities schools, teachers, and students undertake to collect information that can be used diagnostically to alter curriculum, teaching, and learning
- information gleaned from formative assessment allows teachers to make necessary instructional adjustments: reteaching, trying alternative instructional approaches, or offering students more opportunities for practice. Formative assessment allows schools to make necessary curricular adjustments.
- Black and Wiliam literature review of 250 journal articles and book chapters: formative assessment produces significant learning gains, with effect sizes ranging between .4 and .7
- students need specific comments about errors and specific suggestions for improvement; formative assessment is designed to provide this information
- formative assessment allows teachers and students to identify gaps in students' skills and understanding and guides them through the process of remediating those gaps
- formative assessment instills confidence in teachers, parents, and students that all students can 'learn to high levels'
- formative assessment in the form of self-assessment and self-monitoring improves student learning when students understand the assessment criteria
- specific feedback from formative assessment "emphasizes that students can improve as a result of effort rather than be doomed to low achievement due to some presumed lack of innate ability"
- Black and Wiliam: low-achieving students, including students diagnosed with LD, improve most
source:
The Concept of Formative Assessment by Carol Boston
Purpose and Benefits of Formative Assessment Black and Wiliam (1998b) define assessment broadly to include all activities that teachers and students undertake to get information that can be used diagnostically to alter teaching and learning. Under this definition, assessment encompasses teacher observation, classroom discussion, and analysis of student work, including homework and tests. Assessments become formative when the information is used to adapt teaching and learning to meet student needs. When teachers know how students are progressing and where they are having trouble, they can use this information to make necessary instructional adjustments, such as reteaching, trying alternative instructional approaches, or offering more opportunities for practice. These activities can lead to improved student success. Black and Wiliam (1998a) conducted an extensive research review of 250 journal articles and book chapters winnowed from a much larger pool to determine whether formative assessment raises academic standards in the classroom. They concluded that efforts to strengthen formative assessment produce significant learning gains as measured by comparing the average improvements in the test scores of the students involved in the innovation with the range of scores found for typical groups of students on the same tests. Effect sizes ranged between .4 and .7, with formative assessment apparently helping low-achieving students, including students with learning disabilities, even more than it helped other students (Black and Wiliam, 1998b). Feedback given as part of formative assessment helps learners become aware of any gaps that exist between their desired goal and their current knowledge, understanding, or skill and guides them through actions necessary to obtain the goal (Ramaprasad, 1983; Sadler, 1989). The most helpful type of feedback on tests and homework provides specific comments about errors and specific suggestions for improvement and encourages students to focus their attention thoughtfully on the task rather than on simply getting the right answer (Bangert-Drowns, Kulick, & Morgan, 1991; Elawar & Corno, 1985). This type of feedback may be particularly helpful to lower achieving students because it emphasizes that students can improve as a result of effort rather than be doomed to low achievement due to some presumed lack of innate ability. Formative assessment helps support the expectation that all children can learn to high levels and counteracts the cycle in which students attribute poor performance to lack of ability and therefore become discouraged and unwilling to invest in further learning (Ames, 1992; Vispoel & Austin, 1995). While feedback generally originates from a teacher, learners can also play an important role in formative assessment through self-evaluation. Two experimental research studies have shown that students who understand the learning objectives and assessment criteria and have opportunities to reflect on their work show greater improvement than those who do not (Fontana & Fernandes, 1994; Frederikson & White, 1997). Students with learning disabilities who are taught to use self-monitoring strategies related to their understanding of reading and writing tasks also show performance gains (McCurdy & Shapiro, 1992; Sawyer, Graham, & Harris, 1992).
key worsd: gapology
James Milgram on long division & time
can you cram math: learning a year of math in 2 months
overlearning
remediating Los Angeles algebra students
Inflexible Knowledge: The First Step to Expertise by Daniel Willingham
Matt Goff & Susan S on remediating gaps
Anne Dwyer on diagnosing gaps & request for 'gap' stories
failing algebra in Los Angeles
formative assessment
formative assessment in a nutshell
Back to main page.
Comments
After entering a comment, users can login anonymously as KtmGuest (password: guest) when prompted.Please consider registering as a regular user.
Look here for syntax help.
Catherine, thank you for this summary page! -- CarolynJohnston - 20 Dec 2005
HI! This is going to be a useful post to print out when I'm proselytizing folks in the school district. At this point, I think formative assessment is the heart and soul of effective teaching. The reason Engelmann knows that DI works is that he uses formative assessment. At the micro level, he revises individual lessons and examples using the feedback he gets from formative assessment. Presumably there are other pedagogies that work as well as DI, at least for some teachers & some students; we would be able to know this when we use formative assessment to see what students are actually taking in. -- CatherineJohnson - 20 Dec 2005
Speaking of formative assessment, I just remembered what my son's Kindergarten teacher told us when we asked whether she would be talking to the first grade teacher about her assessment of our son. She said that most teachers like to form their own opinion, so we should wait a month (!?!) before going in and talking with her. (about providing more; i.e. differentiated learning) -- SteveH - 20 Dec 2005
boy, I now think that's wrong on the face of it although she's got a point about not prejudicing opinion I'm a dog with a stick on the subject of formative assessment at this point find out what they know find out if they understood and learned the material you just taught then do it again tomorrow -- CatherineJohnson - 20 Dec 2005
The other thing I like about formative assessment is that it allows me not to be a 'micromanager'......I'm not in there telling teachers how to do their jobs. I'm in their telling them I need to see if they've succeeded in doing their jobs. When push comes to shove, I don't care how they teach if what they're doing is working. Ms. Duque, our BRILLIANT 5th grade teacher (now at UES in LA) used to give speeches on this. She'd say, "It doesn't matter if the teacher stands on her head." "All that matters is: are the children learning?" Of course, I'd add a criteria that they're learning briskly & efficiently. Same thing: perform formative assessment on a frequent and regular basis to find out whether standing on your head is teaching math. -- CatherineJohnson - 20 Dec 2005
A tangent: I really dislike the term, "formative assessment". It strikes me as bureaucratic obfuscation of meaning. How strongly rooted is this term? Can we kill it and replace it with something that a parent will understand without explanation? -- DougSundseth - 20 Dec 2005
I'm not crazy about the term either. The problem is that 9 out of 10 people won't understand the term's meaning in the absence of a deinition. -- KDeRosa - 20 Dec 2005
How strongly rooted is this term? Can we kill it and replace it with something that a parent will understand without explanation? It's a lousy term, but for my purposes it works. The obfuscation makes it sound important, and, at the same time, far less threatening than a clear term like "Direct Instruction." Or, even worse, "scripting." -- CatherineJohnson - 20 Dec 2005
btw, I don't say this to be cynical or sarcastic. I had an object lesson in the importance of not-so-clear language back at NAAR, when I edited an article Eric London wrote about vaccine. He's used 'doctor language,' and the piece didn't read well. I cleaned up all the language, making it direct, readable, and smooth—and we got killed. People were furiously angry at us; we were villified all over the country. When I re-read the article, I could see why. I was dealing with a subject that is profoundly important to parents who believe their children's autism was caused by vaccine (they could be right; I have no idea what's going on with vaccine & autism). To brush aside their position using confident, quick-moving prose was completely wrong. The situation with 'formative assessment' bears some analogies. For one thing, when you want to change or reform a school district and its teaching, you are automatically accusing everyone of doing a bad job. When you use a term like 'formative assessment' you automatically soften that judgment. Parents & teachers & probably administrators hearing 'formative assessment' aren't going to be stricken with anger (parents) or guilt (teachers & administrators) that they aren't already doing it. The 'jargon-layer' protects everyone's feelings. -- CatherineJohnson - 20 Dec 2005
I take your point about bureaucratic necessities, but I think that even changing the term to, say, "diagnostic assessment" would be beneficial. "We're trying to find out what isn't working so we can fix it" shouldn't be any more threatening than, "We want you to do yet another ill-defined task." And the latter term would at least point people in the right direction in a way that "formative assessment" doesn't. (IMO, of course.) -- DougSundseth - 20 Dec 2005
I take your point about bureaucratic necessities, but I think that even changing the term to, say, "diagnostic assessment" would be beneficial. That's not half bad. We want you to do yet another ill-defined task. ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!! -- CatherineJohnson - 20 Dec 2005
The one problem with 'diagnostic assessment' is that diagnostics never happen on a daily basis. Diagnostic assessment is probably going to have the connotation of something you do once in a long while (and hence something being done already) PLUS I fear it puts the responsibility back on the child..... What do you think? -- CatherineJohnson - 20 Dec 2005
I agree that 'formative assessment' is completely and totally devoid of meaning. Of course, that defangs the word 'assessment' to some degree. 'Assessment' is, unfortunately, all too rich with meaning. -- CatherineJohnson - 20 Dec 2005
And what do you make of 'summative assessment'? That's the term for GRADING. Summative. Oh! I know where these things come from. "Formative' is probably intended to indicate the process by which knowledge is 'formed.' 'Summative' probably means the sum total of what you've learned this chapter, semester, or year. -- CatherineJohnson - 20 Dec 2005
btw, I've already road-tested 'formative assessment' a bit.....it gets people's attention. -- CatherineJohnson - 20 Dec 2005
how about continual [something] assessment -- KDeRosa - 20 Dec 2005
Continual progress assessment? It's not the fact of progress but the rate of progress that's being assessed. (Implied by the "Continual progress" part of the phrase.) -- DougSundseth - 20 Dec 2005
I like: continual [something] assessment With the brackets. And the [something]. -- CatherineJohnson - 20 Dec 2005
Actually, 'continual' is a good word. As far as I can tell there's nothing immediately offputting about it, and it does give people a feeling for what's being promoted.... Continual progress assessment That might do it. Progress is an actively good word; that's why it was chosen for 'NAEP,' because they thought they were going to be measuring progress. Turned out they were measuring a steady decline for the next....10 years, was it? -- CatherineJohnson - 20 Dec 2005
I suspect that "continual [thingy] assessment" isn't culturally appropriate for NY. Too bad. -- DougSundseth - 20 Dec 2005
yes, the [something] subtlely gets across the point that our schools have little idea what is going on in their classrooms. -- KDeRosa - 20 Dec 2005
[feedback] ? -- SusanJ - 20 Dec 2005
snort -- CatherineJohnson - 20 Dec 2005
continual [something] assessment does make the point, doesn't it? -- CatherineJohnson - 20 Dec 2005
I got this from the Direct Instruction Reading book which came in last night: There are three types of assessments: 1. screening and placement assessments
for initial placement 2. diagnostic assessments
for remediation 3. progress-monitoring assessments
Frequent
a. program specific
b. generic So continual progress-monitoring assessment is probably the most accurate and descriptive designator we have so far. -- KDeRosa - 21 Dec 2005
yeah, that's good I've got to get this list up front (or does it belong inside this summary?) -- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005
My only problem with 'continual progress-monitoring assessment' is that it's a mouthful. For the time being, what I'm going to do is introduce the topic witih the expression 'formative assessment,' which is intimidating in a good way (if you know what I mean, and you probably do). Then I'll follow up with the equally pretentious but more comprehensible term 'continual progress-monitoring assessment.' Having two phrases like this is going to be more effective than having just one. This is why Ed blows people out of the water, btw. He slings the lingo. He doesn't b*s; he doesn't use a huge amount of jargon. He can speak naturally in formal prose. I should practice that skill myself, except I'm not exactly sure how to practice it. I speak colloquially and (I hope) clearly, which is a disadvantage in settings like the upcoming PTSA forum. I suspect it's also a disadvantage in terms of my sex. In these settings I am a MOM, and I need to shift people's cognitive sets out of Another Ticked-off Mom Complaining About Whatever. -- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005
Educators do love their edujargon/edubabble. I see your point about the jargon, so in that case you might want to use continual, progress-monitoring, program-specific/generic to define what you mean by "formative assessment." -- KDeRosa - 21 Dec 2005
It's not just the educators (in fact, it's not them at all). It's the other parents. You see what's on the PTSA list; that's what our parents want. I'm not exactly leading a band of Direct Instruction fanatics here. Parents in Irvington often get what they want. My problem is, nobody wants what I want. -- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005
Educators already have the concept of assessment-as-information-not-punishment in their heads. They haven't honed in on it; they haven't decided they need to establish a formal, systematic program of formative assessment. For our administrators to decide that they should do this isn't necessarily a paradigm shift. I'd say that it would be a paradigm shift for the parents. -- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005
Educators already have the concept of assessment-as-information-not-punishment in their heads. They haven't honed in on it; they haven't decided they need to establish a formal, systematic program of formative assessment. For our administrators to decide that they should do this isn't necessarily a paradigm shift. I'd say that it would be a paradigm shift for the parents. -- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005
The other day I was talking to a mom about all this, and I said something about how kids in middle school need to be taught to mastery & not 'graded on a curve.' Instantly she said, 'But that's the way it is in college. That's the way it is in the real world.' Well, number one, that's not the way it is in college. Not any more. And number two.....I don't think grading-on-curve probably captures adult life, either. BUT NUMBER THREE—so what if it's true? THIS IS MIDDLE SCHOOL WE'RE TALKING ABOUT. I told her that if the elementary school had graded on a curve, only 5-10% of the kids would have learned to read. That didn't make a strong impression (or not strong enough). I think it would with enough spaced repetition. But I'm going to have to be repeating myself a lot. -- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005
I can do that. -- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005
In college you've already eliminated the bottom three standard deviations of the curve, not so in middle school. Plus, in college the kids have been sorted by SATs, so the groups are much more homogeneous. And, no one can show that there are any advantages to grading on the curve in any event. -- KDeRosa - 21 Dec 2005
Ed had a conversation with an architect here who taught at RISD for awhile. He said IMS reminds him of an open-enrollment city college. Everyone enrolls, and you're just waiting to see who The Fallen are. He said, 'It's look to your left, look to your right. Are the people you came in with still standing? Or are they gone?' -- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005
He taught at RISD for awhile. His view was that gatekeeping doesn't become a good idea until you get to that level—I think he was talking about graduate level work. (This guy went to Harvard, undergrad, I think...) At that point, he said, you really are doing the student a favor washing him out. He said you can see that some students 'have it' and some don't. (I assume that the job market in design is pretty tight.) His strong feeling was that up to that point an educator's job is to take students as far as they possibly can go. Leave the gatekeeping to the real world..... -- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005
I'm reading a fantastic book from the Sputnik era (which I'll post up front at some point). He says that the THREE essential skills a student needs to gain from school are:
- the ability to read analytically
- the ability to express himself clearly in writing
- the ability to solve mathematical problems
I think that curve-grading may be a useful way for a new teacher to calibrate difficulty. Once you know what the students should be able to do, though, it should no longer be necessary. What matters to the teacher of the next class in the series, or the employer after you leave school, or the customer that buys your product is whether you learned enough, not how your learning compares to that of the other students in the class. -- DougSundseth - 21 Dec 2005
He says that the THREE essential skills a student needs to gain from school are: * the ability to read analytically * the ability to express himself clearly in writing * the ability to solve mathematical problems All students need these abilities, period. This is so true. I know many engineers who no longer wanted to do engineering work and found they were highly desirable in other fields because of their strong analytic/problem solving abilities -- KDeRosa - 21 Dec 2005
I know many engineers who no longer wanted to do engineering work and found they were highly desirable in other fields because of their strong analytic/problem solving abilities interesting when you narrow it down this way, you really see it our schools are so loaded with bells and whistles it's hard to remember the goal -- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005
I think that curve-grading may be a useful way for a new teacher to calibrate difficulty. Once you know what the students should be able to do, though, it should no longer be necessary. Right, that would be useful information... What matters to the teacher of the next class in the series, or the employer after you leave school, or the customer that buys your product is whether you learned enough, not how your learning compares to that of the other students in the class. YES -- CatherineJohnson - 21 Dec 2005
I went to the wedding of a mate from engineering school two years after we all graduated. There were ten of us there from engineering school, and we worked out that only one of us was actually working as an engineer (and it wasn't the groom either). Incidentally the proper engineer was one of the girls. -- TracyW - 21 Dec 2005
| WebLogForm | |
|---|---|
| Title: | formative assessment |
| TopicType: | WebLog |
| SubjectArea: | AssessmentTests, DirectInstruction, IrvingtonMath, IrvingtonSchools |
| LogDate: | 200512190945 |