In the past few bulletins, I have been sharing from our PLC bible, Learning by Doing. In continuing from last week’s bulletin on Chapter 6, I continued to read on The Why Behind CFAs.
I encourage you to reread this important chapter in full again for a refresh but here are a few notes/reminders/thoughts to keep in your back pocket from Chapter 6:
One of the most powerful, high-leverage strategies for improving student learning available to schools is the creation of frequent, high-quality common formative assessments by teachers who are working collaboratively to help a group of students acquire agreed-on knowledge and skills. State tests typically served as summative assessments: attempts to determine if students have met intended standards by a specified deadline. The infrequency of these end-of-process measurements, however, limits their effectiveness in providing the timely feedback that guides teacher practice and student learning.
Formative assessments are part of an ongoing process to monitor each student’s learning on a continuous basis. Formative assessments typically measure a few things frequently and are intended to inform teachers regarding the effectiveness of their practice and to inform students of their next steps on scaffolding their learning. When done well, formative assessment advances and motivates, rather than merely reports on, student learning.
The authors argue that the benefits of using team-developed common assessments for formative purposes are so powerful that no teacher team should be allowed to opt out of creating them. Schools should use a variety of assessments but school leaders should never allow the presence of these other assessments to be an excuse for ignoring the need for common, team-made formative assessments for the following seven reasons.
1. Common assessments promote efficiency for teachers.
If all students are expected to demonstrate the same knowledge and skills regardless of the teacher to whom they are assigned, it only makes sense that teachers would work together to assess student learning.
2. Common assessments promote equity for students.
When schools utilize common assessments, they are more likely to ensure that students have access to the same essential curriculum, use common pacing, and assess the quality of student work according to the same criteria.
Schools will continue to have difficulty helping all students achieve high standards if the teachers within them cannot develop the capacity to define a standard with specificity and assess it with consistency.
3. Common Assessments represent a powerful strategy for determining whether the guaranteed curriculum is being taught and, more importantly, learned:
Common, teacher-made formative assessments are the “best practice in assessment” and the “gold standard in educational accountability” because they promote consistency in expectations and provide timely, accurate, and specific feedback to both students and teachers. Teachers active engagement in the development of the assessment leads them to accept greater responsibility for the results.
4. Common assessments inform the practice of individual teachers:
Common assessments provide teachers with a basis of comparison as they learn, skill by skill, how the performance of their students is similar to or different from the other students who took the same assessment.
Reflection enhances student learning only when it is collective-a team of teachers reflecting rather than an individual-and based non student learning rather than an appraisal of particular teaching strategies.
5. Common assessments build a team’s capacity to achieve its goals:
When collaborative teams of teachers have the opportunity to examine achievement indicators of all students in their grade level and track those indicators over time, they are able to identify and address problem areas in their program.
6. Common assessments facilitate a systematic, collective response to students who are experiencing difficulty:
Common assessments help identify a group of students who need additional time and support to ensure their learning. Because the students are identified at the same time and because they need help with the same specific skills that have been addressed on the CFA, the team and school are in a position to create timely, directive, and systematic interventions.
7. Common formative assessments are one of the most powerful tools for changing the professional practice of educators.
