Reach 108 Differentiated Assessment

These reading were so powerful and generated a lot for me to think about. I am going to start writing and see where that takes me in this blog. More and more I am understanding the significance and power behing good diagnostic, formative, and summative assessments. I will get into my personal skill in this area later in the blog. As I started reading, I like the idea that reliable assessments come from multiple sources of evidence. I liked the comparison of viewing assessments like photo albums vs. single snapshots. I thought that was a clever way to phrase it. One single summative test at the end is less likely to provide a complete picture of student's learning than a collection of diverse evidence. I have always thought that we as a society (probably for political purposes) rely too heavily on those standardized tests to be the sole determining factor. My question has always been well then if we know that, then why do we still focus or continue to emphasize that one big standardized test? In my classroom, some children are going to do well on the paper unit assessments and others will not. As an example, the last unit I finished was almost two weeks ago, and I had worked really hard on this unit and decided to extend it a bit longer due to the fact that there were still a lot of students who during the formative assessments like teacher observation were still not showing understanding. While we were doing the fact families, some students were able to put the three numbers correctly in the right order to make correct number families, but they were falling short with that key understanding of how the inverse relationship between addition and subtraction to solve problems. I was determined to make sure that there was understanding of that concept and not just being satisfied with students providing the correct number sentences. During the unit, one of my lowest students in my first class and probably overall was showing through other means like board problems or through bellwork or other tasks that she had a good understanding of the inverse relationship between addition and subtraction. Peggy was even in my room to observe a lesson where I had pulled a small group, and she was dominating the group by answering quickly and quite vocally and drowing out some of the other students in that group session. It had become clear to me that she was exhibiting some understanding during that formative assessment (my observation) and a work sample of building 4 number sentences out of the three numbers given in the fact family extension lesson. Peggy even commented in her observation notes that she was providing a lot of answers and seemed ready to go back to her seat and "graduate" from that small group. I was excited each and every time before this particular day and after that she had made big steps in acquiring that understanding. Then came the unit assessment (big summative paper test), and she did not perform well on it. Should I use that one paper test as the only indicator of her understanding of fact families? Years ago I might have said that the one summative assessment cancelled out everything else, but now I see that my little "M" in the Broncos really does know a thing or two about fact families number sense that a paper test does not show.

We were all given a benchmark assessment to use for Math as the method for placing our Rocketeers at either far below basic, below basic, basic, proficient, and advanced. The test is pretty good, but now I am in a place to start to question if we should solely be using only the scores from that assessment to place our students at the end of the year? WHat about my "M" who clearly has some understanding about fact families because she has demonstrated it to me on numerous occasions? It will be interesting to see this next round how she will test on that piece of the assessment. Using this big end of the year test to prove what a student can and cannot due seems to be like putting all of your eggs in one basket. I am a bit uncomfortable because of those students like "M" who show understanding inother ways, just not on the paper test.

I liked the piece about giving feedback also. I wanted to take time to make a comment or two about that. I agree that we attach scores and percentages but those are not feedback. Feedback is exactly what the chapter metnioned which is giving students information about their strengths and weaknesses. I am familiar with rubrics and I have seen really good kid friendly rubrics in writing; however, I have never seen one for math. I would like to know if anyone has seen one or has an idea about how you might use one for math. Sometimes math can be so cut and dry because there is one right answer you are looking for unlike writing where one is able to be flexible and more creative. Could a math rubric be developed an if so what would you use it for and what would it include? I share to a certain extent feedback with my students. I probably do not do it in the most effective way, but I do share with them information about what they are doing in terms of showing their work that maybe is stumping them and which specific steps they might have confused or missed in working a problem. Maybe it was that they did not get the key word in a word problem which contributed to the wrong operation being applied. That would just be an example. I always stress for them to show their work and that means that there should be some kind of number sentence or equation or drawings or something there to prove it. I include that in the assessments because at the first grade level the math can be pretty simple and the really advanced ones are able to figure things out in their head without writing it down, but I stress the importance of them working every single problem out and proving it no matter how easy it can be done even if done in their head.

Right now I am so excited to see growth on the big benchmark assessment;however, I know that those kinds of tests even the unit assessments I have are not "fair." As the article mentioned some with be penalized by using that format and it will favor others. I have some pre-assessments and unit assessments in place and I am learning to use a variety of things for formative assessments which is good because I did not have those things going for me years ago. I am in a stronger place now as a teacher, but I need some serious work on creating even stronger diagnostics and summative assessments and that will be a work in progress.