6 Resources to Help Teachers Better Undertsand Formative Assessment

9:15:00 AM Viv Beck 0 Comments

Here are some resources on formative assessment by Dylan Wiliam. Feel free to share this page with other teachers looking to get a better understanding of how F.A. drives teaching and learning.


Dylan Wiliam, "Black Box"

Inside the Black Box
Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment. Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam. King's College London, 1998
Working Inside the Black Box
Working Inside the Black Box: Assessment for Learning in the Classroom. Paul Black, Christine Harrison, Clare Lee, Bethan Marshall, and Dylan Wiliam, King's College London, 2002

Assessment for Learning: 10 Principles, Assessment Reform Group, 2002
Testing, Motivation and Learning
Testing, Motivation and Learning: Assessment Reform Group, 2002
The Black Box Assessment for Learning Series, edited by Paul Black, Christine Harrison, Bethan Marshall, and Dylan Wiliam, King’s College London has been written to apply to specific curriculum areas.. These resources are not available online. Details of the titles available are listed on the Assessment Online Publications page.

Dylan Wiliam videos on formative assessment
These short videos feature one of the gurus of formative assessment talking about a range of formative assessment aspects. Watch as he reviews the nature of formative assessment and how teachers can use it to gain better insights into student learning and achievement. They are available on the Education Scotland website. Type "Dylan Wiliam" into the search.

Dylan William’s five key strategies animated on YouTube
Michael Rystad summarises the Five Key Strategies for Embedded Formative Assessment as proposed by Dylan William.  The YouTube presentation is in an animated drawing/writing style, with a simple expansion of the ideas contained in each of the strategies.
PDF icon. William, D., Keeping Learning on Track Formative assessment and the regulation of learning (PDF 130 KB)
In this paper, Dylan Wiliam outlines some of the research that suggests that focusing on the use of day-to-day formative assessment is one of the most powerful ways of improving learning in the mathematics classroom.

Let's Clarify a Myth Surrounding Formative Assessment

6:36:00 PM Viv Beck 0 Comments

One Major Misconception of Formative Assessment




Formative assessment has been in the forefront of eduction for years, intact, over a decade. However, in the recent years it has been touted as the 'new' method in education that maximizes learning.

Research supports the positive impact on teaching and learning, and teachers have proven it's success repeatedly over the year. Due to professionals at the grassroots level, in the classroom, educators across the country have learned to embrace the processes and methods within formative assessment and adapt it to meet the needs of their learning communities, inspire of constraints that face them.

When blended with a classroom teacher's expertise of pedagogies, content areas, and classroom management, formative assessment is a powerful approach to maximizing teaching and learning.

Unfortunately some leaders in education perceive formative assessment as a checklist that 'gets things done' and aligns to common core standards. To the teachers across the nation who have had formative assessment and standards based grading thrust upon them by misguided administration who believe implementation is as a easy as giving a book on the topic to the staff, I express my sympathies.

The problem with forcing the formative assessment shift into a learning environment is that it destroys the confidence of even the most seasoned teachers. There is one myth about formative assessment that must be destroyed, and it is this...

Formative Assessment is NOT a quantitative instructional checklist 
teachers attend to while planning!

Formative assessment, and strandards based grading for that matter, CANNOT be an impulsive decision by one decision maker at the helm.

The process of moving towards such a significant shift in a school or an entire district, has to happen through a journey of growth where shared values are developed for each individual teacher, while nurturing the shared beliefs of how students learn best.

If educators are forced to implement the process of formative assessment and standards based grading without the opportunity to investigate its elements and nuances as they present themselves in their current context and conditions, formative assessment will surely fail.

Let's get this clear, formative assessment does have clear processes and procedures - yes, theory - that could, in fact, be reduced to a checklist, and this may be helpful to those in the stage of exploring F.A. But the power lies in the beautiful intersection of procedures and intuition.

Magical teaching and learning happens at 
the intersection of highly effective instruction and 
professional intuition of a confident instructor.

This is where teachers become artists. It is the real magic of the teaching and learning community. It is easily observed, but more difficult to be detailed for the sake of evaluation and reporting. If evaluators understood the complexity of what contributes to 'excellent teaching' they would understand that formative assessment requires a shared experienced across their learning community.

They would respect their staff and share information that encourages dialogue encouraging teacher to explore then processes of formative assessment and engage in professional reflection around their experiences. After multiple experiences in a variety of contexts, wise leadership would allow for further discussion among staff members to flesh out the strengths and weakness.

In the end, the implementation of formative assessment, requires decision makers to move beyond the belief that a book and a checklist reviewed during a staff meeting or two is enough to implement the multi-demontional formative assessment, with any kind of integrity.

Before ANY significant, district-wide, curricular changes are made, decision makers and educational leadership should required to educate themselves and be required to present a collection of evidence and data that reveals THEIR deep understanding of the proposed shift BEFORE they impose that shift on the learning community at large.

Rant Over

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Understanding Literary Argument

1:50:00 PM Viv Beck 0 Comments

A literary arguments is an anlaysis or argument of a literary work. Liteary  analysis focuses on how and why a literary work was created and why the author made choices as they did.

Literary analysis calls for students to analyze elements of a narrative where literary ARGUMENTS call for students to take a position of a debatable topic and attempt to change the reader's mind about them. The more presuasive the argument, the more likely the reader will concede to the points made.


A Literary Argument is ...
  • arguable
  • contestable
  • analytical claim

Examples:

In "Black Boy", by Richard Wright, Richard's mother takes severe action against her son, but established herself as a 'good' parent.

In Dr. Martin Luther Kind, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, he uses the literary device of repetition to strengthen the connection with his audience.

In "Fighting Off the Sharks for a Fish", G.G. Marquez uses vivid imagery to reveal the struggle of survival of the main character.

Why Teacher Literary Argument?

Literary argument present the opportunity to broaden the perspective of others. It shows others what the reader 'sees' in the text by presented and defending a judgement. 

It also develops higher order thinking skills. Students learn to interpret by analyzing what a text does, what it communicates, and how it conveys its specific message.

Ways Student Develop Thinking Skills

They conduct inquiries in to, and then develop claims about how an author uses literary devices to impact the delivery of their message.

They observe how a poet uses metaphors to extend the theme

They compare texts' treatment of literary conventions for insight about how human interactions may be impacted by different environments.

Interpretation IS analysis of text.

Readers judge when they evaluate a text's value. Judgements are made when readers assert a value about aesthetics, social norms, political beliefs, or ethical issues.

Judgement arguments can be tricky. They only succeed when they are supported by criteria or extended definitions. Writers of literary argument must establish qualifiers in order to establish a sound argument.

In literary analysis, thesis statements are Toulmin's claims. The process of writing a literary argument is very similar to writing about a literary topic. But, there are required features to establish a claim the writer will prove with evidence.

What remains the same is that the thesis statement (claim) must be focused, contestable, and analytical, just as the claim is in the Toulmin Model.

Contestable Thesis Statements

Developing a contestable thesis statement draws in the reader and engages them in the argument. Notice the examples below. Notice how non-contestable statements have a "so-what' feeling to them, drawing little attention to their purpose. They set the reader up for a summary rather than an argument.


Non-Contestable Thesis Statements
Contestable Thesis Statements
Romeo and Juliet tells the story of lovers thwarted by their families' feud.Romeo and Juliet dramatizes the impact of hate online to illustrate how love can 'kill' literally and figuratively. 
The Cay shares the adventures and lessons boy experiences in a time of prejudice. The Cay depicts the impact acceptance and understanding can have on humanity when the color of skin is no longer an issue.
The Pearl reveals how sudden wealth shifts can shift one's reality.The Pearl unveils how materialistic drives corrode evolved cultures and reduce human motivation to survival of the fittest to justify a means to an end.





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