Summary
During this introductory module, participants are introduced to foundational ideas about classroom assessment, they work to define and examine the main types of assessments and their role in a student-centered learning environment,
Essential Questions
What is the role of assessment in the design of effective learning environments?
Learning Goals
Identify the elements of an effective learning environment.
Explain how they overlap using Bransford’s model of knowledge-centered, student-centered, and assessment-centered environments.
Define the different types of assessment as they relate to the purpose (diagnostic, formative, and summative).
Construct a definition of assessment that includes the categories of diagnostic, formative, and summative assessment.
Materials List
Presentation Slides - Formative Assessment Institute Day 1 (attached)
The Design of Learning Environments (Shortened Version) - Formative Assessment Institute Day 1 (attached; one per participant)
Note Catcher - Formative Assessment Institute Day 1 (attached; one per participant)
Diagnostic Assessment - Formative Assessment Institute Day 1 (attached; one per participant)
Formative Assessment - Formative Assessment Institute Day 1 (attached; one per participant)
Summative Assessment - Formative Assessment Institute Day 1 (attached; one per participant)
True for Who? Cards - Formative Assessment Institute Day 1 (attached; one per group)
Sticky Notes
Pen or pencil
Highlighters
Chart paper
Laptops or personal devices
Wifi
Engage
Welcome participants and briefly introduce yourself. Using the attached Presentation Slides display slide 2 and welcome your participants to the Formative Assessment Institute.
Display slide 3 and share with your participants that this is just day one (1) of a four (4) day professional development institute covering formative assessment in the classroom.
Slides 4-6 are the GEAR UP for the FUTURE, O+C=K, and MY SUCCESS goals. Share the appropriate grant goals with your participants and hide the other two slides.
Display slide 7 and instruct your participants to write down what they believe are the three (3) most important purposes of formative assessment. Say, “the topic of this workshop is formative assessment. We will begin by gathering the group’s current thoughts and ideas about formative assessment using a strategy called Stand Up, Sit Down. During this activity, we will generate an anchor chart that will serve as a foundation for us to generate a group definition of formative assessment.”
Display slide 8 and share the instructional strategy, Stand Up, Sit Down with your participants. Have them all stand up and go around the room sharing just one (1) of their purposes with the whole group. Prompt them to cross off any on their paper that someone else shares. Once all three (3) of their purposes are crossed off they should sit back down. As your participants are sharing out, record their responses on a large anchor chart at the front of the room. Refer back to this as the occasion arises and make additions or changes as the workshop commences.
Display slide 9 and share the following quote from John Bransford;
New developments in the science of learning raise important questions about the design of learning environments - questions that suggest the value of rethinking what is taught, how it is taught, and how it is assessed.
Provide your participants an opportunity to share out their thoughts on this quote. Say, in today’s session, we will examine the effective design of classroom learning environments and begin to look at where assessment fits into effective learning environments. We will discuss the definition of assessment in general and then begin to narrow it down to the specifics of formative assessment. The remainder of the workshop will focus on formative assessment and how it can be used in the classroom.
Display slide 10, pass out the attached Note Catcher, and go over the reflection questions for this with your participants. The goal of this is to get them thinking about its value in formative assessment as well as how they could use this in their own classrooms.
Display slide 11 and share the essential question for the institute: what is the role of assessment in the design of effective learning environments?
Display slide 12 and share the session objectives with your participants:
Identify the elements of an effective learning environment.
Explain how they overlap using Bransford’s model of knowledge-centered, student-centered, and assessment-centered environments.
Define the different types of assessment as they relate to the purpose (diagnostic, formative, and summative).
Construct a definition of assessment that includes the categories of diagnostic, formative, and summative assessment.
Explore #1
Display slide 13 and say, before we dive into assessment we would like to talk about the environment in which learning occurs for students, and its implication for the design of instruction in the classroom. Bransford, Brown, and Cocking (2000) synthesized previous research on learning in a book called “How People Learn” and developed a model to guide the design of classroom environments. The model describes four interrelated research-based attributes of a learning environment that are necessary for optimizing student learning.
Display slide 14 and share the abbreviated definition for a community-centered environment.
Display slide 15 and share the abbreviated definition for a learner-centered environment.
Display slide 16 and share the abbreviated definition for a knowledge-centered environment.
Display slide 17 and share the abbreviated definition for an assessment-centered environment.
Display slide 18 and share the instructional strategy, Jigsaw, with your participants. Share with them that the reading, The Design of Learning Environments (Shortened Version), is an excerpt from the book, How People Learn, and goes into more detail about Bransford’s Model. Split your participants into groups of four (4) and have each person read one section of the excerpt.
Display slide 19 and share the instructional strategy, Why-Lighting, with your participants. Instruct them to highlight any information that helps them to answer the question, what are the key elements of a ________-centered environment? They should also provide an explanation for how it answers the question in the margins of their reading.
Display slide 20 once your participants have completed their reading and instruct them to connect with those who read the same section. In their new groups, they should discuss key takeaways, questions they still have, and things they were still curious about.
Display slide 21 and instruct your participants to regroup with their original partners to share what they learned from each of the sections of the reading and how the sections help to define the learning environment.
Explain #1
You should have decided prior to setting up for your session, whether you wanted your participants to participate with sticky notes or virtually in a Jamboard.
Display slide 25 and bring your participants’ attention back to their Note Catcher. Provide them time to reflect on the assessment strategies that they have participated in up to this point and answer the question, how was it used and how can I use it?
Give your participants a break.
Explore #2
As your participants are coming back from their break, display slide 26. Say, we have seen that assessment is one of the four most important aspects of a learning environment and that it should be integrated throughout instruction that is both student-centered and knowledge-centered within a set of community values and norms.
Display slide 27, pass out the attached Diagnostic Assessment, Formative Assessment, and Summative Assessment one-pagers, and say, we want to take some time here to look at the types of assessment that occur in an assessment-centered environment and how assessment fits into effective learning environments. Provide your participants with a few minutes to skim over the one-pagers and then move to slide 28 and share the purposes of each type of assessment, as defined by Page Keeley.
Explain #2
Display slide 29 and share the instructional strategy True for Who? with your participants. Typically, this instructional strategy is used to analyze characters, but today your participants are analyzing statements about diagnostic, formative, and summative assessments and determining which assessment type is being described in the statement.
As you display slides 30-45, and have your participants read the statement, discuss the statement with their table groups, and then hold up the appropriate, attached True for Who? Card that the statement is describing. As you move through the slides, the correct assessment type will appear at the bottom of the slide. If your participants do not correctly guess the assessment type, take some time to discuss it. Additionally, direct them back to their one-pagers to reference throughout the activity.
Extend
Display slide 46 and instruct your participants to revisit their initial response to the question, what is assessment? As they read their initial response they should consider how their definition has changed over the course of day one, and what evidence they have to uphold their definition or their revised definition. Instruct your participants to add a comment to their initial response with their revised definition.
Display slide 47 share the instructional strategy, Affinity Process, with your participants, and have them discuss their current understanding of assessment. Together they should create a group definition of assessment that includes key characteristics of diagnostic, formative, and summative assessment.
Display slide 48 and have each group combine with another group. Together they should consolidate their two definitions into one comprehensive definition of assessment. Call on groups to share out their definitions with the whole group.
Display slide 49 and review all of the definitions as a group and come to a consensus on a final group definition of assessment.
Display slide 50 and bring your participants’ attention back to their Note Catcher. Provide them time to reflect on the assessment strategies that they have participated in up to this point and answer the question, how was it used and how can I use it?
Evaluate
Display slide 51 have your participants complete the TREK evaluation for the day, and say, now that we have established where assessment fits into an effective learning environment, our next three sessions will explore in-depth the definition, characteristics, and uses of formative assessment.
Research Rationale
Analyzing the current skill level of students in a classroom at any given time and determining the best course of action for ensuring they all meet the target learning goals can be a challenge even for seasoned teachers. The idea of using formative assessment to meet the individual needs of students is not a new topic. In fact, researchers as far back as Benjamin Bloom have shown that one-to-one tutoring is the most effective form of instruction because of the tutor’s ability to pinpoint misconceptions and provide immediate feedback and correctives (William, 2011). Despite continued research backing up the claims that formative assessment can enhance student success, teachers may continue to struggle in their efforts to use the full array of formative assessment practices available. The question then becomes: what can teachers do to effectively improve and enhance their use of formative assessment in the classroom environment?
Follow-Up Activities
Resources
K20 Center. (n.d.b.). Affinity process. Strategies. https://learn.k20center.ou.edu/strategy/87
K20 Center. (n.d.). Jigsaw. Strategies. https://learn.k20center.ou.edu/strategy/179
K20 Center. (n.d.). Stand up, sit down. Strategies. https://learn.k20center.ou.edu/strategy/1771
K20 Center. (n.d.). Three sticky notes. Strategies. https://learn.k20center.ou.edu/strategy/153
K20 Center. (n.d.b.). True for who?. Strategies. https://learn.k20center.ou.edu/strategy/1586