What is the purpose of Assessment & How do I “mark” this? – Discussion

[Sarah Albert]

This is the biggest question I struggle with, I want to be fair yet show the difference between no understanding vs no effort.

[Lisa Hudson]

Do we ever achieve mastery in mathematics or are we really increasing our knowledge/understanding of specific concepts?

[Andy Neels]

Assessment remains a hurdle. I think some good points are raised here, such as using the math test as a learning tool rather then a arbitrary mark at a moment in time.

[Michael Wynott]

I’m working through the ”assessment for growth” module and haven’t seen any examples of how you grade student work. Do you all have any examples of student work for ”Exceeding Expectations” and ”Meeting Expectations”? I think having some context for a learning goal and how you all assigned standard based grades would be helpful. I’ve looked all over the internet and couldn’t find many examples of student work and the grade that would be applied. I want to roll out SBG for my team next school year and want to make sure I can accurately explain what a 1-4 would look like to my peers. @kyle

[Kyle Pearce]

This is a great question and I’m sure many others would love this… the problem is that assessment and evaluation practices with any system are very different and thus this might be better to explore with your colleagues. You will likely find that many of you have very different interpretations of meeting expectations, etc.
Wondering if anyone else out there has engaged in moderated marking sessions with colleagues and if so, what came of the opportunity?

[Anthony Waslaske]

In response to the question @jon posed about the purpose of assessment, I wrote what I thought assessment means to me.

I want students to know where they are in the learning process, and communicate to students areas of strength and areas of growth. The purpose is then for students to take action and continue their journey toward mastery.

With the above assessment, students embark on their journey through the actionable feedback provided to them within the assessment to demonstrate their mastery and provide evidence; either through product, conversation, or observation; that they have grown.

From the statement I drafted, I know my assessments are formative assessments and I think high expectations provide necessary rigor in the classroom to maximize student learning, so I would create a rubric to reflect those beliefs but offer students multiple opportunities to reassess.

[Leslie Stevens]

I love how Steven shared an assessment and shared what worked and what concerns he has.

I have been reading the “Build Thinking Classrooms” book, and am struggling with how to adjust my SBG assessments to make them “assessments for thinking and learning” as much as possible. I struggled with the idea of the “beginning, intermediate, and advanced” questions that Peter L. suggests using in this book. I worry that a student will stop at beginning and not do anything else, or just do the advanced and now show enough evidence of learning on that one problem because it is too complex for them at the moment.

The way I have been doing my assessments is basically using questions (usually about 4 problems) that in my opinion will show if a student has “met the standard” and then 1 or 2 optional questions for the “exceeding expectations” Level 4. Students are asked to do all of the “meet expectations” type questions at a minimum. Here is a link to a sample 6th grade assessment on LCM and GCF (Rubric is on last page):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tVcle0_6N8_I1VLZMmIZmtoeF_LR25qv/view?usp=sharing

I internally grade each question on the 1 to 4 rubric and use that to give an overall rubric score based on all the work of the student. Rubric score of 4 is only used if a student does the optional challenge problem(s) and get all correct with good process. Students only need to fix and “retake” the ones they missed. I keep the score secret for a few days and just have the students look at my feedback and start working on fixes as needed. The score goes into the gradebook and when students are ready, they can see it there.

I would love to see what others are doing to help me figure out how to improve on my process.

Thanks!

[Jeanette Jones]

Leslie, I appreciate you sharing your quiz with the rubric. That helps the assessments make more sense to me about how they will help me judge where my students are in their understanding and then help them understand where they are in their learning. Thanks Leslie!

I feel like I have so much input of new or next level steps for me that I need to see what others are doing to help me get these into practice. My school just started and I want to implement all of these great things, but feeling overwhelmed with the many changes I need to make.

[Jon]

We suggest starting with a small change and slowly implement new ones once you’re comfortable.

[Merrillee Reboullet]

The last statement of this segment…mastery is perhaps a misnomer and we are instead increasing our expertise. 100%. Agree. In our school division “Level 4” is called “Mastery”, something I have always disliked for this very reason.

[Kyle Pearce]

100%! Glad this idea resonated with you!