Activity 2.2

How Can We Know They're Learning?

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Purposes:

1. To learn a technique (examining samples of student work) for examining valued learning targets for students
2. To broaden understanding of the importance of clear criteria for quality assessment
3. To contribute to the criteria that can be used to assess students' work
4. To broaden understanding of assessment techniques

Uses:

This introductory activity for parents and community members can be used in Chapter 1 as an introduction to changes in assessment and instruction or to illustrate valued learning targets for students. In Chapter 2 it can be used to show how assessment can integrate with instruction. In Chapter 3 it can be used to demonstrate how criteria are developed.

It has been used as part of a series of sessions with parents over time that builds a common understanding using "neutral" student work, and then gradually moves to examination of anonymous samples from the same school, and finally to examination of the work of their own children once the language of assessment has been established, and agreement on qualities to look for in the work are clear. The sessions often include teachers and students.

Rationale:

This activity, an adaptation of Activity 2.1--Sorting Student Work, is intended for parents and is centered on the question "How can we know they're learning?" As schools and classrooms expand the use of alternative and performance assessments, it is vitally important that parents are invited to become an integral part of the conversations about student learning. In the past, such conversations have focused on brief, often numeric, summary information that does not provide parents with insights into the richness of learning—the expanding knowledge, skills, and capabilities of children.

Using the student math work in Appendix B Sample B.4—Camping Trip), this activity provides an opportunity for parents and family members to expand their knowledge of alternative assessment and to become involved more fully in rich and valuable conversations about children's learning. In addition, this activity includes responses from a mathematics educator to enable parents to look inside the reasoning that teachers use when assessing student work.

Materials:

• Overhead projector, screen, blank transparencies, transparency pens, or chart paper and pens

• Eight to 10 samples of student math work representing different levels of sophistication—the set is provided in Appendix B—Student Work Samples (Sample B.4—Camping Trip)

• Overheads A2.2,O1—How Can We Know They're Learning Purposes; A2.2,O2—Assessment Is About...; and A2.2,O3—Holistic and Analytical Trait Scoring

• Handouts A2.2,H1—The Redwoods, A2.2,H2—Fox, and A2.2,H3—Waialae's Draft Standards and Indicators for Creative Problem-Solving (one set per group of two-three participants); other generalized math problem-solving scoring guides could also be used (see suggestions in Appendix A—Sampler

  Time Required:

  Part A: 1 ¼ to 1 ½ hours; Part B: 30-40 minutes

  Facilitator's Notes:

  Basic Activity
  1. (2 minutes) Introduce the purpose of the activity, as needed, with Overhead A2.2,O1—How Can We Know They're Learning Purposes.

  2. (3 minutes) Open the session with Overhead A2.2,O2—Assessment Is About... and use it to set the context for the activity: There are other, more important purposes for assessing student achievement than merely to grade. Assessment of student achievement is most productive when it is used as a tool to communicate about student achievement and to plan further instruction

  3. (20 minutes) Provide a mini-practice that emphasizes how to describe the qualities of student work. This mini-practice uses samples of student writing because most parents feel comfortable with their ability to comment about the quality of writing.

  a. Begin with the piece that represents a relatively strong piece of student writing (Handout A2.2,H2—Fox). Read the paper aloud because writing plays to the ear differently than it might to the eye. Ask the group to review the piece and identify its strengths; key qualities that make it work. Give them time to think about this individually and then in small groups.

  Bring the whole group back together and record participant responses on one side of a blank transparency.

  b. Then read and discuss Handout A2.2,H1—The Redwoods, a weaker piece of writing, in the same manner as above. In the whole group, record participant comments on key qualities on the other side of the transparency.

  c. Summary: We've done this activity with thousands of parents, teachers and students and they all come up with pretty much the same list of characteristics that make writing work. We tend to value the quality of the ideas in a piece of writing (indicate the statements they made that relate to the quality of ideas); how well the ideas are organized (again indicate their comments that relate to the trait of organization), the appropriateness of the style for the audience and purpose (indicate comments that relate to voice), the words that are chosen to convey thoughts (indicate comments that relate to word choice), the fluency and correctness of the sentences (indicate comments that relate to sentence fluency), and the correctness of the grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization and paragraphing (indicate comments that relate to conventions).

  4. (5 minutes) Now you'll ask participants to do the same thing for math—look at samples of student math solutions and list characteristics of the solutions that make them work. Bridge to math problem solving by noting that teachers, too, are engaging in conversations about the quality of student work in areas besides writing; they are especially looking at the big ideas that are central to learning for all children—like problem solving. (If there is a school vision in place, note the connections between the vision and students' becoming effective problem solvers.) If one purpose of this activity is to connect assessment and national standards, identify the NCTM mathematics problem-solving standard as one which cuts across ages and grades.

     Have participants move to groups of two or three. You might, for example, have parents add the ages of their children/grandchildren and find two other people close to their own total.

  5. (10-20 minutes) Pass out the student math solutions (from Appendix B, Sample B.5. Ask parents to place this work into three piles based on the "quality" of the solution. Describe this task in ways that cue what to do. For example you can frame the task as dividing the work into levels of sophistication, using language such as "beginning work", "developing work that shows both strengths and weaknesses", and "strong work." Or it might be helpful to cast participants as those responsible for grading: "Put papers into stacks by what grade you would give them." (Note that using grading as the prompt often results in questions and discussion of current grading practices; this is great when it's intended, but needs to be anticipated so that the activity doesn't lose its focus.)

     As participants sort the solutions, they should write down the basis on which they placed papers in each stack. You thought the papers in this stack were better than the papers in this other stack. Why? What features of the work did you like? Not like? What makes the work in this stack different from the work in that stack? One strategy is to designate a person to be the observer/recorder for each group whose responsibility is to capture the evaluative language used, and the reasons cited for placement. (When there are teachers present, this is often their role so that parents do not defer to their judgment and limit their own discussion.)

     The goal is not to score or "grade" all the papers, but to articulate reasons for placing samples into stacks. Therefore, participants only continue sorting and discussing until all their reasons are listed. Remind each group of this as they work.

  6. (10 minutes) Put up a clean overhead transparency (or use chart paper) with three columns labeled "Strong, developing, and beginning" or "high, middle, and low." (Use whatever titles will appeal to the group.) Have groups tell you the placement of each paper. Start a fourth column with a "?" heading. If there is a disagreement about placement, write the paper number under the "?" heading.

     There is no "right" answer for this sorting. The goal is for participants to articulate what they value, come to consensus, and be able to justify their judgments using consistent terminology.

     List all the criteria the parents gave for their sorting.

  7. (5-10 minutes) Try to resolve placement of the "?" papers. Have the various groups describe their rationale for placement. Add their reasons to the criteria list. The goal is to have a rich and elaborated list of criteria that cover many features of what is valued.

     Depending on time, you can use disagreements as an opportunity for parents to clarify and articulate what they saw in particular papers. This is also an opportunity to point out that while it is possible and important for educators to come to agreement on key qualities of student problem solving, there are also differences among what individual teachers value. The point can be made that making what is valued overt and clear to students is critical to quality assessment.

  8. (5-10 minutes) Using Handout A2.2,H3—Waialae's Draft Standards and Indicators for Creative Problem-Solving, ask parents to look for similarities between their list and the list in the handout. For most groups, their own careful look at student work resulted in the identification of quite similar key dimensions or traits of quality. (Also look at some actual performance criteria used to score open-ended math work. Suggestions are given in the Activity 2.2 Index in Appendix A—Sampler.) Points to make:

     a. Ideas of what to look for in student work to judge its quality are quite similar across the country; teachers, parents, and students tend to agree on the features that make solutions to math problems work. This is true for other student skills as well, such as writing, oral presentations, and how to do science experiments.

     b. The process they have used is one that professional educators also engage in as they seek to clearly define assessment targets and clearly articulate characteristics of quality work.

     c. This careful examination of work is the basis for performance assessment; some of the learning targets we have for students require humans to carefully examine student work and judge its quality. The processes we have just gone through help make this judgment process consistent across teachers.

     9. (5-10 minutes) Close with oral or written parent reflections. Some prompts might be:

     · What insights did you gain?

     · What questions remain?

     B. Extensions

     1. (20 minutes) The session can be extended to provide awareness of the benefits and drawbacks of different kinds of scoring. You might pose the question, Did you see some quality or qualities in a work that made you want to place it in one stack, and then other qualities that seemed to place it in a different stack? What were they? How do you feel about the forced choice of one stack or the other? Note that the forced choice that they used echoes holistic scoring in which the overall impression of the work guides scoring.

     Show parents sample holistic and analytical trait performance criteria (rubrics). Suggestions are provided in the Activity 2.2 Index in Appendix A—Sampler. First have them verify that the list of qualities assessed in these rubrics are the same as those identified in Part A of this activity.

     Use Overhead 2.2,O3—Holistic vs. Analytical Trait Scoring to clarify the distinction between holistic and analytical trait scoring. Ask the groups to discuss when each kind of scoring would be useful. What are the positives for parents and students if student work is scored analytically? What are the positives for parents and students if student work is scored holistically? What are the negatives of each?

     This can also lead into discussion of what kinds of reporting helps parents understand their children's learning and gives them some pointers about what's worth praising in their child's work and what areas need more attention.

     2. (10-20 minutes) Another extension is to try scoring student work Take one or two new solutions to the same problem, or a sample of student responses to another problem solving task, and try to score it analytically with a math rubric from Appendix A. (Suggestions are provided in the Sample 2.2 Index of Appendix A—Sampler.) As before, parents should justify their judgments using phrases or descriptors from the scoring guide.