Common Assessments
Watch this video on using common formative assessment as a tool to help teachers reflect on their practice.
How to Guide Instruction Using Common Formative Assessments
Pitfalls of Common Assessments
- Number of assessment items is too large.
- Who gives the assessment? (If the assessment is supposed to be for the grade level, does everyone on the grade level use it?)
- Discussion afterwards - does the discussion focus on what the students understand and common areas demonstrating lack of understanding rather than "I taught it, the students didn't learn it."
- Too much time passes before the assessment is given.
- Too much time passes after giving the assessment and discussing the results.
- Focus of the assessment is too big or covers too much material.
- How does one use the information from the assessment?
Key Points
- There is compelling research that says that frequent formative assessments improve student achievement for all students.
- Common formative assessments do not have to be tests or quizzes.
- Common formative assessments do not have to take a long time to administer or include lengthy student work products.
- If you don't use the results of the common formative assessment to make a difference in student learning, the assessment is summative.
(Bailey & Jakicic, 2012, p. 13)
Four Critical Questions
- What knowledge and skills should every student acquire as a result of this unit of instruction?
- How will we know when each student has acquired the essential knowledge and skills?
- How will we respond when some students do not learn?
- How will we extend and enrich the learning for students who are already proficient?
(DuFour et al., 2010a, p. 28)
Benefits of Common Assessments
- Promote efficiency for teachers
- Promote equity for students
- Provide an effective strategy for determining whether the guaranteed curriculum is being taught, and more importantly, learned
- Inform the practice of individual teachers
- Build a team's capacity to improve its program
- Facilitate a systematic, collective response to students who are experiencing difficulty
- Offer the most powerful tool for changing adult behavior and practice
(DuFour et al., 2010a p. 28)
Steps for Designing Quality Common Formative Assessments
1. Decide what to assess.
- Which learning targets are most likely to cause students difficulty?
- Which learning targets are prerequisite skills for information to come later in the unit?
- Which learning targets are absolutely necessary for students to know?
2. Decide how to assess.
- Will the assessment be constructed response, performance assessment, or selected response?
3. Develop the assessment plan.
- Make sure the learning targets chosen by the team are included in the assessment.
- Make sure the items written by the team are assessing student learning at the same level of Bloom's as when taught.
- How many items are needed on the test? (Goal - enough items to get an accurate picture about student mastery of learning targets)
4. Determine the timeline.
5. Write the assessment.
6. Review the assessment before giving it.
7. Set proficiency criteria and decide how to gather the data.
(Bailey & Jakicic, 2012, p. 50-60)
Additional Reading on Common Assessments -
Assessment the Game-Changer (AllThingsPLC website)
Matching Classroom Instruction with Common Assessments (AllThings PLC website)
Follow-up Tasks on Common Assessments
Task 1 - With your PLC team choose an upcoming unit for which an assessment is needed. Have each team member bring questions or tasks related to the unit topic that might be a springboard for developing the assessment. In your PLC develop an assessment that all members are willing to use. Set the timeline for when this assessment will be administered.
Task 2 - Bring 3 student samples from the assessment to the first PLC after administering the common assessment. One sample should exemplify above understanding of the learning targets. One sample should exemplify understanding at benchmark for the learning targets. The last sample should exemplify understanding less than at benchmark for the learning targets. The PLC should discuss the samples they brought and why they feel the examples fit their chosen category. The team should work to achieve consensus on the scoring of each student sample.
Task 1 - With your PLC team choose an upcoming unit for which an assessment is needed. Have each team member bring questions or tasks related to the unit topic that might be a springboard for developing the assessment. In your PLC develop an assessment that all members are willing to use. Set the timeline for when this assessment will be administered.
Task 2 - Bring 3 student samples from the assessment to the first PLC after administering the common assessment. One sample should exemplify above understanding of the learning targets. One sample should exemplify understanding at benchmark for the learning targets. The last sample should exemplify understanding less than at benchmark for the learning targets. The PLC should discuss the samples they brought and why they feel the examples fit their chosen category. The team should work to achieve consensus on the scoring of each student sample.
(TLMS 1e,2a, 3a, 3b, 3d, 7b)