Authentic Assessment

One of the conversations I feel most passionate about having with teachers is about authentic assessment. It's important to me because it isn't just good for students, its so freeing for educators to be given back some of the decision making power. Below is a multi-flow map I created to reflect what I see in much of my work. 

Because this is the reality, it is with intentional clarity that I aim to shed light on what we can count as assessment. Margaret Heritage's book, Formative Assessment in Practice: A Process of Inquiry and Action, she brings it down to a statement I find myself repeating everywhere I go; "evidence of mastery can be found in anything that students say, do, make and write"

 
Of course the conversation about how evidence of mastery is proven and the various types of assessment is not always a simple one. But I would argue that it is within our talking about assessment that we grow as teachers and assessors.

In effort to support your conversations, here are some facets of assessment that are helpful to discuss as you plan new assessment activities and evaluate those you have been using for a while. These facets and the subpoints are a synthesis of my work and research, and are evolving as I continue the journey towards more authentically assessing students.

Observations, questions...and a T-Rex named Sue

This weekend I find myself writing from a Starbucks in Chicago. I'm here visiting my sister but knowing how busy she is with her seminary work, I planned a few adventures for myself. Yesterday I took the morning to visit the Field Museum of Natural History and (big shocker here) I found a way to connect the experience to teaching, assessment and educational culture :)

The museum offered me the opportunity to learn about several African cultures, Ancient Chinese dynasties, Rainforest conservation in Peru, the volcanic activity that is responsible for much of Hawaii's landscape, animal adaptations, mammoths and mastodons, insects, gems, and much much more. It was truly fascinating. One of the museum's most popular attractions is SUE, the largest and best preserved Tyrannosaurus rex ever. Not actually a confirmed female, she is named for her discoverer and at 42 feet long with a 600 pound skull...she was something to behold.

   We made fast friends as I read the details of her discovery in South Dakota in 1990. Of course the dating process and removal of her valued bones was interesting but what caught my attention was the initial description of how she was found. Sue Hendrickson was digging...her purpose was to find bones, she had studied enough to know what she was looking for so much that she "noticed several dinosaur vertebrae sticking out of the face of the bluff." I laughed a little to myself upon reading that. I thought noticed dinosaur vertebrae? I'm not sure I could notice a dinosaur vertebrae in a bunch of rocks if it were bright pink and glittery! On some level, she must have known exactly what she was looking for. And then as I though more, and read more museum signs, and traveled to other exhibits I noticed a pattern; regardless of if it was a chunk of turquoise found in Brazil, a baby mammoth discovered in the tundra of Siberia, or a T-rex in South Dakota...everyone that uncovered these historical and scientific wonders was either informed enough to know what they were looking for, or engaged and curious enough to know that they had just stumbled onto something significant and awesome. 

           
And then came the connection, good teaching, authentic assessment, and student centered classrooms should be about paying attention. We need to continue to grow as teachers in our ability to observe, ask questions when something is unusual, and then study those things we find to inform our teaching and better understand our students. I can't imagine all that we would have missed if Sue Hendricks never noticed those vertebrae in the bluff, or if the Siberian travelers would have ignored the little that was showing of the baby mammoth in the ice. I also can't imagine how much information we miss about our students because of the speed at which we plow through our days, the breadth we sometimes choose to cover over the depth of knowledge we could foster, and the sad truth that sometimes we don't even know enough about what we want our students to be able to do to notice it coming through authentically.

Always more to learn, always more to do. Insatiable learning and teaching is a blessing, not a curse. 

Standards-based portfolios = life saver!

As a result of my commitment to standards-based instruction and formative assessment, I went ahead and decided to use google docs to organize evidence of my students mastery of the standards. I started by making a folder for each of them, as pictured below....

In each of their folders I made a folder for each content area, just for my own sanity and organization for when I'm retrieving the documents and images later...

While my students are working throughout the day, after I've graded important papers or as I'm listening to them read, I use the google docs app on my ipad to quickly snap pictures and upload to the individual folders by selecting the "use camera" option from the upload drop-down menu. It might seem a little clunky but I'm getting really fast at it :)

Then within the folders I have evidence of learning within that content area, as pictured below....

Which I later link to another document organized by learning target, like this...

The reason I have this secondary document is because I can more easily see who has mastered the standard and who has not...easier differentiation and grouping when I'm planning intervention and extension. 

As a side note, I want to mention that some of the "I can" statements were provided for me and some of them I designed on my own because my district hasn't gotten to that content area in their learning target development. Everything is work in progress but these folders are setting me up for more success than I could have imagined :)

Pre-assessment in math

One of the things I never felt I did a good job of in  the past was gathering pre-assessment data from my students, particularly in the beginning of the year. I was determined to change that this time around. So here are  few of the things I did....

Number collection pages, sometimes known as number collections boxes. Basically I just asked them to represent the number I wrote on the middle of their page (each child got a different number) We talked briefly about different ways (coins, pictures, equations, etc) and then I sent them off, encouraging creativity. It was a great peek into their number sense and flexible thinking. I saw full calendars drawn with numbers circles, ten sticks, clocks, coins, hands, squares, tallies, number words, and lots of others. 

 The other thing we did was math tool exploration stations. I watched and took notes as they worked , giving very little feedback, just asking questions to find out more about their thinking. They explored with ways to sort and connect dominoes, pattern block creations, counting cubes and flash cards and lastly shape stencils. Once again, I was pleasantly surprised at their work and creations, and felt as though I got some great insights about what they were capable of in terms of number sense, subitizing, addition, subtractions and shape identification. 

Reading level correlation chart

In my studies of the Common Core ELA appendix C and other supplementary resources I came to a spot where I wanted look closely at the F&P reading levels, lexile ranges suggested by the Common Core, and even DRA scores. I needed to better understand if/how they were connected. And this was the result...

I created this chart to bring some clarity to what text complexity expectations look like alongside one another :)

Learning Targets

Some Visuals to Support our Understanding....

The following figures are from Connie M. Boss and Susan Brookhart's book Learning Targets

Posting Learning Targets

If you can, try to make some permanent space for your learning targets to be posted in your classroom. This will help your students become familiar with where to check in for self-reflection. It can also be a source of anticipation as students see what they will be focusing on later in the day. Reinforcing the language of your targets by posting them is a small, yet impactful choice to make. 

Stating Learning Targets

This is an excellent example of some simple ways to anchor your students and your lessons in your learning targets. I challenge you to use "I CAN" statements in this way!

https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/making-lesson-objectives-clear

"Learning About" vs. Assessing

"Every time I talk to the children I am learning about them. I like the words 'learning about' much more than I like 'assessing.' I learn about my children. I get to know them. I want to know what they know. I want to know how they know. Isn't that what assessment is all about- learning what children know?"- Jill Ostrow, A Room With a Different View (1995)

When I read this I began thinking immediately about my notebook. The one I started my very first year of teaching. Just like most new educators, I was determined to be the "super teacher." I wanted to be different from others, I wanted to know my students so well that I could teach them in exactly the way they needed to be taught. I knew it was a lofty goal but, as usual, I was determined and  organized. I had purchased a notebook for anecdotal records and carefully labeled each page. The goal was to make notes (especially in the first days) of little things I noticed about my students. Everything from interests to friendships, fears to silly quotes. I imagined this book of observations to inform my teaching, aid in conversations with families and give me ammo when I was trying to curb out of line behaviors.

The idea came about in one of my undergrad classes on observation, I was sure it would set me a part. The notebook served its purpose for a time, I kept it neat and tidy, and within arms reach. I even did a fairly good job of writing in it regularly, for a while. But before I knew it the daily grind of answering emails, returning parent phone calls, eating 2 bites of lunch at the copy machine, searching for lost mittens... and of course teaching, got in the way of the routine of actually writing. What I developed was a mental notebook, where I still kept a "page" for each of my learners. I tuned into how they talked with their classmates, when or if they shared in class, the kind of books they were drawn to, and most of all what made them smile. I began weaving these bits of knowledge in with how I observed them performing academic tasks and quickly the "notebook pages" became like chapters in are larger reference type library I had built.

I found that when I knew what it was that they were good at, where their knowledge started and stopped and what I could do to keep each of them motivated, it transformed the culture of my classroom and my students' achievement. It wasn't really until my 3rd year in the classroom that I had a clean mental system for learning and applying all I could gather about the little humans in my classroom.

I would encourage you to ponder this as we head towards reading assessment windows and a dense time of learning in the year. I'm not telling you to start a notebook, but you can if it helps. Try to just gather information through conversation, observation and maybe even asking your students to write you letters. Allow what you learn to inform your instruction and guide the way you teach. Doing this will also help you understand their work better and support them in their learning.