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A Diagnostic Assessment is a vital component of planning. It is an expectation that all teachers begin their course with a diagnostic assessment.
Diagnostics inform teachers and students of gaps that we can work on and build together as we plan for future learning activities and next steps. Not all students will benefit from the same style of diagnostic. Offer choices and flexible opportunities to share understanding.
Please see subject-specific curriculum for diagnostics created for English, Math and Science.
View presentation on interactive strategies here.
When planning assessments, consider the following guidelines as outlined in Growing Success (2010):
Diagnostic and formative assessments are used as a planning tool to inform instruction. Diagnostic (as learning) and formative (for learning) assessments should not be used for marks and/or evaluation purposes;
Diagnostic assessments are used at the beginning of a course or unit of study. Diagnostic assessments help plan for gap closing;
Diagnostic Benchmarks
Diagnostic Benchmarks
•What is the intent of a diagnostic?
•What are the essential skills within the subject area?
•What are the next steps based diagnostic and formative assessments?
•How are you providing effective and relevant feedback?
•What do multiple opportunities to demonstrate learning/mastery look like?
•How am I recording and tracking data?
•How many times do overall expectations need to be assessed?
•How can I approach curriculum with the end in mind, adhering to Learning for All?
Look for: critical thinking skills and reasoning related to the topic, can catch misconceptions
Look for: proper paragraph structure, learning about your student's content knowledge as well as their interests
Look for: details & key terms about what students remember about the topic, can catch misconceptions
How can we share these 'next steps for learning' in a way students are excited and not discouraged to learn more?
How has capturing what students have been saying, doing and writing helped you increase the validity and reliability of your assessment, and inform your next steps?
How are students tracking their progress to self-assess and set the stage for metacognition?
Brainstorming
Brainstorming
Mindmaps
60 Second Thoughts
Quick Write / Quick Draw
Question Formulation Technique
Inquiry Charts
Google Meet Breakout Rooms
Visuals
Visuals
Images as prompts
Observe and Infer
Photo Elicitation
Matching Concepts & Visuals
Which One Doesn't Belong?
Inquiry Chart
Creating Moments
Creating Moments
How can we create memorable moments?
Enhanced Learning Experience
Is there an opportunity for student voice and choice?
Creating Products
Creating Products
Develop a product to demonstrate learning or previous knowledge
Digital Tools
Digital Tools
TVDSB Approved Digital Tools to Support Diagnostics listed below and/or watch this video for tool summaries:
Flipgrid
Pear Deck
Padlet
Google Meet
Google Slides
Canva
Jamboard
What to do with the results?
What to do with the results?
Focus time on topics or big ideas (Overall expectations) students still need to learn when starting a new concept.
Provide additional support work to those who didn't understand.
Plan to teach the concept in a new way if very few students understood & effectiveness of the teaching process.
Allow students to discuss ideas in small groups.
Students who understood could apply their learning in different contexts/produce new examples.
Make connections to out of class experiences to deepen learning. Provide enhancement opportunities.
Spiral content. Create small diagnostics for future learning.
· Formative assessments are checkpoints along the way. A method to provide this type of assessment is through effective and purposeful descriptive feedback; and,
· Ensure that summative evaluations link directly to the Overall Expectations as evidence of learning and include the most recent and consistent data collected for each course in the determination of marks.
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