IH-P1 Student Learning Assessment

A.    RATIONALE

Assessment of student performance is vital to guide the teaching-learning process.  Student engagement, and both the quality and level of academic achievement, can be increased through formative assessment.  Gains in student achievement have been demonstrated in classrooms where there are frequent, interactive assessments of student progress and understanding to identify learning needs and adjust teaching appropriately.

This assessment for learning done by the Teacher fosters an internal assessment as learning on the part of the student.  Teachers need to involve students in the learning process, as students gradually become independent learners.  The teacher must explain the learning outcomes in terms that students understand, and have them participate in:

• Setting criteria that define success;

• Determining, giving and receiving feedback; and,

• Planning the next steps to reach the learning outcomes.

Students are taught how to carefully review and refine their work.  Students gradually learn to assess themselves and their peers fairly and realistically.  Going beyond self-assessment, they are guided to make necessary adjustments to their work, by also using feedback from their peers and the Teacher.

There is also a need to summarize information on the achievement of students (summative assessment or assessment of learning) at certain points in time, to inform students, teachers, parents/guardians, and the broader educational community.  This type of information can be used to adjust the teaching-learning process, and support the ongoing dialogue with parents.  As well, parents who are given the opportunity to become familiar with alternate forms of reporting of their children’s progress, such as through more extensive use of narratives and rubrics, find this informative and helpful.  It gives them more guidance on how to better help their children with school work.

B.    PURPOSES OF ASSESSMENT

Assessment is an integral part of the educational process.  It comprises four distinct, yet related purposes.

1.  Assessment for learning

It is the ongoing analysis of the student’s learning, designed to give teachers information to plan, modify, and differentiate teaching and learning activities to meet curricular outcomes.  They use the information to determine not only what students know, but also to gain insights into how, when, and whether students apply what they know, individually and as a class.  This is both diagnostic and formative, occurs during the instructional process, and is primarily intended to inform teacher instruction.

2.  Assessment as learning

It is the process of developing metacognition for students – supporting students as they think and learn about their own thinking and learning.  This process is intentionally planned and nurtured in the classroom environment.  The purpose is for students to be engaged learners who set their own goals and monitor their own progress.  The Teacher’s role is to gradually release responsibility to students as they become independent, self-directed learners.

3.  Assessment of learning

It is the periodic summary of student progress, based on evidence indicating to what degree the student meets stated outcomes.  Assessment of learning is used to communicate progress towards standards, to the student, to the parents/guardians, and to other educators.  At the school, district, or system level, it is used in a variety of ways to support student learning by providing evidence of achievement, and to determine to what extent instructional goals have been achieved.

4.  Assessment for the identification and programming for students with special needs (Specialized Assessment):

It is specific diagnostic assessments that are completed by professionals and specialists with specialized training in the areas of Resource, Speech and Language, Psychology, Counselling, Social Work, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, etc. to provide detailed information for Individualized Education Planning.  (cite document on IEPs).  Written parental consent shall be attained prior to the completion of any specialized assessment.

5.  The purpose of specialized assessment is to provide detailed information and analysis for programming to meet the special needs of some children.  Students will not be denied an educational programming pending the completion of a specialized assessment and every effort will be made to complete specialized assessments, follow-ups, meetings and reporting in a timely manner.

C.    ASSESSMENT AND PRINCIPLES OF MEASUREMENT

Assessment is fundamentally a measurement process, subject to the principles of measurement.  In order to make the right decisions about students, it is necessary that teachers adhere to four basic principles or quality issues that are important in classroom assessment:

• Reliability

Inferences about a students’ learning should be similar when they are made by different Teachers, when the learning is measured using various methods, or when students demonstrate their learning at different times.

• Reference Points

In classroom assessment, there are three reference points Teachers use when considering a student’s performance.  How is the student performing:

• 1. In relation to some pre-determined criteria, learning outcome, or expectation (criteria or outcome-referenced).

  2. In relation to the performance of other students in the defined group (norm-referenced).

  3. In relation to his/her performance at a prior time (self-referenced).

• Validity

Validity in classroom assessment is about the accuracy of the interpretation and the use of assessment information.  Validity of classroom assessment depends on ensuring that the assessment adequately covers the targeted learning outcomes, including content, thinking processes, skills, and attitudes.  Students should also be provided with opportunities to show their knowledge of concepts in different ways (using a range of assessment approaches) and with multiple measures, to establish a composite picture of student learning.

• Record-keeping

High quality record-keeping is critical for ensuring quality in classroom assessment.  The records that teachers and students keep are the evidence that support the decisions that are made about the students’ learning.  The records should include detailed and descriptive information about the nature of the expected learning, as well as evidence of students’ learning, and should be collected from a range of assessments.

D.    ASSESSMENT PRACTICES

Current research in assessment and student learning, as well as Manitoba Education and Advanced Learning guidelines, strongly recommend the following assessment practices:

• Begin with the end in mind (Backward Mapping).

(a) Identify the desired results, the ends, the goals and outcomes to be achieved.  At the beginning of an instructional cycle, communicate to students and parents/guardians information about what constitutes essential learning in a given subject and grade level.  Identify desired results, using language that students and parents will understand.  Explain what the targets/outcomes are, and what students need to do to reach them.

(b) Determine acceptable evidence.

Written work or test results are, by themselves, insufficient evidence of learning.  Use a wide range of evidence.  Use samples or exemplars to develop criteria with students, and to give descriptive feedback to students on their work. These sources of assessment evidence may be used: observations of learning, products students create, and conversations – discussing learning with students (triangulation) – students must understand what products and performances they are accountable for producing as evidence of learning.

(c) Plan learning experiences and instruction.

Use ongoing classroom assessment to become aware of the knowledge, skills, and beliefs that students bring to a learning task. Use this knowledge as a starting point for new instruction and monitor students’ changing perceptions as instruction proceeds.  When learning is the goal, Teachers and students collaborate and use assessment and pertinent feedback to move learning forward.

• Plan for assessment FOR learning

Assessment for learning includes the collecting of specific descriptive feedback that will inform the Teacher’s next teaching steps and the student’s next learning steps towards the learning outcomes.  When students are acquiring new skills, knowledge, and understanding, they need a chance to practice.  This is the learning process.  Assessment FOR learning involves:

• • Checking to see what has been learned and what needs to be learned next, and adjusting instruction accordingly.

  • Accessing specific and descriptive feedback in relation to criteria that is focused on improvement

  • Participation by the student – the person most able to improve the learning

• Plan for assessment AS learning

When students are involved in the classroom assessment process, they become more engaged in learning.  As they self-monitor, they are developing and practicing the skills needed to be lifelong, independent learners.  Teachers need to teach students to be metacognitive learners – learners who think and learn about their thinking and learning.  They need to teach students self-assessment and peer-assessment, increasing the amount of descriptive feedback.

• Plan for assessment OF learning

The purpose of assessment of learning is to measure, certify, and report the level of students’ learning.  It requires the collection and interpretation of information about the students’ accomplishments in important curricular areas. Assessments of learning tasks need to enable students to show the complexity of their understanding, to be able to apply key concepts, knowledge, and skills.  Assessment of learning is based not only on tests and examinations, but also on a rich variety of products and demonstrations of learning – portfolios, exhibitions, performances, presentations, simulations, multimedia projects, and other written, oral, or visual methods.

E.    ACADEMIC RESPONSIBILITY

Assessment practice and policy must support students’ responsibility for their learning.  In addition to developing academic knowledge, it is important to support students in the development of lifelong learning skills and values, and that educational practice and policy reflect this.  It must be made clear to students that they are responsible for providing evidence of their learning within established timelines, and that there are consequences for not completing work and for submitting work late. 

Teachers also have important responsibilities in supporting the learning of all students.  Their responsibilities include the following:

1. Establish and clearly communicate expectations regarding assignments.

2. Set and communicate reasonable timelines for assignments and support students in meeting these timelines.

3. Establish, communicate, and apply consequences for late and missing work.  Students must understand that there will be consequences for not completing assignments that provide evidence of learning or for submitting those assignments late.  In applying consequences to late or missing work, Teachers will consider the nature of the assignment, the individual circumstances of the student (especially struggling learners), and the potential impact of the consequence on subsequent learning and motivation.  Whatever the consequence, students are ultimately responsible for the timely completion of their assignments and for knowing that there are consequences for failure to adhere to those parameters.

F.    GRADING  PRACTICES

These guidelines, outlined in Communicating Student Learning (Manitoba Education, Citizenship and Youth, 2007) form the basis for grading practices and policies that are accurate, meaningful, consistent, and supportive of learning.

• Relate grading procedures to the intended learning goals.

  • Use learning goals (not assessment methods) as the basis to record evidence and determine grades.

• Use quality assessment(s) and properly record evidence of achievement.

  • First and foremost, assessment must meet standards for quality.

  • Clear targets

  • Clear purpose

  • Appropriate target-method match

  • Appropriate sampling

  • Avoidance of bias and distortion

  • The second aspect of this guideline is that evidence of achievement and behaviour must be carefully recorded and maintained.

• Use criterion-referenced performance standards as reference points to determine grade.

  • The meaning of grades (letters or numbers) should come from clear descriptions of performance standards.

  • “If they hit the goal they get the grade!”  (i.e., No bell curves)

• Limit the valued attributes included in a grade to individual achievement.

  • The first point to emphasize in this guideline is that grades should be based on achievement (i.e., demonstration of the knowledge and skill components of the curriculum).  Effort, attitude, and other behaviours will be reported separately.  Another implication of this guideline is that grades should not be inflated by the use of bonuses or deflated by the use of penalties, without consultation with the Principal after both Teacher and student have followed due process.  

  • The second point to emphasize in this guideline is that grades should be based on the achievement individual students are able to demonstrate and not on group grades.

• Sample student performance – don’t include all scores in grades.

  • Use formative assessment to provide descriptive feedback.

  • Use a variety of summative assessments to determine grades.

• Grade in pencil – keep records so they can be updated easily.

  • Use the most consistent level of achievement with special consideration for the most recent evidence of achievement.

  • Provide several and various assessment opportunities.

• Crunch numbers carefully if at all.

  • Avoid using “mean”; consider using the median or mode.

  • Think “body of evidence” and professional judgment; determine grades based on evidence, don’t just calculate them.

• Discuss with, and involve students in assessment throughout the teaching and learning process.

G.    INTERVENTION POLICY 

Meeting deadlines

When the Teacher has followed Section F:  Grading Practices and the Academic Responsibility: Learning Takes Practice, and student work is not getting done (either drafts or final products), the following intervention steps will be implemented:

i.   Teacher and student will confer about the reasons for not completing the assignment.  Parents may be part of that conversation.

ii. An agreement will be developed for student to complete work.

iii. Student  will complete missing work during school time, at lunch or after school as arranged with the teacher.

iv.   Teacher will provide appropriate support to student, in order for student to get the work done.  

If work is not in by the agreed upon final deadline, the student can expect that the Teacher will be consulting with his/her Principal which may result in either an incomplete for the assignments or a zero.  

Regardless, students will be completing the work, as evidence of learning related to the outcome(s) is needed.

H.    ACADEMIC HONESTY

Students are expected to adhere to the highest standards of personal honesty in their work, and understand that cheating and plagiarism are serious forms of academic dishonesty that are unacceptable.

Cheating is an act of academic dishonesty and comes in many forms such as, but not limited to, copying from others, submitting assignments written by others, and using unauthorized notes, aids, or electronic equipment during an assessment.

Plagiarism, a form of cheating, is defined as the act of claiming another’s words, ideas, or work as one’s own, such as, but not limited to, copying and pasting text from electronic sources without citing and identifying it as a quotation, quoting a source without proper referencing, and paraphrasing but not citing the source.

Teachers and Principals have the following responsibilities:

• Communicate and reinforce expectations of academic honesty with students.

• Respond appropriately to academic dishonesty.

Teachers need to consider the nature of the assignment, the age and maturity of the student, the individual circumstances of the student, and the potential impact of the consequence on subsequent learning and motivation.  Whatever the consequence, students should complete the work in an honest way.

I.    RETENTION/PROMOTION

Students should be placed in the grade that is appropriate for their curricular, cognitive, social, and emotional learning needs.  Decisions around promotion or retention of students may have far-reaching implications for student success in school.

1. In Kindergarten to Grade 8, promotion decisions rest with the Principal, who consults with Teachers, parents, and other specialists as appropriate.

2. In Grades 9 to 12, the final decision on whether or not to grant credits rests with the Principal, who consults with Teachers, parents, and other specialists as appropriate.  If a student does not submit the necessary evidence of learning to be granted a credit in a course, then the student may be assigned a failing grade or be assigned a grade of “IN” (incomplete).  The “IN” indicator is not reported to Manitoba Education and Advanced Learning unless otherwise directed.  Information would only be reported to Manitoba Education and Advanced Learning once a student has been granted a percentage mark.  If an “IN” is assigned, a plan must be put in place at the school level to assist the student in submitting the outstanding evidence of learning in order to receive the credit within a reasonable, agreed-upon timeframe.

J.    EIGHT HELPFUL IDEAS

1.  Assessment serves different purposes at different times.

• • It may be used to find out what students already know and can do: diagnostic assessment.

  • It may be used to help Teachers plan instruction and students improve their learning - formative assessment – feedback provided.

  • Or it may be used to let students and their parents know how much they learned within a prescribed period of time (judging the quality of student work and using letter grades, scores or achievement levels to describe the quality).

2.  Assessment must be planned and purposeful.

Backward mapping:

• • What do I expect students to know and be able to do at the end of this unit, term, year? (curriculum question)

  • How will I determine whether they have learned these things? (assessment question)

  • What series of lessons will be most effective in enabling students to demonstrate they have learned these things? (instruction question) 

  • How will I create a classroom and school environment where students are actively involved in learning experiences and activities that contribute to students becoming engaged, developing positive beliefs about themselves as learners, the subjects they are studying, and the school they attend? (engagement question)

3.  Assessment must be balanced, including oral, performance, and written tasks and be flexible in order to improve learning for all students.

Provincial curriculum documents include a broad range of learning outcomes.  These outcomes, or learning targets, prescribe knowledge and understanding, skills, and attitudes or dispositions.  To adequately assess whether students have acquired these learning targets, a broad range of assessment strategies must be used, requiring students to:  perform or demonstrate their skills, to speak and present, to write about what they know and understand (write, do, and say tasks).

4.  Assessment and instruction are inseparable because effective assessment informs learning. 

Effective Teachers are constantly assessing their students’ learning in informal ways by listening, observing, and conferencing with them, and then using the information they gather to adjust instruction to maximize learning.  When more formal assessment has occurred (major project or test) effective Teachers carefully analyze the results and adjust subsequent instruction to address the learning gaps.

5.  For assessment to be helpful to students, it must inform them in words, not just numerical scores or letter grades.  What they need to do next in order to improve must be made clear.

Marks, scores and letter grades alone do not provide students with the information they need to improve their work.  They are merely symbols that represent degrees of quality.  They should not be the sole focus of assessment. Assessment information that improves learning provides students with clear and specific direction about what to do differently to improve the quality of their work.

6.  Assessment is a collaborative process that is most effective when it involves self, peer, and Teacher assessment.

Students, Teachers and parents have a role to play if the quality of students’ learning is to improve.  Strategies such as student work portfolios and three way conferencing are highly effective and help students plan for future learning.

7.  Performance standards are an essential component of effective assessment.

Whether assessment is being used to further student learning or to describe quality work, Teachers, students, and parents need to know the standards being used to identify quality work.  For each assessment, a set of pre-determined performance criteria are identified and student achievement is measured against those criteria.

8.  Grading and reporting student achievement is a caring, sensitive process that requires teachers’ professional judgment.

One of the essential characteristics of the teaching-learning process is the human interaction that occurs between students and a caring, sensitive, skilled teacher in determining report card grades.  The summary of learning that appears on a report card should not come as a surprise to the student, Teacher, or parents.  It should simply confirm the trend in achievement that a student has demonstrated over time.

• • • Communicating Student Learning-Guidelines for Schools Manitoba Education, Citizenship and Youth (2007)

    • Making Classroom Assessment Work – Anne Davies (2007)

    • Talk About Assessment:  Strategies and Tools to Improve Learning – Damian Cooper (2007)

    • Provincial Assessment Policy Kindergarten to Grade 12:  Academic Responsibility, Honesty and Promotion/Retention Manitoba Education (2010)

    • Growing Success:  Assessment, Evaluation, and Reporting in Ontario Schools Ontario Ministry of Education (2010)

K.    GLOSSARY

Assessment

The gathering of data about student learning/knowledge and/or skills, either through informal methods such as observations, or formal methods such as testing.  It informs our teaching and helps students learn more.

Cheating

Cheating is an act of academic dishonesty and comes in many forms such as, but not limited to, copying from others, submitting assignments written by others, and using unauthorized notes, aids, or electronic equipment during an assessment.

Communication About Student Learning

The students’ motivation and future learning are greatly affected by what we communicate to them about their learning, how we do it, and when we do it.  Ideally communication about student learning is timely, ongoing, and embedded in the learning process.  It provides direction, encourages students to set and revise goals, helps teachers plan, and assists parents/guardians in supporting the student.

Criterion-referenced Assessment

Assessment based on a prescribed set of learning expectations.

Diagnostic (Initial) Assessment

Assessment to determine appropriate starting points for instruction.

Evaluation

The making of judgments about student-demonstrated knowledge and/or skills.  A decision regarding whether or not students have learned what they needed to learn, and how well they have learned it.  The process of reviewing the evidence and determining its value.

Exemplar

A sample of student work that represents either the best or expected level of performance on a given task.

Feedback (Evaluative) (Descriptive)

 Evaluative feedback tells the learner how she/he has performed as compared to others, or to some standard (norm-referenced, criterion referenced).

 Descriptive feedback gives information that enables the learner to adjust what she/he is doing in order to improve.  It comes from many sources, such as Teachers, peers, and the students themselves as they compare their work to samples and related criteria.

Formative Assessment

Assessment that gathers data during the learning process and provides feedback to both students and Teachers to help improve learning.

Gradual Release of Responsibility

The Teacher (and the school) gradually releases responsibility to students, with the necessary supports in place to bring about real learning.

Grade (Mark) (Score)

Summarizing assessment data in the form of a letter or numerical grade.  Grades are symbols that provide summary information about student achievement.

Growth, Progress

 Growth:  a measure of the increase in student learning that has occurred over time, compared to baseline data.

 Progress:  a measure of the improvement that has occurred from a starting point or baseline towards a specified standard.

Mean, Median, Mode

 Mean:  arithmetic average of a group of marks/scores.

 Median:  middle mark/score in a group of ascending or descending marks/scores.

 Mode:  most frequently occurring mark/score in a group of marks/scores.

Metacognition

A process whereby students self-assess, reflecting on their own thinking processes, monitoring their own understanding, deciding what they need to know, organizing and reorganizing ideas, checking for consistency between different pieces of information, and drawing analogies that help advance their understanding.

Norm-referenced Assessment

Assessment that compares students’ performance to a normed sample of students who have taken the same test.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism, a form of cheating, is defined as the act of claiming another’s words, ideas, or work as one’s own, such as, but not limited to, copying and pasting text from electronic sources without citing and identifying it as a quotation, quoting a source without proper referencing, and paraphrasing but not citing the source.

Portfolio

A collection of evidence with a particular purpose, such as:  to show progress, to show process, to show “best work”, to show evidence of learning in relation to the learning destination, or to show evidence of meeting goals, or a combination of purposes.

Record-Keeping

The records that the Teacher and the student keep are the evidence that support the decisions that are made about the student’s learning.  The records should include detailed and descriptive information about the nature of the expected learning, as well as a range of evidence of the student’s learning.

Reference Point ((Performance Standard) (Standard)

Student learning is always described with reference to a performance standard (or reference point).  The standard used will be one of the following:

 Self-referenced standard, where the student’s initial assessment data are used as the reference point to measure how much growth has occurred by the second assessment.

 Norm-referenced standard, where a student’s performance is compared to a group of students of a similar age.

 Criterion-referenced standard, where a student’s performance is measured against a predetermined set of performance indicators.

Reliability

It refers to the student producing the same kind of result at different times.  It is also a measure of the consistency or stability of an assessment instrument when used repeatedly.

Rubric

An assessment tool that includes a set of performance indicators, often organized into several levels, for a given task or set of skills.

Triangulation

There are three general sources of assessment evidence gathered in classrooms:  observations of learning, products students create, and conversations – discussing learning with students.  When evidence is collected from three different sources over time, trends and patterns become apparent, and the reliability and validity of the classroom assessment is increased.  The process is called triangulation.

Validity

It refers to the extent to which the evidence from multiple sources matches the quality levels expected in light of the standards or learning outcomes.  It is also a measure of how well an assessment instrument measures what it is intended to measure.