1. Formative Assessment in the Classroom
Margaret Heritage
EED Winter Conference: Informing Instruction, Improving Achievement
Anchorage, Alaska - January , 2007
UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing

2. Overview What is Formative Assessment?
Elements of Formative Assessment
Examples of Formative Assessment
Teacher Knowledge, Skills and Attitudes
A Conceptualization of the Domain of Teaching for Formative Assessment

3. What is Formative Assessment?

4. What is Formative Assessment?
An Ongoing Process To:
Evoke evidence about student learning
Provide feedback about learning to teachers and to students
Close the gap between the learner’s current state and desired goals

5. Formative Assessment Must Be:
Clearly and directly linked to instructional goals
Embedded in instruction
A variety of methods and strategies
Used to make changes

6. Elements of Formative Assessment

7. Identifying the Gap
Formative assessment is the means to identify the “gap” between a learner’s current status and the desired goal
Different students will have different "gaps"
(Sadler, 1989)

8. The “Just Right Gap”
Student perceives the gap as too large - goal unattainable
Student perceives the gap as too small - closing it might not be worth the individual effort
(Sadler, 1989)

9. Interpretive Framework
Teachers need to interpret evidence from formative assessment
Having an interpretive framework means having a roadmap articulating the sub goals that constitute progression toward the ultimate goal
Interpretive frameworks provide the touchstone for formative assessment strategies
Evidence is interpreted within the framework

10. Interpretive Framework
Developmental criteria (Harlen, 2006)
Theory of knowledge in a domain (NRC, 2001; Shavelson, 2006)
Ontology (Baker, 2005)
Clearly articulated progression of learning in a domain (Forster & Masters, 2004; Wilson & Sloane, 2000)

11. Closing the Gap
“Formative assessment gathers and uses information about students’ knowledge and performance to close the gap between students’ current learning state and the desired state by pedagogical actions”
(Shavelson 2006, p.3)

12. Matching Action to the “Gap”
The zone of proximal development
Scaffolding instruction within the zone of proximal development

13. Feedback
Feedback to teachers about current status to adapt instruction
Feedback to students to respond to instructional adaptations

14. Feedback: Students
Clear, descriptive, criterion-based feedback to students that indicates:
√ where they are in the learning progression
√ how their response differed from that reflected in desired learning goal
√ how they can move forward

15. ”Feedback Loops”
Feedback loops include a teacher who knows which skills are to be learned, who can recognize and describe good performance, demonstrate good performance, and indicate how poor performance can be improved.
(Sadler 1989, p.120)

16. Shared Ownership
Teachers and students have shared understanding and ownership of the learning goal
Students become involved in self- assessment
Students need to learn the strategies of self-assessment
Students make “more knowledgeable decisions regarding their current learning tactics” (Popham, 2006)

17. Summing Up
Formative assessment is a means to continuously gather evidence and provide feedback about learning so that pedagogical actions can be adapted to meet learning needs, and so that students can be active participants with their teachers in understanding how their learning is progressing and how improvements can be made.

18. Formative Assessment Methods

19. Methods
On-the-fly
Planned for interaction
Curriculum embedded

20. A Typology of Formative Assessment
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A Typology of Formative Assessment
Performance tasks (teacher observation of student(s) carrying out an investigation, oral presentation)
Written tasks (teacher analysis science notebooks, history essay, literature response, explanation of mathematical strategy)
Discussions (questions, teacher listens to group discussion, teacher/student conferences)
Tests (quizzes , tests of discrete skills, diagnostic tests)
Student self-assessment

21. Assessment Cycles To adjust the slide numbering, do the following:
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Assessment Cycles
Type
Focus
Length
Short-cycle
Within a single lesson
Five seconds to one hour
Medium-cycle
Between lessons
One day to two weeks
Long-cycle
Between instructional units
Two weeks or more
Wiliam, 2006

22. Validity and Reliability
Purpose
Consequence
Formative assessments do not stand alone

23. Examples of Formative Assessment

24. Elementary Mathematics
Heritage & Niemi, 2006

25. Middle School Science
What would happen to a tennis ball dropped from a height of 100
feet into 30 feet of water?
New Standards, 1989

26. Elementary Science Bailey & Heritage, (forthcoming)
How is sedimentary rock formed?
Is igneous rock onli in the crust?
Why is there three cain of roks?
Why shaps of animals are in rocks?
Are there minerals and rock?
In the earth are always rocks
What are rocks made of?
What are other things that rocks are maid of?
What is a mineral?
Are rocks old or new?
Bailey & Heritage, (forthcoming)

27. Elementary Reading Text: The sun was hot. Marco: The sun was hot.
Text: Pop had a top hat.
Marco: Pop had a t-o-p …pot hat.
Text: Mom had a red wig.
Marco: Mom had a red w-i-g---giw.
Bailey & Heritage, (forthcoming)

28. Middle School Mathematics
Group 1: Division of fifteen-fifths means a fraction or a division. Fifteen divided by five is three.
Group 2: Division means dividing some numbers and make it to a smaller number. Fifteen-fifths is fifteen divided by five. That makes three.
Group 3: Division is opposite of multiplication. Fifteen-fifths is like five goes into fifteen and that makes three because three times five is fifteen.
Group 4: Division is when you flip the number when you divide and when you multiply. Fifteen-fifths is like five times something is fifteen, so the answer is three.
Group 5: Division is dividing one number by another to solve the problem. Like fifteen-fifths is X so, then five times X equals three.
Heritage, Silva & Pierce, 2006

29. Middle School Science
Student response: If there is a block of steel, and you put it in water, it sinks because it had more mass. If you put a hollow piece of steel of the same mass, and shaped like a banana, it would float because it was shaped different, so it could float. For example, a fish has a swim bladder. He can let air in and out, and that is for him to go up or down or sub-surface.
Gearhart et al., 2006

30. Characteristics Linked to instructional goals
Integrated into instruction
Provide ongoing feedback at a level of detail to stimulate action for improvements in learning
Constructed and undertaken within an interpretive framework
Enable descriptive feedback to be provided to students
Involve students in the assessment process

31. Teacher Knowledge, Skills and Attitudes for Formative Assessment

32. Content Knowledge
Knowledge, concepts and skills that need to be taught within a domain
Learning pathway/progression of sub goals
Knowledge of “good performance”
Necessary precursor knowledge and understanding
Knowledge of student metacognition (self-regulation, self assessment, motivation)

33. Pedagogical Content Knowledge
Multiple models of teaching for student achievement in content areas
“Gap” will differ so multiple, differentiated instructional strategies
Multiple models for teaching student metacognitive strategies

34. Student Prior Knowledge
Prior knowledge students bring to the new learning
How to determine prior knowledge

35. Assessment Knowledge
Range of methods/strategies for formative assessment (on-the-fly, planned for interaction, curriculum- embedded)
Formative assessment cycles
Validity – purpose and interpretation
Reliability

36. Skills Interpretation of evidence Adapting instruction
Determining the zone of proximal development
Supporting new learning within the zone of proximal development (scaffolding) – selecting the right strategy

37. Skills Providing clear, descriptive, criterion- based feedback
Feedback indicates to student how they can move forward
Assisting students to develop metacognitive knowledge and "learning tactics”(Popham, 2006)

38. Attitudes Formative assessment is worthwhile
Formative assessment yields valuable and actionable information about students’ learning
Formative assessment is integral to instruction
Students are partners in formative assessment and in learning

39. Toward a Conceptualization of the Domain of Teaching for Formative Assessment

40. Conceptualizing the Domain

41. Conceptualizing the Domain

42. Conceptualizing the Domain

43. Conceptualizing the Domain

44. Conceptualizing the Domain

45. Conceptualizing the Domain

46. Conceptualizing the Domain

47. Conceptualizing the Domain

48. Conceptualizing the Domain