1. Using Formative Assessment and Technology to Raise Student Achievement
Matthew Schmitt, M.Ed
Science Curriculum Coordinator
Glendale Union High School District
Welcome people to the presentation.
Introduce myself…
Science Curriculum Coordinator for Glendale Union High School District, a 15,000+ student district of nine traditional and two alternative high schools.
Work with students from the full range of socio-economic backgrounds
Work with students from all ethnicities with the majority being Hispanic
Responsible for the design, implementation, and amendment of the curriculum, instruction, and assessment in all of the science courses for the district.

2. Presentation Objectives
Define, explain, and provide examples of the assessment cycle.
Review the available technologies to be used for formative assessment.
Highlight the rise in student achievement that the implementation of technology-aided formative assessment has had in GUHSD.
Develop formative assessment ideas for use in any science class.
In our workshop today, we will achieve the following objectives…
1. Assessment cycle
2. Technologies for formative assessment
Low to High tech
3. Achievements of GUHSD
Training of teachers
Focus on freshman and core classes
4. Collaborate to develop formative assessments that you can take with you and implement in classrooms on Monday

3. Common Formative Assessment
Assessment Cycle
Formative Assessment
Common Formative Assessment
Summative Assessment
Assessment is not a linear activity where it starts at one place and then ends at another. Instead, assessment is a cycle. While today’s focus will be on formative assessment, it is important to understand the other two assessments in the cycle to see how one affects the others and vice versa.
We will quickly cover summative and common formative assessments and spend more time on formative assessment.
The assessment cycle is something that does not only happen in education, but can be seen through many of the activities we do in our lives. Think back to the last home improvement project you did. For instance putting together a bookshelf from IKEA. The directions that some with it are like the curriculum. Formative assessment are those breaks that you take along the way to match your project with the pictures provided. This will allow you to adjust what your doing before you get too far along the process. As you continue to work, you may ask your spouse or friend to come in and check how things are going. This is like a common formative assessment where you will compare your work with the work of someone elses. They may give you tips on how to do things better or you may share what you have found works really well. Eventually you will successfully complete your project and admire your work. This is like a summative assessment. The work is done and you can evaluate how it went and make plans how you will do things better next time. The end product would not have turned out so well without those checks during the process to ensure you were on the right track and stopping and gaining input from others. Lets take this bookcase building project and now see how this more closely aligns with education and assessment.

4. Summative Assessments
…are given to determine at a particular point in time what students know and don’t know
…determine the effectiveness of already-completed instructional activities
…are focused on a grade rather than on student improvement
… provide overview of how the curriculum, instruction and assessments prepared students to master the course outcomes
…allow for refinement of curricular, instructional, and assessment practices for the following year
A summative assessment is one in which the student does not have the opportunity to retake after remediation. It is used to analyze the whole of learning that has taken place. It also provides information on the program as a whole.

5. Examples State assessments District assessments Chapter / Unit tests
AIMS
Stanford 10
District assessments
Chapter / Unit tests
Projects / Presentations
Take a couple minutes and talking with the person next to you, brain storm some ideas of what summative assessments are. Discuss when they are given and what type of information a teacher can get from these assessments.
ALLOW TIME TO TALK
Lets share some of the ideas you came up with
WRITE THEIR IDEAS ON THE LEFT SIDE
Here are a few examples that I had come up with. State assessments such as AIMS and Stanford District assessments for each subject. Chapter and unit tests that students take. These become summative assessments when students no longer receive instruction and remediation on those topics in order to improve their understanding or score. The same is true for a class project or presentation. Many teachers assign a semester project and students only have one chance to turn it in / present. This makes that assignment and assessment of that assignment a summative one.
Summative data is used to make changes for the following school year. Summative data is often used as a program review to identify topics of strength and weakness. This information is then used to adjust curriculum and materials and instruction for the next time that it is taught.
Before summative assessments though, it is a good idea to gather common formative assessment data to ensure that you are on the right track.

6. Common Formative Assessments
…given by two or more instructors on a team
…not standardized
…teacher-created and teacher-owned
…collaboratively scored
…provide immediate feedback
…results examined for best practices and remediation opportunities
Common formative assessments are blue printed, written, and edited by teachers as a team. Then all members of the team give the same assessment. The group then re-meets to analyze the results. The results can be analyzed both in terms of student learning, teacher practices, and assessment validity.

7. Examples Chapter / Unit test Quiz Projects / Presentations
Take a couple minutes and talking with the person next to you, brain storm some ideas of what common formative assessments are. Discuss when they are given and what type of information a teacher can get from these assessments.
ALLOW TIME TO TALK
Lets share some of the ideas you came up with
WRITE THEIR IDEAS ON THE LEFT SIDE
Here are a few examples that I had come up with. Chapter and unit tests can also be considered common formative assessments. They become common formative when teachers work with other teachers to create and give the same assessment. Science teachers who are all teaching the periodic table may meet before hand and decide those objectives that all students will be responsible for meeting and then collaborate to develop a unit test that they all will take at the end of the instruction time. In order for it to be considered formative, students are given the opportunity to do some form of corrective to increase their understanding and re-take the assessment. The collaboration with other teachers makes it common, the ability to re-teach and re-test makes it formative.
Teachers can gain a lot of information from common formative assessments. These are best analyzed as a group after everyone has given the assessment. Data can be gathered to identify which students struggled with which concepts and will need remediation. Teachers can also identify those students that have mastered all of the concepts and may benefit from enrichment on those topics. Along those same lines, teachers can also analyze the assessment itself for good items and bad items. Further, teachers can compare with each other. Teachers in the group that were more successful with one topic may share strategies and practices they used to gain that success.
Common formative assessments are great for use toward the end of sections or chunks of teaching. But as teachers, we can be more successful with our students when we can analyze their strengths and weaknesses before they even get to the quiz or test. This can be done with formative assessments.

8. Formative Assessment James Popham, Transformative Assessment, 2008:
Formative assessment is a planned process in which teachers use assessment-based evidence to adjust their ongoing instructional procedures and students use this evidence to adjust their current learning tactics.
The DuFours and Eaker, Revisiting Professional Learning Communities at Work, 2008:
Formative assessment is an assessment for learning used to advance and not merely monitor each student’s learning.

9. Formative Assessment … is a continuous process
… takes place during instruction
… improves students’ achievement of outcomes
… is not always a “test”, but a check for students’
understanding
… is focused on improvement rather than grades
Formative assessments are given during instruction. Teaching does not stop to assess students learning, but instead the assessment takes place as part of the learning. Grades are generally not given for formative assessment as they are focused more on informing the teacher and the student on the understanding of the concepts.

10. Examples Ask questions Bell work Pop quiz Ticket out the door
Any questions
Think-Pair-Share
Take a couple minutes and talking with the person next to you, brain storm some ideas of what formative assessments are. Discuss when they are given and what type of information a teacher can get from these assessments.
ALLOW TIME TO TALK
Lets share some of the ideas you
WRITE THEIR IDEAS ON THE LEFT SIDE
Here are a few examples that I had come up with came up with. We all ask questions of our students in class. Even when you only receive information from one student, you are still completing formative assessment from that one student. Having students complete their bell work and then share before class starts you can gain a better understanding of students knowledge. This information can then be used to monitor and adjust your teaching to ensure that all students have mastered the concept before moving onto the next concept. The same idea works for pop quizzes and bell work. When you ask the class if there are any questions, that is a formative assessment. Unfortunately with that formative assessment, you get very little participation and very little data to work with. Think-pair-share is another way of gathering information on student understanding. By walking around and listening to the conversations you can figure out which groups of students are understanding the concept and which students may need more instruction.

11. Formative Assessment Analysis
What kind of data do you get from formative assessments?
What do students do with formative assessment data?
What kind of data do we get from formative assessments? Take a moment and brainstorm how that data might be collected and what form it might take.
ALLOW TIME TO THINK
Lets share some ideas with what we came up with.
Often there is no physical data that comes with formative assessment. Unless you walk around with a notepad and are keeping tick marks, most formative data is what I call ‘use it and lose it’ type data. You get what you wanted from the formative assessment, you adjust your teaching to match the needs, and then you forget about it. Formative assessment provides data on what needs to be changed right then and there. Teachers should not keep pressing forward if 75% of the class is unable to answer the question. The teacher will stop, and adjust their teaching to go over the concept again until every students understands. Then another formative assessment is given to show that all students understand and then the teacher moves on. The data is used and instruction is adjusted. The data is not saved or assigned to any particular student. Teachers may note students who are not mastering any concepts and choose to meet more with those students, but overall formative assessment data is not logged.
What can students do with formative assessment data?
Take a moment and brainstorm that and what form it might take.
Students can use formative assessments to monitor their own learning. When asking questions to the whole class, to that student, or to other students they can assess their own knowledge. Did they know the answer, did they know part of it, or where they clue free. They can begin to determine those areas where they may need further instruction or what types of questions they still need to ask.

12. Common Formative Assessment
Assessment Cycle
Formative Assessment
Common Formative Assessment
Summative Assessment
Having reviewed the three different assessments in the cycle, it is now clear how they flow.
Another analogy that we can use to refer to the assessment cycle has to do with one of my favorite restaurants.
Tell the Butterburger story.
Summative = autopsy
Formative = check ups
Now that we have talked about what assessment is and the importance of formative assessment in increasing achievement through teachers ability to monitor and adjust their teaching. Lets discuss a few of the tools that teachers can use to conduct formative assessments.

13. Formative Assessment Tools
NO TECH
LOW TECH
Thumbs up / down
1 – 5
Verbal questions
Popsicle sticks
White boards
Student Response Systems
Formative assessment does not require any technology. You can do formative assessment with the whole class just using students own bodies. A thumbs up / thumbs down question to see if students agree with a statement you made will let you know which students are understanding the concept and which are not. For example, thumbs up if you believe that protons are positive and neutrons are negative, thumbs down if you disagree. From here teachers can assess which students understand sub atomic charges and which students need more explaining.
Another tool is the 1 – 5. students hold up their hands with a certain number of fingers to indicate their answer. It can be used to poll students. 1 finger being not understanding the material and 5 being ready to move on. Or it can be used like a multiple choice. 1 finger for A, 2 for B, etc. and you can ask multiple choice questions and gather students answers.
These two tools involve all the students participating. It holds students accountable for providing an answer without the stress of everyone waiting on and / or listening to their answer.
Using verbal questions is great to ask follow up questions to thumbs up / down and 1-5 questions. Asking for students who do understand to repeat the concept in their own words or asking students who don’t understand the concept to pose a question that will help them.
Other formative assessment can be done with use of low tech tools.
Popsicle sticks are used with names written on them to randomly call on students to answer questions. This helps eliminate any bias the teacher may have when calling on students. This also raises the level of anxiety with students as they feel they need to pay closer attention not knowing when their name might be called. Doesn’t take a lot, but students pay close attention and the teacher still gains information about student understanding through asking questions of random students.
The use of personal or small group white boards is also a great formative assessment tool. Students are asked questions, they put their answer on a small white board and hold it up. This holds all students accountable for an answer. This tool however allows teachers to gain more information as students can provide more information on their board. Such as drawing an atom, or showing their work on a velocity or conversion problem. This also provides students with some security that they do not have to verbally say their answer in front of everyone.
In the GUHSD we purchased student response systems, also known as clickers. These are high tech tools that work off radio waves to send data from individual response pads that students have to the teachers computer. Results can be shown on the board and reviewed all together as a class or just saved on the teachers computer for review. This tool allows for students to answer multiple choice questions, numeric questions, and they can even text short answers in. Teachers can incorporate the clicker software directly into their power point and smart board lessons to assess students learning during the lesson. This technology also allows teachers to bring in images to manipulate and ask questions about. The clicker system can be used with already created quizzes to grade students answers instantaneously while providing reports on student achievement, item analysis, student objective comprehension, and more.

14. GUHSD Success Assessment Literacy Course
Trained 500+ teachers
On-going professional development
Observations about student achievement in GUHSD
Lower drop-out rate
Higher graduation rate
Lower freshman failure rate
At Glendale Union, we have taken a very forward approach on formative assessment. We have trained over 500 teachers on the different types of assessment though a course we call Assessment Literacy. It is a three day professional development course that goes into great depth on the types of assessment, how to create them, how to analyze them, and how students can benefit from them. With this training, teachers are also provided with a classroom set of clickers to use. Teachers in the GUHSD incorporate this technology daily to help raise student achievement.
Through our technology trainers, we provide on-going professional development on the use of the technology to increase not only the amount of formative assessment but also the rigor and relevance of the assessments. Teachers have multiple opportunities each month to continue their professional development.
Over the past three years, since the implementation of the Assessment Literacy course in our district some observations have been made about our student achievement. While this achievement cannot be claimed as the only factor to help us achieve these results, they have been a major effort and initiative in our district and a driving force in teachers instruction and assessment.
The GUHSD drop out rate is at an impressive 1.32 %
The GUHSD graduation rate has jumped up over 90% to 92%.
As well, our focus last year was to get freshman teachers trained in assessment literacy and using the student response systems and we saw a lowering of freshman failure rate of 12% across the district.
GUHSD has found a lot of success by using formative assessment and technology to increase student achievement. One final objective of this presentation is for you to be able to leave here with ideas on how you can implement formative assessments and technology, whether it be high or low or no tech, in your classrooms.

15. Formative Assessment in Science
Lets take some time to brainstorm some ideas on the types of formative assessment that can be used at your school and in your classroom.
ALLOW TIME TO THINK AND SHARE
Lets share some of these ideas with each other
WRITE IDEAS ON THE SLIDE
I would like to thank each of you for attending this presentation. I hope that you are able to walk away from here with some ideas on how to use formative assessment and technology in your classrooms to help raise your students achievement. If you, your school, or your district is interested in learning more about the Assessment Literacy course that we offer, please do not hesitate to contact me. Or if you have any other questions, please send me an and I will get back to you as soon as possible. Have a great rest of the day.