The Key to Teaching for Performance

“The more you teach without finding out who understands the information and who doesn’t, the greater the likelihood that only already proficient students will succeed.” Grant Wiggins Eutopia April/May 2006

informs both teacher and learner about understanding elicits evidence of learners’ understanding allows for informed instructional adjustments encourages learners to monitor and adjust their learning strategies promotes meaningful conversation between teachers and learners

 Instruction should include planned opportunities to find out where learners are against the learning goal.  Instruction should be flexible enough to take any opportunity and use it to diagnose progress toward the learning goal.  Deciding what to do next should be predicated on the best available information.

The Teacher -- Emphasizes learning ahead of grades Focuses on conceptual understanding rather than just factual knowledge Respects and activates prior learning Includes learners in the assessment process The Learner-- Understands concepts in addition to just knowing facts Takes risks without fear of penalty Assumes ownership of his own learning Plays a role in the assessment process

“Assessment always has more to do with helping students grow than with cataloging their mistakes.” Tomlinson, 1999

assessment for learning assessment of learning quality controlquality assurance teachinglearning regulating activityregulating learning learning targets vague objectives

Traditional assessment: typically used to assign grades at a benchmark point in the learning cycle Formative Assessment: tool to improve the quality of teaching and learning through a learning- focused classroom

Desired goal Being explicit about learning l earning intentions and success criteria Focusing feedback on improvement Questions, conversations, feedback and/or self-assessment Actual learner proficiency Gap Gathering evidence of learning Questions, conversations, observations and/or self-assessment

“We can make trains run on time, but if they do not go where we want them to go, why bother?” Neil Postman