For Olivia Lozano and Gabriela Cardenas, team teachers at the UCLA Lab School in Los Angeles, understanding what each of their students know and can do at any point in time is so integral to their practice that they call themselves 鈥渢eacher researchers.鈥�
Over the 10 years they鈥檝e worked together, the two have put formative assessment at the center of their instructional routines. Each day during workshop time, they pull students aside one-on-one or in small groups to ask open-ended questions about the lesson at hand and to gain insight into each 1st and 2nd graders鈥� thinking.
鈥淚 have a conferencing binder where I鈥檓 taking copious notes on each individual student. I analyze their work and see where they鈥檙e at,鈥� said Lozano. 鈥淚 really feel it鈥檚 grounded me and how I make decisions about what my next pedagogical move will be.鈥�
More than just a buzzword among savvy educators, formative assessment is the ongoing process of collecting data on what students know or don鈥檛 know, and changing instruction accordingly. The idea is that with a clear vision of the progress each student is making, teachers can adjust their lesson plans and provide necessary interventions to improve individual achievement. As Nancy Gerzon, a researcher at the San Francisco-based WestEd who specializes in formative assessment, explained, 鈥淚t鈥檚 differentiation with more evidence as to why you鈥檙e differentiating.鈥�
For many teachers, formative assessment has traditionally consisted of quick checks for understanding, Friday quizzes, or exit slips as students head out the door. But as the majority of teachers around the country transition to the Common Core State Standards鈥攚hich are designed to emphasize complexity, critical thinking, and skills like collaboration and reasoning鈥攕ome experts say more teachers need to deepen their assessment practices. In other words, they need to begin seeing themselves, like Lozano and Cardenas, as teacher researchers.
A Full Picture
鈥淚f you鈥檙e asking students to think critically, you have to have formative-assessment practices that tap into that critical thinking,鈥� explained Nancy Frey, an education professor at San Diego State University and co-author of a book on formative assessment.
The common standards are asking students to do that and more. They are aimed at 鈥渂uilding childrens鈥� capacity to think, and analyze, and communicate, and reason,鈥� said Margaret Heritage, the assistant director for professional development at the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing at UCLA. 鈥淲e need to know if [students are] grappling with complex ideas,鈥� said Heritage, who mentored Lozano and Cadenas. 鈥淲here are they? Is the idea beginning to consolidate? What do I need to do to go deeper and really help them get this?鈥�
All of that may be tough to measure with quick-answer questions or exit slips. Instead, to get a full picture of student understanding, teachers need to ask open-ended questions and push students to explore ideas aloud, the UCLA educators say. 鈥淲hen [students are] solving problems mathematically, they say, 鈥業 did it in my head,鈥欌�� said Cardenas. 鈥淎nd you ask, 鈥楥an you let me in to what鈥檚 going on? Into your thinking?鈥欌��
With the common standards, 鈥渃lassrooms will look different,鈥� said Heritage. 鈥淲e鈥檒l need a lot more talking, more focus, more discourse, more depth.鈥�
The national consortia charged with creating common-core-aligned tests are taking different approaches to formative-assessment items.
SOURCES: Smarter Balanced; PARCC
Cardenas and Lozano spend conference time asking guiding questions and posing strategies to help lead students toward an answer鈥攁nd to get them talking about their thinking. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e developing their metacognition skills, helping them think about 鈥榃hat kind of a learner am I? What鈥檚 going to help me learn better?鈥�,鈥� Lozano explained. 鈥淚t helps to give them a voice.鈥�
Listening Skills
Perhaps the most central aspect of being an effective teacher researcher, the team teachers say, is listening. In addition to paying attention to what students express during one-on-one sessions, teachers should be listening to what students say throughout class. 鈥淲hen children are working together, we can also listen in,鈥� said Lozano. 鈥淎nd when they鈥檙e having a difficult time explaining [what we鈥檙e working on] to each other, we can say, 鈥極K, this child needs more support.鈥欌��
Frey of San Diego State University tells teachers that, when listening closely to students, 鈥淭he question you have to ask yourself is not whether the answer is correct or incorrect, but rather what is it likely that that student knows and doesn鈥檛 know in this moment in time that would lead him to that response?鈥�
鈥淚t takes a different kind of listening,鈥� Frey said, and rather than an innate talent, it is 鈥渁 habit to be developed.鈥�
Another technique for potentially deepening assessment practices鈥攁nd complying with the new standards鈥� focus on collaboration and communication鈥攊s to have students assess each other.
Amanda Pecsi, director of curriculum at the Washington, D.C.-based Center City Public Charter Schools, pointed out that one of the mathematical practices required by the common standards is to 鈥渃onstruct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.鈥� She said this may lead to teachers using more peer review during their lessons. 鈥淚deally we want to be moving into a place where students are doing that heavy lifting and their formative assessment is how they evaluate someone else and how they talk about it.鈥�
Moving Toward Inquiry
Pecsi noted, however, that getting teachers to that point will be a process.
As of now, most of the K-8 math teachers in Center City school use an 鈥淚 do, we do, you do鈥� lesson format. After direct instruction, the students and teacher do a problem together, during which the teacher walks around to do a quick check for understanding, Pecsi explained. The lesson ends with a one- or two-question exit ticket, often made up of multiple-choice items pulled from an online assessment bank.
In light of the math common standards鈥� emphasis on performance tasks and constructing arguments, however, Pecsi said teachers will need to begin using more inquiry-based problem-solving. That might entail 鈥�20 minutes of students digging deep into one problem and debating,鈥� she said. 鈥淚deally that could be an entire lesson eventually. And that would drastically change what our formative assessment looks like.鈥�
Rather than asking multiple-choice questions or scanning quickly for right and wrong, teachers will need to be attuned to what students are saying during those discussion and debate sessions. 鈥淚f you鈥檙e walking around with a clipboard or notebook as kids are working through application, you鈥檙e hearing, are they using mathematical thinking? Are they attending to precision? How well are they using the mathematical practices?鈥� said Pecsi.
And while some teachers are already asking these questions, full-scale adoption of new assessment techniques will not happen overnight. 鈥淚 see this as being a three-year process, even though we only have a year before PARCC [the common core-aligned assessment to be used in Washington] starts,鈥� Pecsi said. 鈥淚t will take time to evolve to the point where we change to meet where the common core asks us to. In our urban environment, it鈥檚 particularly difficult.鈥�
Assessment Tools
Meanwhile, the two main common-core assessment groups鈥攖he aforementioned Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium鈥攁re planning to support teachers with formative assessment.
Smarter Balanced is putting out a 鈥渄igital library,鈥� which Chrys Mursky, the group鈥檚 director of professional learning, emphasized is 鈥渘ot a test bank of items鈥� but a group of digital resources aimed at helping teachers build their own formative assessments. The library will be available by the time the Smarter Balanced assessments are ready to use, but only for teachers in states that purchase the full suite of tests.
PARCC plans to have adaptive, online 鈥渘on-summative鈥� tests for students available to all teachers in PARCC states. However, Bob Bickerton, co-chair of the PARCC non-summative working group, said the consortium is still currently looking for a vendor for some of the formative tools, so those will not be available until the 2015-16 school year.
But it remains to be seen whether these formative-assessment tools can really offer the deep dive into student understanding that teachers are likely to be aiming for. And according to Frey, teachers are 鈥渟hifting from understanding formative assessments as a noun鈥攁s a bunch of tools鈥攖o really thinking more closely about formative assessment as a practice,鈥� and seeing more opportunities for ongoing data collection.
The data teachers are looking for, Frey said, is 鈥渁ll around you. It鈥檚 whether you choose to pay attention to it and act upon it. That鈥檚 where the struggle is.鈥�
