Issue 69: The Teacher's Role in Summative and Formative Evaluation
Last month, we mentioned the importance of establishing the purpose for collecting evidence of learning: to determine next teaching steps (formative assessment) or to evaluate learning (summative assessment). This issue begins a three-part series about the differences between the two types of assessment.
You may have heard the old-fashioned rule: ‘Thou shall not ever use formative assessments as part of a summative evaluation.’ This blanket statement is overly simplistic. Everything a student says, does or creates is potentially evidence of learning. Selected evidence from formative assessments can contribute significantly to the **accurate evaluation** of student learning. Classroom teachers need to determine the evidence of learning collected over time that is most reliable and valid, given the outcomes or standards they are responsible for helping students learn.
It is essential to explore the role of the teacher’s professional judgment in the summative assessment process and to find ways to support and enhance it. Recent research (ARG 2007. Working Papers 1 – 4: www.assessment-reform-group.org/ASF.html#Papers) is showing that the classroom teachers’ professional judgment is more reliable and more valid than external tests, when they have been engaged in:
1. constructing clear criteria describing levels of progress in various aspects of achievement
2. professional development opportunities to assure dependability of judgment
3. professional collaboration as part of a system of moderation
4. using banks of well-designed tasks with marking criteria to support judgments about achievement
5. ongoing learning, since time is needed to increase teacher competence in assessment OF learning
In LEADING THE WAY, we included two protocols on pages 171 and 174 for working with colleagues to examine student work. A **Sample Selection Protocol** can be viewed at www.annedavies.com/PDF/18A_LTW_protocol_174.pdf. You might also want to explore online and read the research work being published by Richard Daugherty, Cardiff University, Wales and Claire Wyatt-Smith and Val Klenoski, Griffith University, Queensland, Australia.
____________________________________________________
“You can use all the quantitative data you can get, but you still have to distrust it and use your own intelligence and judgment.”
~ Alvin Toffler
“Who knows better what students have achieved or are capable of doing than their teachers?”
~ John Gardner
LEADING THE WAY TO MAKING CLASSROOM ASSESSMENT WORK is part of the Leaders’ Series, available from Connections Publishing. For more info, go to connect2learning.com/store/publications/leaders-series
You may have heard the old-fashioned rule: ‘Thou shall not ever use formative assessments as part of a summative evaluation.’ This blanket statement is overly simplistic. Everything a student says, does or creates is potentially evidence of learning. Selected evidence from formative assessments can contribute significantly to the **accurate evaluation** of student learning. Classroom teachers need to determine the evidence of learning collected over time that is most reliable and valid, given the outcomes or standards they are responsible for helping students learn.
It is essential to explore the role of the teacher’s professional judgment in the summative assessment process and to find ways to support and enhance it. Recent research (ARG 2007. Working Papers 1 – 4: www.assessment-reform-group.org/ASF.html#Papers) is showing that the classroom teachers’ professional judgment is more reliable and more valid than external tests, when they have been engaged in:
1. constructing clear criteria describing levels of progress in various aspects of achievement
2. professional development opportunities to assure dependability of judgment
3. professional collaboration as part of a system of moderation
4. using banks of well-designed tasks with marking criteria to support judgments about achievement
5. ongoing learning, since time is needed to increase teacher competence in assessment OF learning
In LEADING THE WAY, we included two protocols on pages 171 and 174 for working with colleagues to examine student work. A **Sample Selection Protocol** can be viewed at www.annedavies.com/PDF/18A_LTW_protocol_174.pdf. You might also want to explore online and read the research work being published by Richard Daugherty, Cardiff University, Wales and Claire Wyatt-Smith and Val Klenoski, Griffith University, Queensland, Australia.
____________________________________________________
“You can use all the quantitative data you can get, but you still have to distrust it and use your own intelligence and judgment.”
~ Alvin Toffler
“Who knows better what students have achieved or are capable of doing than their teachers?”
~ John Gardner
LEADING THE WAY TO MAKING CLASSROOM ASSESSMENT WORK is part of the Leaders’ Series, available from Connections Publishing. For more info, go to connect2learning.com/store/publications/leaders-series
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