Tamara Griffith
Investing Students in Assessment
All too often, students view the grade they receive on an assignment as the end of the assessment process. However, assessment does not stop at the receipt of a grade. Moreover, investing students in assessment is a crucial component of the assessment process. When students recognize that they have a voice in assessment and that their voices are powerful, student achievement increases as students propel themselves toward incredible learning gains. Furthermore, student engagement in assessment ultimately leads to improved self-regulation, which allows students to make adjustments and improvements to their current behaviors and expended effort. This allows students to make progress toward attainment of their learning goals and toward the class's big goals. As students reflect upon their work, make adjustments to their behaviors, and take ownership of their learning, their confidence increases, allowing them to see value in their work and to strive for greater academic success.
Every Friday, students assess their progress toward their goals and amend their goal to reflect the progress they're making in the classroom by completing the tracker to the left. This ensures that students are making strides towards ambitious goals and provides students with a visual representation of their progress in my classroom. Monthly, if not biweekly, I conference with students regarding their progress, and, together, we evaluate their goals and their progress toward goal attainment before generating specific action steps that will lead the student toward improved academic outcomes and greater motivation. A sample of the notes from one of these conferences is included on the tracker to the left.
The slideshow below showcases students checking their grades and completing their trackers.
Goal-Setting & Tracking:
One way that I seek to invest students in assessment is by having them set goals and track their progress toward goal attainment. Having students visually track their progress holds them accountable for reaching both their goals and the classroom big goals and allows them to take ownership of their learning. This also gives students a visual representation of their progress and enables them to assess, for themselves, that they are moving in the right direction. If students are not making progress, then they can determine action steps they will need to take in order to get back on track. As students come close to reaching their goals, we discuss what actions and Habits of Mind are leading them down the path of success. In addition, students adjust and modify their goals to ensure they are consistently working toward ambitious outcomes. Throughout this process, students are consistently engaged in self-assessment and reflection, which guides their progress toward mastery.
Feedback:
In order for students to continually make progress with the standards, they must be given feedback. This feedback allows students to know how, where, and what to improve, enabling them to take ownership of their learning by making adjustments to their study habits, work ethic, and/or expended effort. In order to be effective, feedback must be phrased positively. Strictly negative feedback will cause students to shut down, leading to disengagement and lower achievement.
While I provide feedback to students in a variety of ways, one of students' favorite methods of receiving feedback is with stickers and stamps. When I notice that students are putting forth great effort while completing their assignments, I stamp their work or place a sticker on their work. This does two things: first, it shows students that I see the hard work they are putting into doing well on an assignment or task, and two, when scoring students' work, if students were putting forth their best efforts and working productively but still were not successful with an assignment, I know that I will need to go back and reteach that assignment. This method helps me assess whether students were unsuccessful with an assignment because they truly didn't understand the material or because they merely weren't putting forth their best efforts.
In order for feedback to be effective, it must be given routinely and in a timely manner. This allows students to make the connections between their effort, their grade, and comments given by me as their teacher. However, in order for this feedback to be given routinely and in a timely manner, students must also do their part to ensure that their work is submitted on time so that subsequent feedback can be given within the context of their learning. When work is turned in late, it is stamped with a late stamp. If students turn in three assignments late, they are required to track the submission of their assignments to help them keep track of due dates and completed work. If students make below a 70% on any summative assignment, their work is stamped with the please sign and return stamp. Students must bring in their signed quiz/test and their corrections within one week; they may make the quiz/ test corrections during tutoring, after completion of their classwork, or on their own. This gives students the opportunity to take ownership of their learning, communicate with their parents how they have done, and allows them to rectify any misunderstanding with that standard. Navigate the slideshow and PDF below to view students completing test corrections and to explore samples of students' completed test corrections.
Peer & Self Assessments:
Another way I get students invested in assessment is by having them assess themselves and each other. When students become the assessors, they play a more active role in their education as they must have a deeper understanding of what they should know and be able to do with a given standard in order to reach a targeted learning goal. By giving each other specific feedback, students can deepen their own understandings of the content as they must be able to defend or justify their evaluation of themselves or of others with relationship to the specific learning target. This requires students to possess a deep understanding of the expectations involved with the assignment and/or standard in order to demonstrate success. Additionally, this process ensures that students understand how their own work is, or will later be, evaluated by me, therefore reinforcing what high-quality work, proficiency, and mastery look like. When students are familiar with what is expected of them and when they know what high quality work looks like, they will be more invested in putting forth the effort required to be successful because they have received the necessary feedback required for them to progress toward that work.
Students frequently assess each other during Socratic Seminars. During Socratic Seminars, each student receives a partner that evaluates him/her while he/she is discussing the focus question in the inner circle. After the seminar discussion, the students pair up and review their peer feedback. Below are samples of students' peer evaluations from a Socratic Seminar.
Our Effort is Top of the Line:
When students put forth their best effort, their work is displayed for other students to see and appreciate. Sometimes, the work that students complete together in cooperative groups is hung up as well. This reinforces the idea that all students should be putting forth their best efforts regardless of whether they are working individually or collaboratively. Even though my students range in age from 11-14, they still take pride in having their work prominently displayed for the class. In fact, during parent night, students proudly showed their parents their displayed work, explaining what they learned from the assignment and why their work had been chosen to be displayed. Additionally, many of my students are historically low achievers, so I also hang up student work that demonstrates growth; thus, A work is not the only work that gets displayed. If I only hung up A quality work, some students would rarely have their work displayed, thereby alienating some of my students. By emphasizing growth and progress over proficiency, my students are more invested in making the effort needed to eventually get to greater levels of mastery.
"In an effective classroom, students should not only know how they are doing, they should also know how and why."
~Harry Wong
Sample student's ELA grade tracker with conference notes.
A collection of stickers and stamps that I use to provide feedback on students work and/or effort is pictured above.
These are the stamps I use to stamp late or unsatisfactory work.
These are the tickets I use to provide specific feedback during a lesson and/or formative assessments.
Another way that I provide feedback occurs during a lesson and/ or formative assessment. Whenever students volunteer to share an answer or contribute to the class discussion, they are given a blue ticket. Students can also receive blue tickets when they contribute productively during group work. Not only does this reinforce my expectation to have 100% classroom engagement, but it also keeps students attentive and engaged in the lesson, which allows me to make observational formative assessments on a greater number of students. Students keep their blue tickets in an envelope inside their journals, and once they have attained a certain number of blue tickets, they may trade them in for a reward.
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5 tickets = a positive phone call home
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10 tickets = free pencil
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20 tickets = homework pass
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25 tickets = a day of free seating
In addition to using stickers, stamps, and tickets, I also provide students with extensive written feedback within a day or two of students' completion of the assignment. Although providing extensive feedback in a timely fashion requires a significant time commitment, I have found that the time it takes to provide this type of feedback is worth it. As a result of timely descriptive feedback, students are able to recognize and correct their misunderstandings in the context by which it was learned. After graded assignments have been returned, I review correct responses and display high quality responses to ensure that the feedback is meaningful to all learners and to ensure that students can recognize and identify high-quality work.
Review the PDF below to explore samples of the extensive written feedback that I have provided to students on a variety of grammar, writing, and reading tasks.
In addition, the goals that students create follow a specific format in order to ensure that their goals are appropriately ambitious and attainable. This format is the SMART goal format, which ensures that students' goals are specific, measurable, achievable, results-based, and time-bound. Furthermore, this structure ensures that students are working towards goals they can and will achieve. Without this structure, students tend to list things they want to accomplish, but which may or may not be feasible given their current skills or timetable. This framework helps keep students goals manageable and realistic. As they achieve their goals and experience success, they become more invested and motivated to learn, leading to improved instructional outcomes.
Sample student's amended SMART goal and reflection stemming from our conference.
Classroom rules, routines, and procedures tracker.
Above are two samples of students' peer evaluations and justifications after a Socratic Seminar discussion.
This is the rubric by which students' scored each other on the A-F scale for the Socratic Seminar.
Here, both students scored each other according to the rubric to the left. They offered justifications and evidence to support their score evaluation, though student 1 provided a more thorough analysis of student 2, clearly demonstrating that he/she used the rubric to guide his/her evaluation. Student 1 also offered suggestions for how student 2 could improve his/her performance in upcoming seminars, which is an important aspect of providing feedback and being a critical friend. Student 2 offered a more subjective rationale for his/her evaluation of student. Moving forward, I might spend some time with him/her covering how to use the rubric to provide an objective score. When students evaluate and assess each other, it is crucial that their feedback is objective and offers suggestions for improvement. Objective feedback allows students to better understand the assessment process and ensures that students are receiving honest constructive criticism they can apply to form deeper understandings so that students can learn from each other.
In addition to peer assessment, students also invest in assessment by evaluating themselves. When students assess their own learning, they take responsibility for their learning by actively engaging in their own growth as a learner. This allows them to make more significant academic improvements and learning gains as they can identify how they came to understand a concept rather than merely regurgitate what they learned. Often, self-assessments allow students to determine their strengths and areas of growth, which provides me with specific feedback as to where they are struggling or where they lack confidence with a particular skill. Sometimes, a student may perform well with a given standard or concept, but a lack of confidence may be holding him/her back from mastery. By giving students the opportunity to self-assess, they are able to reflect upon their performance in ways that allow me to make instructional decisions that will support their learning and mastery. When students recognize that I utilize their reflections to modify and adjust lessons, they become more invested in and engaged with both the content and their own growth.
Students complete these self-assessments in a variety of ways. Sometimes, students engage in self-assessment by completing a formal reflection after completing a summative task. For example, students completed a self-assessment reflection after completing their diagnostic informative essay. Student samples of this self-reflection are included below.
These particular student reflections were quite telling in terms of students' understanding of the FSA Writing Rubric, as they scored themselves significantly above their performance according to the rubric. By having students complete this self-assessment and reflection, I was able to compare my observational assessment data from scoring their essays to their own assessments. In so doing, I was able to see an alignment between students' perceived strengths and areas of growth that better inform my teaching and involve students in the process. As a result of my observational data and students' reflections, this particular prompt will not be used as a baseline next year as the content is too complex without explicitly teaching the articles, which the students picked up on in their assessment as well. As these samples indicate, even 6th graders can be incredibly insightful in determining their own strengths and areas of growth. This insight can lead to significant instructional innovations when leveraged to make future instructional decisions.
Students also engage in self-assessment through less formal exit tickets. This allows them to assess their knowledge and skills after learning a concept and/or skill or after practicing or applying their skills. Review the PDF below to see examples of students' self-assessments with two different standards.
Another way I engage students in assessment is through collective tracking. Our primary collective tracker is our bulletin board, which serves as a class tracker of our rules, procedures, and routines. Each day, before reciting our classroom mantra, we evaluate how successful we were as a class at adhering to our classroom expectations. Assessing the class's performance at the end of each class period helps hold each class accountable for adhering to high expectations. This process also allows students to take ownership of their behaviors and the role that they play, both individually and collectively, in ensuring our class runs efficiently. As a result, students are more engaged in class, and I spend less time policing negative student behaviors since students will police themselves. When classes receive a certain number of points, they are able to choose a class reward.
Class rewards include the following:
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A day of free seating
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Candy/ treat
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15 minutes of free reading
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Listen to music during independent work
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Choose a brain break
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Use a special pen/ utensil to complete work
A variety of student work is prominently hung and displayed from a clothesline in the back of the classroom.
Student 1
Student 2
Student 3
Tickets are used as a way to reinforce positive habits and work ethics in the class. Typically, I keep tickets in my pocket so that I can subtly pass them out while students are completing their work. If every student in the class earns a blue ticket during a class period, the class receives a point for 100% engagement.
Sometimes, tickets are given to students while they are working productively on independent tasks.
Ultimately, this system would not be effective if there was not buy-in from my students. In students' reflections, they indicated that, overall, tickets help them set goals for their learning by helping them stay on track and work harder to meet their learning goals.
Tickets are used as a way to reinforce positive habits and work ethics in the class. Typically, I keep tickets in my pocket so that I can subtly pass them out while students are completing their work. If every student in the class earns a blue ticket during a class period, the class receives a point for 100% engagement.
Most often, I place stickers on assignments that demonstrate mastery with 80% or above. This allows me to monitor learner progress and provides students with feedback regarding their mastery of content.
Other times, I use stickers as a form of encouragement to further engage students in the assessment process. For example, a sticker was placed on this assignment to recognize the growth of this ELL student in terms of her writing. Additionally, feedback was left in both English and Spanish so that I could effectively and descriptively communicate this student's progress toward mastery to her.
Another way I provide students with feedback is through stamps. Every Monday, students copy down the weekly agenda in their planners, planners that were given to every student at the beginning of the school year by the school. Students are responsible for writing down the concepts they will learn, homework assignments and upcoming due dates to help actively engage them in the assessment process.
Most often, I place stickers on assignments that demonstrate mastery with 80% or above. This allows me to monitor learner progress and provides students with feedback regarding their mastery of content.
In this image, a student sets up her data tracker for the first time while checking her grades and assignments.
This image depicts a student reviewing her graded assignments online via her cellphone prior to completing her tracker. Allowing students to assess and track their progress in class gives students the opportunity to ask for clarification about assignments and/or submit missing or incomplete work.
Here, a student adjusts his/her goal after conferencing with me about his/her progress. Afterwards, he/she completed a short reflection to examine his/her thinking about his/her goals and progress.
In this image, a student sets up her data tracker for the first time while checking her grades and assignments.
Another way that students use tracking to engage learners in their own growth is by tracking their semester exam data. In sixth grade, students complete cumulative semester exams for the first time. After students' semester exams have been graded and reviewed, students complete the tracker to the left. As students complete their trackers, they determine whether or not they have almost mastered or mastered a skill. If students have almost mastered a skill, indicated by a score of 67-79%, they place a star next to that skill. If they have mastered the skill, they circle yes. After completing the tracker, students answer several reflection questions on the back, which include: Does any part of your data surprise you? What skills are you close to mastering? What skills have you mastered? What will you need to do to master any unmastered skills?
Ultimately, when students complete trackers and reflect upon their progress, they are able to articulate specific actions they need to take to improve their academic achievement. As a result, this process guides students' progress toward attainment of key learning goals.
Navigate the slideshow below to explore additional ways I utilize stickers and stamps to provide timely and effective feedback to learners about their progress.
Moreover, when students are given specific and timely feedback, they are able to recognize their progress. As students begin to make adjustments based upon the meaningful, timely feedback they have been given, they will feel a greater sense of accomplishment as they apply this feedback to get closer to achieving proficiency and then mastery. The more accomplished students feel, the more motivated they become. When students are motivated, they reach greater levels of academic achievement as they are more likely to advocate for themselves and thereby improve their mastery of the content.
To explore specific examples as to how blue tickets are used to engage learners in their progress, navigate the slideshow below.
This image depicts a student completing test corrections after completing his classwork. Typically, this test correction form is attached to any summative assessment that does not achieve mastery, 80% or higher, although only students who receive a 70% or less are required to complete corrections. Often, however, even students who have achieved mastery complete corrections so that they can learn from their mistakes.
This image depicts another student completing test corrections. When students complete their test corrections during tutoring or after they complete their classwork, they often ask me questions to help them improve their understanding of the material, thus allowing them to truly engage with their thinking as they review and correct their prior misunderstandings.
A third student completes his test corrections as a way to engage in his own growth as a learner.
This image depicts a student completing test corrections after completing his classwork. Typically, this test correction form is attached to any summative assessment that does not achieve mastery, 80% or higher, although only students who receive a 70% or less are required to complete corrections. Often, however, even students who have achieved mastery complete corrections so that they can learn from their mistakes.
Overall, peer and self-assessment plays a crucial role in my class. These processes engage learners in their own growth and also the growth of others within the class, which contributes to a productive classroom community. When students engage in assessment, through assessment of themselves or of their peers, they are able to truly reflect about what they know and don't know. This allows students to review and communicate about their own progress and learning, which allows me to make informed instructional decisions that best support and meet the needs of my diverse learners.