Tamara Griffith
Summative Assessments
The goal of summative assessments is to evaluate student learning at the end of a unit after students have had enough exposure and enough practice with the material to adequately demonstrate mastery. Even though summative assessments are the culmination of learning, it is imperative that data analysis still occurs as this will determine whether or not a skill needs to be retaught and/ or spiraled into future lessons and assessments in order to ensure mastery. While many typically think of summative assessments as traditional tests, they can, and often do, take additional formats. This allows students to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways, many of which are more relevant to the real-world contexts in which students will need to apply these skills later in life. Additionally, many students experience test anxiety due to the high-stakes that are placed on some summative assessments, such as the Florida Standards Assessment. Thus, providing additional formats by which students can demonstrate their learning over the course of a unit will help alleviate some of the burden for students who experience text anxiety.
Typically, summative assessments are created prior to a unit being taught so that assessment drives instruction. This creates instruction that is purposeful and maximizes instructional time, thus contributing to students' success and mastery of the content. Clearly understanding the skills students need to be successful impacts how instruction is delivered throughout a unit. By comparing students' mastery of content and skills after the summative assessment to students' initial scores with the material during the diagnostic assessment, I can adequately determine the growth that students have made and verify and document what learning has taken place over the course of the unit.
When administering and designing summative assessments, it is important to keep in mind that one size does not fit all. To meet the needs of my diverse learners, I accommodate and modify summative assessments so that these assessments can better reflect their unique needs and abilities.
Even though my classroom focuses on varied methods of assessment, traditional tests do play a valuable role in the classroom. Because of the way that traditional tests are designed, they are easier to track and score than other methods of summative assessments. As a result, this type of assessment facilitates the categorization of students' skills and areas of growth, especially over time.
For example, students complete a traditional assessment through short weekly language assessments on Fridays after practicing and applying key grammatical skills during their do now task. By tracking the class data, I am able to more effectively monitor learner progress to determine which language skills need to be retaught or emphasized through mini-lessons. Review the student samples below to explore how these weekly language assessments are utilized as a traditional assessment.
Socratic Seminars:
To incorporate another method of assessment, I also utilize Socratic Seminars as a summative assessment in my classroom. Typically, this format allows me to assess students' abilities to cite text evidence and utilize their critical thinking skills in conjunction with our speaking and listening standards. Many students look forward to this type of assessment as there is no pressure to get answers correct; instead, students have to prove that they can rationally and collaboratively think through the problems and questions posed by supporting their claims with evidence from multiple sources. Due to the nature of Socratic Seminars, students must metacognitively consider their content knowledge and how their content knowledge impacts their discussion performance.
Prior to the discussion, students analyze a set of sources around a particular theme or essential question. Because students have to synthesize ideas from multiple sources, this is a particularly rigorous endeavor. Students' annotations are evaluated in conjunction to their contributions to the discussion.
Standardized Assessments:
Since it is imperative that students are engaged in multiple ways of demonstrating their knowledge and skills, students also complete projects as another type of summative assessment. Project-based learning requires students to apply their knowledge and skills in ways that promote critical and creative thinking. Because of this emphasis on critical and creative thinking, project-based learning and using projects as culminating assessments have applications beyond the classroom as they help foster the skills and habits that will help students become productive global citizens later in life.
One project that my students complete is a one-pager project, which students complete after we have finished a class novel. To best meet the needs of my diverse learners, I created two versions of the project requirements; while both versions cover the same standards and content material, version B has been modified to appropriately accommodate my students who are English Language Learners or who receive special education services. As a result, the number of items for each assessed standard have been reduced in version B. For example, students will have to generate two examples of figurative language emphasizing an aspect of the novel rather than three. In addition, students will receive the accommodation of extra time and the option of working with a peer. For students with significant language or ability impairments, I will work with them in small groups to help them brainstorm ideas for their project.
Explore the PDF below to review the requirements for both versions of this one-pager project.
Traditional Tests:
Projects:
"Learning is messy stuff -- it doesn't fit into bubbles."
~Michelle Forman
Even though this student scored a C on this assignment, he/she has made significant improvement over the course of the five weeks in which these skills were taught. On the initial diagnostic assessment, this student had scored a 7/20 which is failing. This student has mastered most of the questions relating to pronouns and sentence structure. Most of the questions he/she missed relate to vocabulary. As a result, I would work with this student in small groups to reteach affixes and context clues to ensure her mastery moving forward.
This student also showed significant growth from the diagnostic assessment to this one. On the original assessment, this student had scored a 6/20 and is now at mastery level. Although he/she missed a few points on the assessment, there were no patterns of errors. For this student, I will continue to spiral back to some of those skills, such as intensive pronouns and analogies, to ensure continued mastery of the material.
This is the grade distribution for this sample assessment.
While 72% of this class attained a C or higher and about as many demonstrated growth, only 40% of the class demonstrated mastery with these grammar skills. In looking at the specific sub-skills of the standard, most students struggled with possessives and context clues. Moving forward, I will reteach these skills in a mini-lesson and provide students with additional opportunities to practice these more challenging skills before attempting to reassess. Further, for the 6 students who were below proficiency, I will work with them specifically in small groups during these mini-lessons to help remediate some of their misconceptions with regard to these standards. During station work, I will work with them specifically on the pronoun and sentence structure errors that they made on this assessment that the majority of the class did not. I will also assign them individualized practice on No Red Ink and/or Quill to help remediate these skills.
Student 1 did a great job with most of the requirements of this project, demonstrating an understanding of the standards consistent with mastery and proficiency. The images he/she drew were relevant to both the direct and indirect characterization that had taken place within the novel. The only place that this student struggled was with the quality of elaboration involved in his/her short answer responses. The actual citations had improved drastically from the baseline essay to this sample summative assessment, however. This particular sample is representative of approximately 84% of students in the class.
This is a sample of a student who is on an IEP and was given the modified assignment. Note, however, that even though this student was given a modified set of requirements, he/she still completed many of the original requirements. In analyzing this assessment, many of the connections this student made to the novel are surface level, never getting to that deeper level of critical thinking. Additionally, only one of this students' text-dependent questions cites text evidence, and neither contain elaboration. This sample is representative of approximately 11% of students in the class.
Because a majority of the class struggled with the elaboration components of this assignment, I would reteach this skill and give students additional opportunities to practice it again before reassessing. Only a few students struggled with citing text evidence, so I would pull only those students who did not demonstrate proficiency in small groups to remediate that skill.
Sample Socratic Seminar set-up in my classroom.
Standardized assessments are a type of summative assessment that assesses what students have learned and how much they have grown over the course of the year. This type of assessments often contains high-stakes for both teachers and students. For my students, the stakes are high, but not as high as they will be once they move on to high school. The degree of proficiency that students make on their standardized assessment, which is the FSA, determines what classes students are eligible to take the following year. Students who score below grade level, which is a level 3, are placed into remedial classes, such as intensive reading classes, block intensive reading/ language arts classes, or mini-blocks. In addition, students must score a level 4 or 5 in order to be eligible for advanced placement courses.
Because this type of assessment is a snapshot of student proficiency and mastery at the end of a school year, results from this assessment typically inform my student groupings and pacing at the beginning of the school year -- that is until I have enough formative and diagnostic data to proceed with a better understanding of where exactly my students are. Proficiency on this exam is where my students need to go by the end of the year. So, in a way, all other assessments lead up to this culminating assessment.
Sample Class FSA Data Analysis
While all standards need to be taught over the course of the year, some need to be emphasized more than others in order to turn students' deficits into strengths. For example, this class is particularly weak with the Integration of Knowledge and Ideas standards and with text-based writing skills. As a result, I would make adjustments to my long-term plan to ensure that I am providing students with more regular opportunities to practice and refine these particular skills so that they can be closer to mastery by the end of the school year.
Sample Class FSA Learning Gains Projection Tracker
As indicated above, students' prior FSA data is used to determine the scale scores students need to work toward in order to demonstrate learning gains, or growth, by the end of the school year. In an effort to emphasize progress and growth over scores, I work with students to set goals based on their projected learning gains score. Especially for my low Level 1 students, focusing on growth and making learning gains is more manageable, and often more realistic, than setting goals toward reaching proficiency, or Level 3. As students progress throughout a unit or a quarter, we discuss whether and how their performance is progressing them towards making learning gains. This enables learners to monitor their own growth and progress so they can make adjustments as needed to ensure they are able to demonstrate growth by the end of the school year.
Typically, standardized assessments are used as objective accountability measures meant to assess how well students have mastered the standards at the end of the school year. Students and I use this kind of assessment to form goals for the subsequent school year as we work together to ensure that students demonstrate adequate growth and proficiency by the end of the school year.
Whether students are taking traditional tests, completing projects, discussing their ideas in a Socratic Seminar, or preparing for a standardized assessment, they and I actively monitor their progress toward mastery so that I can effectively support, verify, and document student learning.
As pictured to the left, half of the class engages in discussing the essential questions at a time while the other half of the class evaluates their performance and takes notes on the discussion. At half time, students share their feedback with each other before switching roles. This allows students to receive immediate feedback and/or constructive criticism from their peers before they receive their summative scores from me the following day. This process ensures that students receive timely and effective descriptive feedback about their progress from both their peers and from me.
While students are engaged in their Socratic seminar discussion or engaged in the assessment of their peers, I take observational notes on each students performance and complete the tracker to the left. These observational notes allow me to more effectively monitor learner progress. By comparing my observational notes to students' peer observations, for example, I can ensure that I am grading students fairly and properly evaluating where and how students met our rigorous learning goals. Each component of my observational notes tracker is aligned to the rubric by which students are assessed. This ensures that bias is minimized, resulting in a fair assessment of learner progress.
Sample Socratic Seminar rubric mark-up.
This is representative of 65% of the first Socratic Seminar students completed this year.
Sample teacher notes from a Socratic Seminar
Sample Student Annotations - Excerpt 1
Sometimes, circumstances exist that require students' Socratic Seminar performance to be modified, particularly due to an absence, IEP, or ELL plan. To accommodate these students, I provide them with additional scaffolds to assist in them in the Socratic Seminar discussion. If needed, students receiving modifications may also be given the option to complete a performative writing piece instead.
Below are examples of a scaffold I provide to students requiring accommodations/modifications during the seminar discussion.
Some of my students, particularly those who are on IEPs for speech, need further modifications than task cards and additional practice. To accommodate students in this situation, they are able to complete a performative writing assignment in lieu of speaking in the discussion. Students tackle the same essential or focus questions discussed in the Socratic Seminar, but rather than discussing their responses, students compose their responses to these focus questions.
In the sample to the right, this students' composition veered off topic. Although his/her ideas are somewhat connected to the overall topic or theme of the discussion, the majority of this students' composition reflects a stream of consciousness type of thinking rather than a critical analysis of the focus questions. As a result, his/her response seemingly answers a question that was not one of the seminar questions.
Moving forward, I would work with this student on how to unpack a question and/or a prompt in order to ensure that the written response is properly aligned to the purpose, audience, and task. Once this student has improved his/her ability to align his/her response to the purpose, audience, and task, I would work with him/her on strategies to help him/her choose relevant text evidence and how to elaborate his/her responses. In so doing, I will be supporting this students' ability to attain the learning goals associated with these assessed standards.
Sample Student Annotations - Excerpt 2
Student Sample 1
Student Sample 2
To the left is a sample of students' FSA levels and scale scores. Students' names have been removed to protect student privacy.
Analyzing students prior FSA levels and scale scores gives me an initial picture as to how my students' performed with last year's standards. Clearly, this class has some disparity in terms of ability, as the vast majority of students are significantly below grade level and a few are at or above grade level. I would use this data to create modified assignments and assessments to ensure that students are appropriately challenged and working on rigorous assignments. I would also use this data in part to determine student groupings. In addition, I sometimes use this data to create both homogeneous or heterogeneous student groupings based upon the skills with which my students are currently practicing and developing.
Based upon students' historical performance on their FSA and based upon Florida's requirements for learning gains (found here), I create a tracker to determine how many points students need in order to show growth by making learning gains on their standardized assessment at the end of the year. A sample of the FSA Learning Gains tracker I create for each of my classes is included below.
Sample Student 1 - Front
Sample Student 1 - Back
Sample Student 2 - Front
Sample Student 2 - Back
Because the end result will look different for each student due to the creative license that this project entails, rubrics are an essential component of this assessment process. Using rubrics ensures that each student's work is evaluated fairly and according to the same quantifiable set of standards. Further, the use of rubrics ensure that expectations are clear and that students understand the criterion by which they will be assessed and what they will need to demonstrate in order to produce high-quality work. This provides students with specific feedback upfront that can guide their progress toward creating a high-quality one- pager project.
Explore the PDF below to review the accompanying grading rubric for Version A of this project. Please note that this rubric was also modified and adapted for version B according to the modifications listed above.
Peruse some student samples of completed one-pager projects as a culminating task for The Lightning Thief below.
In order for students to be able to critically discuss ideas centered around texts, they must have thought critically about the texts prior to the discussion so that they are prepared to discuss their insights with others in the discussion. Below is a sample of students' completed annotations which were turned in prior to participating in the inner circle. These annotations are half of students' Socratic Seminar grade. Analyzing and evaluating students' annotations allows me to assess students' comprehension of the texts. Students' annotations also make students' thinking visible since they highlight students' thought processes behind selecting certain portions of the text to cite in support of their claims.
To listen to an excerpt of my students' Socratic Seminar discussion, click play below.
When I assess students' performance according to the grading rubric, I consult my notes, my observational tracker, and students' peer and self evaluations (samples of these are contained within the investing students in assessment page). This helps me ensure that I assess students fairly according to the rubric guidelines.
To the left is a sample graded rubric from students' first Socratic Seminar this year. Typically, students become more proficient at supporting their claims with text evidence as the year progresses. Since many of my students have never participated in a Socratic Seminar before my class, students were still acquainting themselves with the process and procedures of having collegial discussions. As the school year progresses and students gain more experience and confidence with this type of assessment, their proficiency with regard to citing text evidence to support their claims significantly increases. The number of times they speak during the discussion also typically increases over the course of the school year.
Student Socratic Seminar Excerpt
I allow students requiring modifications to choose whether they use the basic or intermediate task cards during the discussion. For students who especially struggle, I allow them to plan out their specific comments, write those comments on their task cards, and practice saying them to me a couple times a day or two before the discussion to help make them more comfortable with discussing their ideas in front of their peers.
For students who require more extensive modifications, or for those who were absent on the day of the discussion, students are able to complete a performative writing task. A sample of a completed performative writing task is included below.
Student Sample - Supplemental Seminar Writing Assignment Page 1
Student Sample - Supplemental Seminar Writing Assignment Page 2