C H A P T E R 3 – E M B E D D E D F O R M A T I V E A S S E S S M E N T D Y L A N W I L L I A M

CLARITY, SHARING, AND UNDERSTANDING LEARNING INTENTIONS

AND SUCCESS CRITERIA

BEN SOSEBEE AND KATHLEEN BURNS

WHY LEARNING INTENTIONS ARE IMPORTANT

• In 1971 Mary Alice imagined “the view from the student’s desk”

• “The analogy that might make the student’s view more comprehensible to adults is to imagine oneself on a ship sailing across an unknown sea, to an unknown destination. An adult would be desperate to know where he is going. But a child only knows he is going to school… Very quickly, the daily life on board ship becomes all important… The daily chores, the demands, the inspections, become the reality, not the voyage, not the destination” (p.51)

WHY LEARNING INTENTIONS ARE IMPORTANT

• Students do not always have the same ideas as teachers about what should be going on in the classroom, in fact often times what is wanted is not made clear.• This puts some students at an advantage

because they “already know” what is expected.

• List of presidents vs. a Saints football roster

WHY LEARNING INTENTIONS ARE IMPORTANT

• 1994, David Tall’s research showed that higher achieving students were able to work with unresolved uncertainties about what they were doing compared to peers who struggled because they were trying to something much more difficult.

• 4x 4 ½ 43• Examine the inconsistencies in mathematical notation

• Most students have never noticed the contradictions in mathematical notation and get through school fine, where as others might be thrown off or consistently asking “stupid questions”.

WHY LEARNING INTENTIONS ARE IMPORTANT

• White & Fredickson (1998) reported findings of middle school science classrooms using 2 different evaluation methods. 1

st

evalu

ati

on

meth

od

• Once a week discuss what students liked and disliked about the topic

2n

d e

valu

ati

on

meth

od

• Reflective assessment in which students were introduced to 9 assessment criteria that the teacher would use to evaluate. Students were asked to rate their own performance with 2 criteria and provide a brief statement and present their work to their class and peers used the same criteria to provide feedback.

Evaluation Results

Pretest PosttestLower Higher Lower Higher

1st method

32 59 39 68

2nd method

28 52 53 72

The second evaluation method higher achievers made 20 point improvements but more importantly the lower achievers improved by 25 points, closing the achievement gap.

WHEN ARE LEARNING INTENTIONS USEFUL?

• Many teachers have been mandated to post learning objectives, this has a haphazard approach to sharing learning objectives– therefore described as the “wallpaper objective”.• It is good for students to know what they will be

learning but it is not beneficial in a formulaic way.• “Sometimes telling the students where they are

going completely ruins the journey!” • There are some cases in which you simply must tell your

students what you are learning about before an activity can begin.

WHEN ARE LEARNING INTENTIONS USEFUL?

• Robert Prisg (1991) described that learning objectives are meant to be definitions of quality yet they actually turn out to be “post hoc rationalizations of quality”.

• There are various forms of communicating learning intentions with students.

• Teachers should be interested in the students ability to apply their knowledge to similar problems in different context.

• Focus on the question “What is the students expected to know after the activity/lesson?” verse “The students will…”

• Giving rules or maxims – structured instructions or rubric ex: lab report

• Develop intentions with students – call co-construction – allows students to feel that their opinion is valued.

ISSUES IN CONSTRUCTING LEARNING INTENTIONS

1. Task-specific versus generic scoring rubrics

2. Product-focused versus process-focused criteria

3. Official versus student-friendly language

TASK-SPECIFIC VERSUS GENERIC SCORING RUBRICS

• A scoring rubric can be task-specific (applied to a single task), or generic (applied to many tasks).• Task-specific let’s the student know exactly what

to do, but focuses the student learning too much.• For summative assessments task-specific rubrics

are appropriate.• For projects or written responses (student

creativity or thought) generic scoring rubrics are better to use.

PRODUCT-FOCUSED VERSUS PROCESS-FOCUSED

• Process-focused is the breaking down of learning intention into smaller steps.• For Example: Showing all steps in solving a math

problem.• Process-focused can create both constraints and

affordances.• Product-focused only looks at the end product.• The teacher doesn’t look at how you get there,

but only wants to see that you got the end result.

OFFICIAL VERSUS STUDENT-FRIENDLY LANGUAGE

• Official Language is the language found in State standards.• Student-Friendly Language is how the teacher

changes or interprets the State standards to help students understand.• Student-friendly language will help students to

transfer ideas based on their common language.• The fall back to student-friendly language is that

standardized assessments will use the official language (this could hurt whether or not students understand the questions).

PRACTICAL TECHNIQUES

CREATING A RUBRIC

• Show students examples of student work from the previous year.• Have students rate and rank the student work in

small groups.• Use a whole group discussion to come to a class

consensus on student work.• Create a rubric for the assignment based on

student ratings and rankings.• This allows students to feel part of the rubric

process, while allowing the teacher to use assignment knowledge to shape the rubric.

WORK COMPARISON ACTIVITY

• Using an assignment to have students compare their own work to excellent work.• The teacher does not put a concrete grade, but

allows the students to resubmit the assignment after examining the student work.• The causes the to intellectually examine excellent

work along with their own work.• The feedback holds more importance because it

is their own self-reflection, not the feedback of someone else.

CHOOSE-SWAP-CHOOSE

• Students produce several samples of work.• The teacher has the student choose which sample

they thought was best.• The student then has a neighbor choose which

sample they thought was best.• If the two disagree they must discuss why each

individual thought their sample was best.• This uses self-feedback and peer-feedback.

STUDENT DESIGNED TEST QUESTIONS/STUDY GUIDES

• Students are given a list of standards or items to be learned.

• Students must create test questions with correct answers.

• Students were also given the opportunity to create study guides with questions based on standards.

• Students that participated in these activities knew what they were being assessed on, and performed at higher levels.

• This activity can also help teachers reach those students uninterested in the subject.

• This method of learning also allows the teacher to see what students “think they have been learning”.

CONCLUSION

• We need to be clear with our learning targets.• We do not need to guide students step by step.• Allow students to self-assess and peer-assess.• Allow students to think they have ownership while

still maintaining overall control.