The Formative Assessment Cycle

• Solve a selection of problems of a given skill

Analysis

• Students are instantly told if their answers on ASSISTment are correct or incorrect. Students and teachers

may review a report of their answers at any time.

Lesson

• The lesson is the in class lecture given the previous day or week sometime building on knowledge

attained in previous years

Objective

The Assessment

• Responses to student answers to a problem set of a given skill in ASSISTment. Students have one week

to complete this assignment and have to show their work on a work sheet. Student do this assignment over

their vocational shop week.

Learning Through Data Driven ReflectionUsing assessment data to drive student actions that promote learning

DonnaLee Tignor – Montachusett Vocational High School - Fitchburg, MA

Cristina Heffernan – ASSISTment Program

Zach Pardos– Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Next Objective, lesson, Assessment

• Objective: Solve a selection of problems of a given skill

• Lesson: the tutorial strategy of the scaffolding on the system

• Assessment: Students demonstrate how to solve the problem by writing out the solution on a worksheet

to problems they got wrong

A Real-World Formative

Assessment Example

After the teacher gives the

students an in class lecture on a

geometry topic, the students are

assigned ASSISTment homework

on that same topic. A few of the

questions in that homework are

shown to the right.

Objective: to practice assorted

problems using Pythagorean

theorem, angle concepts and

coordinate geometry.

Lesson: students were given a

lecture on Pythagorean theorem

and supplementary angles the

week before

The Assessment: responses to

this 11 item problem set serve as

the assessment of this objective

Part of the geometry problem set assigned to the class

The ASSISTment Item report for two students

Student A’s worksheetStudent B’s worksheet

Reflection/correction worksheet of student B

Gradebook of student’s work on The ASSISTment System ASSISTment scaffolding for problem 23401

Analysis: Students show their

work on a separate work sheet

and the system logs their

answers for viewing by the

student or by the teacher at any

time.

The worksheets to the left

show two sample students’

work and a sample of the item

report shown to teachers

bellow. The key element at this

step is the feedback to the

student from the system that

they have answered an item

incorrectly.

If this were a typical graded test, a student may simply look at their grade and throw out the test but here the student will have an

opportunity to take action based on their wrong answer and can learn from their error in the next step.

After a student answers incorrectly on the main problem they are

given a tutorial dialog of help called scaffolding. The scaffolding

breaks the problem they just attempted into steps and prompts the

students to exercise the knowledge gained from the small step

that was just explained. At the end of the scaffolding the student

is asked to reattempt to solve the main problem. They are given

the answer if they request it so the student does not remain stuck

on one problem.

This is a way in which The ASSISTment System performs a type

of automated formative assessment. The system reports data in

the form of a wrong answer notification and the student is

expected to act on that information and learn the material.

In this example, student B incorrectly answered problem 23401

and is given scaffolding (shown to the right) to help him or her

learn the material.

Objective: to solve the scaffolding problems

The Lesson: The tutorial stagey of the scaffolding

The Assessment: This formative assessment example goes

further still in promoting student action based on data by

providing an opportunity for the student to reflect on his or her

wrong answer and provide an explanation of what mistake was

made or what knowledge was not previously known that was

required to answer the question. This step is demonstrated in the

next step.

In this example we see student B’s reflection to answering

problem 23401 incorrectly. The student remarks that he or

she did not know how to find the angles of the triangle

but must have learned how from the ASSISTment

scaffolding and then showed his or her work with the

right answer for full credit.

Analysis: This reflection on wrong answers provides

valuable information to the teacher about not just what

questions students are having trouble with but why they

are having trouble. Since this worksheet is graded the

student have the incentive to pay close attention to the

scaffolding that the system gave in the previous step.

The end of the loop is a sit down with each student

where the teacher shows a gradebook containing

the grades to all their problem sets on the

ASSISTment System with their corrected grade

included.

Objective: If there are still deficits in performance

the teacher can propose lessons for the student such

as after school programs, one on one tutoring, extra

problem sets or workshops.

Lesson and Assessment: At this point it is up to

the student to decide how much effort and

involvement he or she wants in order to improve.

Analysis

• The teacher grades the worksheet which provide extra information to the teacher about why students are

answering a problem wrong. Students get full credit for the problem if their correction are sound.

A Formative Assessment Cycle involves:

1. Teaching a lesson to achieve an objective. The lesson includes a planned assessment to check if the

objective has been learned.

2. Gathering and analyzing data from the assessment by both the teacher and the student.

3. Formulating a new lesson in response to the data. A new objective may be formulated or the teacher

and students continue to work towards the original objective. The teacher may adjust the teaching

strategy.

Next Objective, lesson, Assessment

• Objective: to motivate the student to seek help where necessary based on the deficits in knowledge in the

gradebook

• Lesson: multiple lessons suggested by teacher

• Assessment: to be chosen by the student

Zach Pardos is an NSF GK-12 funded Fellow