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REL Midwest Archived Events
Connecting Research to Practice:
Archived Events
December 6, 2011
Connecting Research to Practice: Implementing Research-Based Formative Assessment in Schools and Classrooms Chicago, IL
The REL Midwest in collaboration with Great Lakes East Comprehensive Center and Great Lakes West Comprehensive Center provided a full day event on Supporting Research-Based Formative Assessment in Schools and Classrooms. This event was designed to build capacity among K–12 school principals and district instructional and assessment leaders to implement research-based formative assessment. The event integrated video illustrations and formative assessment resources (e.g., examples of learning progressions, classroom observation tool) with activities to promote deeper understanding about what research-based formative assessment practice looks like and how to support its use in classrooms. This assembly augmented a previous bridge event, Understanding Formative Assessment and Utilizing It to Improve Classroom Instruction, held on August 14, 2009. The featured presenters were Jim Pellegrino, Ph.D. of University of Illinois at Chicago, James Popham, Ph.D of University of California at Los Angeles, and Margaret Heritage of National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing
- View the agenda for the event.
- View Jim Pellegrino’s presentation, Educational Assessment “101” Putting Formative Assessment in Context.
- View James Popham’s presentation, Framing the Conversation: Introduction to Formative Assessment and implication for district and school leaders.
- View Margaret Heritage’s presentation, Connecting Research to Practice: Implementing Research‐based Formative Assessment in Schools and Classrooms
- View selected classroom examples on video
- Learning Goal and Success Criteria:
- Generating Data
- Self and Peer-Assessment
- Extras
- View Margaret Heritage’s supplemental handouts
- Handout 1 – Coaching Rubric
- Handout 2 – Learning Progressions
- Handout 3 – Learning Goals and Success Criteria
- Handout 3.5 – Social Studies Example
- Handout 4 – Generating and Interpreting Data
- Handout 5 – Providing Feedback
- Handout 6 – Self- and Peer- Assessment
- Handout 7 – Characteristics of the Classroom Culture
- Handout 8 – Indicators of High-Quality Lessons
- Handout 9 – Planning Worksheet, General
- Handout 10 – Planning Worksheet, Detailed
- View Iowa Practitioner Panel materials – Phyllis Anderson, Ph.D., Carol Cassells, Brad Fox
- Iowa Assessment for Learning Flyer
- Iowa Assessment for Learning Module Overview
- Formative Assessment Ice Cube Example
- Clear Creek Amana CSD Formative Assessment Implementation
- Participant follow-up questions
- Jim Pellegrino – You mentioned three book resources. One was Preventing Difficulties in Young Children, What were the other two, please?
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How can the CCS assessment framework be use to support learning progression and formative assessment?
M. Heritage response: The CCS provide a more consistent framework for progressions and formative assessment. If you take one of the anchor standards in either ELA or math and then consider what the "building blocks" or intermediate steps ( a goal level of skill or understanding ) are between standards that assist students to move from one standard to another that will provide a kind of progression. This can be useful for instruction and formative assessment. -
How do “common formative assessments” fit into the formative assessment process? Is this a misnomer as these cfa’s are not occurring frequently during instruction?
M. Heritage response: You are right about them not occurring frequently during instruction. CFA is a misnomer because as Jim Popham stated there are no such things as formative assessments - if these assessments are used to provide information that can move learning forward - form new learning - then they may have some utility. But bear in mind that teachers need information about learning as it is developing so they may not be administered at the same time given differences in the pace of learning among students. I see them having a professional development value in providing teachers with data that they can examine collaboratively and reflect on the effectiveness of their teaching and what next steps for students might be. However, if they do not occur frequently during instruction with the intent of finding where students are in relation to the desired goal, then they have limited utility as formative assessment strategies.
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