ASSESSING LITERACY

ASSESSMENT - current understandings

• Known learning goals and criteria for achievement

• Effective feedback – frequent, targeted

• Student self-assessment – taught and managed

• Formative assessment; making formative use of summative assessment

MANDY … good readers are recognizable because they “are quiet and they just listen...and they get chapter books.”

“writes fast” and feels that she will get an “excellent” on her report for writing with a comment that she “has behaved and she is helpful to other classmates.”

However, she does not think that conversations between writers are good because they would result in other writers taking ideas and having the same stories and because feelings might get hurt.Mandy’s conception of what is important in literacy :

convention, conformity, speed, and individualism(Johnston et al., 2001).

HENRY

• Researched a topic and found discrepancies in information in different texts

• Described one author as ‘ not doing his homework’

• Discussed the situation with a friend researching the same topic

• Both agreed to consult more sources

The acquisition of different literacies in classrooms in the same regions, schools

What is emphasised, taught and assessed

ASSESSING Literacy

• Reach beyond the superficial• Consider the overall aim and purpose of

developing literate individuals

Negotiate

meaning

Under

stand

pers

pecti

ves

Parti

cipa

te in

de

moc

ratic

de

bate

Take a role in the

joint construction

of meaning

WHAT WE CHOOSE TO ASSESS

• What is valued

• How and what we will teach

• Classroom activities and observations involve students responding and representing in a more natural format

Tests assess aspects of literacy in a controlled environment and manner

High stakes testing drives teaching

The instrument controls the practice

Does this suggest that the test is as much an accountability measure as an information gathering tool ?

HOW COULD ASSESSMENT BE USED TO PRODUCTIVELY MANAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING?

No instrument or assessment practice can overcome the fact that the teacher is the primary agent of assessment

(International Reading Association and National Council of Teachers of English Joint Task Force on Assessment, 1998).

• The bulk of literacy assessment occurs moment by moment as part of the activity of teaching (Black & Wiliam, 1998b; Johnston, 1989).

Consider informal literacy assessment opportunities you have taken. Have they provided accurate / useful information?

• The most fundamental goal of assessment and evaluation is to optimise student learning.

• Aspects of English/ literacy are complex and sophisticated eg understanding a poem or constructing a narrative… and cannot be assessed using simplistic measures

… the more difficult the learning the more complex ..(and time consuming..) the assessment .

Literacy Assessment Best Practices• Acknowledge differences in learning and teaching styles by

using a variety of appropriate measures, such as discussions and debates , quizzes, written pieces , direct observation, anecdotal, conferences, peer and self review, and teacher knowledge and experience

• Focuses on student performance, knowledge acquisition and understanding

• Assesses both process and product

"Characteristics of Programs of Information Literacy that Illustrate Best Practices: A Guideline," American Library Association, July 07, 2006. http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/standards/characteristics.cfm

• Assessment of progress in literacy / English will focus on judgements about the success of students in developing key literacy and English skills and applying their skills in their learning.

• How well are they communicating in a range of media to suit their purpose and audience and showing increasing awareness of others in interactions ?

• To what extent are they exploring, creating enjoying fiction and non-fiction texts of increasing depth, complexity and variety and making increasingly sophisticated personal responses?

• How well do they engage with challenging issues raised in texts?

Know……WHO? WHAT?

HOW?

Does the assessment actually measure what needs to be measured? – the true essence or big ideas of the outcomes?

Is the assessment instrument reliable – will it give a true indication of student progress?

Will using this instrument have a real impact on teaching? Do we already know OR is it outside what we teach?Standardised tests

Is it authentic – does it mirror the way the skill, strategy or understanding was taught?

ASSESSMENT TASKS

WHAT NEXT?Knowledge of student progress

Analysis of student progress

Application of knowledge and analysis

• The student has a thorough knowledge andunderstanding of the content and a high level ofcompetence in the processes and skills. In addition,the student is able to apply this knowledge and these

skills to most situations. B

Be clear about the goals of instruction and make them explicit to the students. For example, if students will be reading about environmental issues and will be asked to take a position, they will need to learn how to distinguish fact from opinion, synthesize information, and draw conclusions. Both you and the students have a better chance of achieving your goals if you make clear to them the relationship between the skills they are learning and the task they are completing.

UNDERSTANDING OF CONCEPT

SUSTAINABLE USE OF

WATER RESOURCE

S

SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE

• Focus assessment on the most important aspects of the outcomes in the curriculum. Although teachers informally assess every time they interact with students and every time students work on an activity, it is not necessary to document every interaction or every lesson. Daily lessons and activities are often building blocks or means to more complex goals. Collecting too much information is as problematic as not collecting enough. Determine the most important aspects or points for each outcome. Select only a few artefacts as your assessment evidence. The same is true for anecdotal notes or checklists. Use these judiciously depending on the situation and the particular students.

• Make self-assessment a dependable, integral part of your classroom.

MAKING IT WORK IN THE CLASSROOM

Outcome EN2-2A – Communicating A student:

• communicates in a range of informal and formal settings by adopting a range of roles in group, classroom, school and community contexts

• experiment with ways in which spoken language differs from written language when adopting a range of roles

• interact effectively in groups or pairs, adopting a range of roles [PSC]

• use interaction skills, including active listening behaviours and communicate in a clear, coherent manner using a variety of everyday and learned vocabulary and appropriate tone, pace, pitch and volume (ACELY1688, ACELY1792)

• Retell part of a story from a character’s point of view – group task

• interpret ideas and information in texts and listen for key points in order to carry out tasks and use information to share and extend ideas (ACELY1687)

• understand that successful cooperation with others depends on shared use of social conventions, including turn-taking patterns, and forms of address that vary according to the degree of formality in social situations (ACELA147)

System basedAssessments benchmarked against grade/ expectations

Lesson by lesson checking Lesson by lesson checking Lesson by lesson checking Lesson by lesson checking

Assessment of significant skills and

knowledge from unit

Assessment of application of key skills

and knowledge from unit to demonstrate

understanding of key concepts

appropriate

proportionate

repertoire of

assessment.

STUDENT SELF ASSESSMENT /REFLECTION

Self assessment

• require students to step back from their work or their behaviour to think reflectively

• act on this reflection

• The answer is Captain Arthur Phillip. But what is the question? Studentshave become well conditioned to answeringquestions, especially those that feature expected responses like Captain Arthur Phillip .

Questions asked ostensibly to help students “get the facts” rarely help students to construct understanding ofkey principlesmain idea author’s message

Turtle frogs live in Western Australia. They look like turtles, but they are really frogs. They have a small

head and short, strong legs. They grow up to five centimetres long.

93% state 96% region

Band 1

Students know how such questions “work.” Often, they merely need to undertake minimal surface sampling of a text in order to derive an acceptable answer.

Questions like these are rarely much of a challenge.Students can answer them rather quickly, and even struggling readers can frequently get through them with little assistance. But literal, fact-level questions have little to do with thecomprehension of most texts.

Did the family have fun?• A] Yes B] No

What did the brother ride?• A] lion B] pony C] horse D] bull

Questions in literacy assessments

• Predictable questioning during and after reading teaches students about what is valuable or worthwhile to take from a text

Moulds the way students self assess

• Write three things you already know about the moon .

• Write three questions you would like answered about the moon.

• How far is the moon from Earth?• What are craters?• How big is the moon?

Pre learning assessment

Hundreds of millions of tons of water have been found on the Moon, and scientists believe that this considerable

quantity would be sufficient to support life on the planet.

• Moon video NASA 360 - 21st Century Lunar Exploration - YouTube.flv

18:37

httpwater on moonwww.space.com/16229-moon-orbiting-laser-sees-ice-in-deep-crater-video.html

WHAT? WHY? HOW?

What does the quote mean?

Is it still true today?

Why is the flag so prominent in the photo?

Why does that learning matter?

• Reflect on questions

• Consider ‘assumed’ and more probing/ analytical/ expansive questions

• “All civilizations become either spacefaring or extinct.” — Carl Sagan

DO WE NEED TO KNOW WHETHER THE MOON CAN SUSTAIN HUMAN LIFE? WHY/NOT? – group task with sub headings given1. SurvivalIf something goes wrong here on earth there would at least be some humans that would live to multiply and or pick up the pieces of the human race. Having a second place for at least the potential for human colonisation gives us a fall back to allow our

genes to live on.• 2. ExplorationThe potential for discovery on the moon is by no means exhausted. Having a permanent presence on the surface (and even below) would most certainly expand our understanding of the our planet’s history as well as the universe.

• 3. AstronomyBeing on a stable surface with very minimal gravity and virtually no atmosphere would allow us to use different telescopes and radio receivers and get a new picture of our universe.. The far side of the moon is shielded from earths static aurora so as to provide a perfect environment for a new era of astronomy.

• 4. Minerals and ResourcesMining the moon would unlock millions of tonnes of metals and elements, some of which are rare on earth. Read more about REE or Rare Earth Element

There are a number of challenges to sustaining human life on the moon

• The five most important resources people living on the moon would need are air, water, food, shelter and power.

Breathable air might be obtainable by harvesting oxygen from the moon's soil using electricity and heat. Since the cost of shipping water from Earth would be prohibitive a single litre would cost about $100,000 we would need alternative solutions. One option would be mining water from a possible water source at the south pole of the moon; another would be shipping liquid hydrogen from Earth and mixing it with oxygen to create water. To grow food on the moon, the best solution might be to import all the chemicals and minerals needed for cultivating crops. In the early stages of moon colonization, shelter would probably be provided by inflatable buildings brought from Earth. Finally, both solar energy and nuclear energy are options for creating power.

MAIN IDEA

Does the title reflectthe main idea?

..applying..

Supporting detail Which of these ?

• It costs $100 000 to transport a litre of water to the moon.

• There is a source of water on the moon.

Use of higher order questioning

• students themselves begin to generate increasingly more sophisticated questions as they engage with texts.

• Students use focusing questions that cue them to use increasingly more complex thinking as they become more sophisticated readers and learners.

• Students expect to generate their own questions about texts rather than always responding to questions developed by someone else.

Designing Assessments

Assessment tasks can range from relatively short answers to long-term or expansive activities that require students to present or demonstrate their work. These activities should require students to engage in higher-order thinking and to integrate a range of knowledge and skills that lead to UNDERSTANDING. Within a complete assessment scenario there should be a balance of longer performance assessments and shorter ones.

Hmmm. What does this author want me to understand about the Great Wall?

• Large sections are being eroded by sandstorms. Why does the author argue this is happening? Let’s see...farming practices that have drained underwater reservoirs have led to ecological change, leading to sandstorms, which cause the wall to crumble.

• What crucial information should I remember?Predictions are that parts of the wall will disappear in only 20 years. How can I use this knowledge? Perhaps we need to be more careful in how we use natural resources, or we may suffer similar climate changes that can destroy features that have lasted for centuries.• Does this information seem reliable? The author supports these

conclusions with lots of convincing data and quotes an esteemed museum director.

• How has my understanding changed? I realize that even longstanding treasures like the Great Wall can quickly fall victim to climatic change.

• .. We owe it to our students to ensure that our assessment practices are at least as good as our teaching practices

• Dr David Boud• UTS Sydney

• consider the difference between asking students to identify all the metaphors in a story and asking them to discuss why the author used particular metaphors and what effect they had on the story.

• PERFECT PET

TASKS

• How does the author support• these ideas? Companion questions for

Evaluating might be: Does the author adequately support the viewpoints or conclusions? Is the argument convincing?

• Did the author omit or overlook other possible arguments or evidence?

Strategy Index • Frontloading Learning • Guiding Comprehension

Consolidating Understanding • Cause/Effect • Concept/Definition • Problem/Solution • Compare/Contrast • Proposition/Support

Goal/Action/Outcome • Making Connections • Generating Questions • Creating Mental Images • Making Inferences • Determining Importance Synthesizing

• Furthermore, the dynamics• between characters are very important for readers to• perceive: how the characters feel about one another• and how they interact, and whether these feelings and• interactions change in any way. These focusing questions• are represented on the level of understanding.• 4 As students clarify the basic story components,• they transition to posing questions that help them• interpret a fictional work as a form of communication.• Focusing questions at the applying level let students• delve into using their own life experiences to connect• to the work and to speculate why an author chooses• to have characters behave in a certain way. At the analyzing• level, students are encouraged to notice the• author’s craft and to ponder how the author’s use of literary• devices—such as symbolism, an unreliable narrator,• or figurative language—provides clues to what• the story means to the author.

• the creating• level emphasize the following: What is the

point of• this story? Why is the author telling me this?

and What• sense can I make of this story?

• Advantages• Students use focusing questions that cue

them to use increasingly more complex thinking as they become more sophisticated readers and learners.

• Students expect to generate their own questions about texts rather than always responding to questions developed by someone else.

This is the itinerary for Paul and Reiko’s honeymoon bike trip on the Yellowhead

Highway to Jasper:Day 1: Prince George to Mt. RobsonDay 2: Mt. Robson to Moose River

Day 3: Moose River to LucerneDay 4: Lucerne to Jasper National Park

Day 5: Jasper