Effective formative assessment involves collecting evidence about how student learning is progressing during the course of instruction so that necessary instructional adjustments can be made to close the gap between students’ current understanding and the desired goals.
I really like this definition of formative assessment - collecting evidence about student learning and then making adjustments to close the gap between current understanding and the desired goal. This is what I believe good teaching and learning is all about!
Descriptive feedback should be about the particular qualities of student learning with discussion or suggestions about what the student can do to improve.
I agree with this statement. In my opinion, traditional grades do not provide the level of feedback a student needs to make improvements in their skills and knowledge. With descriptive feedback around the learning goals - the students understand where they are and what the target is.
However, for the student to successfully use a rubric this way, the criteria must be made clear to them and the jargon used must not only be understandable to the student but also be linked specifically to classroom instruction.
I believe strongly in this statement. If we do not share the criteria with students in a clear way, it is like they are supposed to guess what is in our heads.
However, these critics of rubrics, while their critiques should be considered, mistake the design of specific rubrics with the concept of rubrics in general. Rubrics that are prescriptive rather than descriptive will promote thoughtless and perfunctory writing; such rubrics are as limiting to the development of rhetorical mastery as the five-paragraph essay.
Although it may seem as though having more assessments will mean we are more accurately estimating student achievement, the use of multiple measures does not, by itself, translate into high-quality evidence.
This statement is SO true. Administering multiple measures does not necessaarily mean that educators will make data-driven decisions. The assessment results must be used well.
Are results communicated in time to inform the intended decisions?
Time - this is my biggest issue with Iowa Testing. This year districts had to wait months to get their results back. By the time they arrived teachers were a bit dismissive because they felt the measure of student performance had already changed too much. Districts I work with that were Spring testers will not even be sharing results until the end of August or Sept. because they did not have time at the end of the last school year.
Students learn best when they monitor and take responsibility for their own learning. This means that teachers need to write learning targets in terms that students will understand.
This is very important that students take responsibility for their learning. As educators, we are responsible for making sure the learning targets are clear and students understand.
Traditional approaches to testing don't work well online. A new mindset is needed. That's not bad; most education experts agree that rote memory testing is not the best measure of learning in any environment.
I think that this is a very important point. Group collaboration MUST have a focus and be goal-oriented. without these components high quality learning is not possible.
Our instructor has already done a very good job of modeling this standard. I hope to learn more from him related to this standard through the series of OLLIE classes.
Networks with others involved in online education for the purpose of professional growth
It has been very helpful to have a cohort of AEA colleagues taking the OLLIE courses together. It offered both online and face-to-face interactions while learning the content.