The Importance of Assessment for Student Growth

Assessment is an integral part of instruction as it guides the teacher’s strategy. It includes various methods teachers use to evaluate, measure and document students’ learning. 

Assessments are meant to help the teacher and students understand their next step.

It is a requirement by many states that most schools must administer state-mandated tests. These assessments are summative and completed yearly. The data from these tests are the first level of evaluating your school program and its effectiveness. 

Like it or not, many schools are labeled based on the performance of these state-mandated tests. This is a data metric that cannot be ignored since it is a significant factor in developing your overall school goals. There are cases when classroom assessment results are high but state assessments are low. In this scenario, it means that there is a disconnect between what is being taught and what is being assessed on your district and state-mandated tests.

Sahuaro Elementary School was in an urban area with many challenges. Their first round of Root Cause Analysis showed that they needed to change the instructional program at the school. They identified and implemented a research-based program and saw improved results for two years in a row. But after that, their results flatlined for the next 2 years.

All teachers were implementing the same instructional strategies in the school. However, there was one teacher who continued to increase results. The leadership team needed to dig deeper into this teacher’s data and determine what was working. I will refer to this teacher as Mr. Data. He taught 6thgrade English-Language Arts. He taught the current program with fidelity and used the assessments within the program.

During the analysis, it was discovered that he added one variation. On every assessment, he added 2-3 higher-level challenge questions. He started this practice so students could earn bonus points and challenge them further. He had a positive classroom climate and students had a love of learning. 

This was reinforced with competitions and teams in an extended quiz. It all included bonus questions to encourage the students to work together and help each other. Students were asking for and given the extra support they needed by the teacher to pass these questions. Students loved working on these bonus questions which added to the classroom climate. 

Another form of assessment is formative assessment. These are often comprehensive, performance-based and usually developed by the district or teacher to gauge a student’s understanding of the material taught.

Formative and summative assessments should be aligned to determine a deeper root cause. This willlessen or eliminate unforeseen scenarios when taking the final assessment. It should then result in better performance on the final summative assessment or state test.

Some questions to identify possible alignment issues are:

• Are classroom assessments aligned with expectations required on the state and/or district assessments? 
• Do the cognitive levels of questions match on both assessments? 
• Do the standards and skills match on both assessments? 
• Are there any standards and skills missing in the assessments?
• Does your staff have student assessment criteria in place? 

At Sahuaro, half of the questions on their state assessment were written at higher levels. Students are also required not only to understand the information and apply the knowledge in deep and complex ways. Mr. Data’s bonus questions were aligned to those higher-level questions. These bonus questions served as practice for more challenging questions.

After training on higher-level questions, the teachers were asked to bring in their current assessment. They proceeded to review the level of questions on their teacher-created assessments and the program assessment. It was discovered that less than 10% of the questions were on a challenging level. Students were not receiving enough variety with question types like those on their final summative assessment. 

This was an easy fix, they added 2-3 challenge questions, just like in Mr. Data’s classroom. 

However, another instructional root cause surfaced. Teachers shared those students struggled with the higher-level questions. The staff didn’t know what to do to support students to be successful. 

This time, they know what to do to solve the scenario. Additional teacher training was required to help students accomplish higher levels of rigor on those challenging questions. After the assessment alignment and teacher training, results continued to increase each year at Sahuaro. 

“If an assessment asks students to evaluate and create, but our instruction asks only that they remember and comprehend, then we've taken a wrong direction."  Mike Fisher, Assessment Priorities

What’s noteworthy is that Sahuaro did not stop at just aligning the assessment. They also updated the instruction to help students achieve higher levels of understanding. Most of the time, an assessment alignment issue also has an instructional root cause. It is important to understand what teaching behaviors must occur to help students master the difficult concepts of the assessments.

Regardless of your opinions on assessment, it is important to shift staff views and beliefs about assessment to behaviors that can impact student learning and results. Todd Whitaker in his book What Great Principals Do Differently, 20 Things that Matter Most, Third Edition, Eye on Education, 2020, page 78, captures this when he writes:

“Effective leaders focus on behaviors that lead to success, not the beliefs that stand in the way of it.” Todd Whitaker

If you are interested in more information on assessment alignment and instructional challenges, request a FREE consultation call with me.  Fill in the Contact Form Link: https://debradurma.com/contact-us   Type in "Request a FREE Consultation" in the "Additional Questions or Information Needed" box. You will receive a follow-up email with the next step to schedule a phone call to discuss your needs and questions.