Assessment: Beyond the Grade
What is Assessment?
Often times when one hears the word assessment the immediate response is what grade did the student receive? How did the student perform on the standardized or summative exam? Where does the student rank in comparison to his/her peers?
The truth is assessment has a much more valuable role in student learning than just the grade earned at the end of the course or unit of study. Teachers can and should use data collected from student assessments in order to not rate the student, but to evaluate their teaching. The data should help instructors to refine their programs and instruction to improve student learning.
Teachers should use various forms of assessment to create a well rounded picture of student learning. This learning should encompass what students know, understand, are able to do with the knowledge gained through their learning experiences.
Assessment is needed for students to accurately measure what students have learned and the growth they have made. Feedback on student assessments are just as critical as the assessments themselves. Students need feedback that is timely and informative to help them progress monitor achievement of their learning goals.
The Role of Formative Assessment
The process of formative assessment is ongoing for all students. Students all enter courses and topics of study at different levels. Some students have different levels of schema, or background knowledge, in specific areas allowing them to show mastery of skills at different times. It is imperative for teachers to continually assess students through an array of formative measures to determine when enrichment, extension, and intervention is needed.
Formative assessment can both measure student understanding and the effectiveness of the teaching. When formative assessment is used at its’ best to provide students feedback on their learning and understandings and to differentiate learning for students. By providing formative feedback teachers allow students to learn the value of improvement and growth in learning as much as summative grade earned at the end of instruction.
By doing continuous formative assessment teachers can tell where are students are in the learning process so that they can adjust teaching to make sure gifted learners are not bored and stagnant when it comes to their growth. Simple practices like tickets out the door, thumbs up/ thumbs down, pair and share, and check in quizzes can allow teachers to understand when students are ready to break away from the classroom instruction and engage in more rigorous activities to enrich their learning. For gifted students, this often means giving them extension activities or opportunities to think deeper. This is a result of the background knowledge many of these students have prior to engaging in the unit of study that is about to be taught. During enrichment and intervention time, gifted students can sometimes get overlooked because so much focus goes to helping struggling students. These gifted students need a chance to extend their learning with fun and engaging activities to keep them interested in the learning process.
Growth Models and the Gifted Learner
Schools that use growth often show greater successes in adequate yearly progressions when working under a growth model within the school. This measures growth of students toward grade level proficiency. Growth models collect and interpret student achievement data several times to determine if the student has made progress in learning of content and skills.
Research shown through data collected by NAEP (National Assessment of Education Progress) that gifted students often make less growth yearly on summative end of year exams than their low performing peers. Many schools nationwide have now adopted one of the many versions of the growth model to help correct this lack of growth of the most gifted and talented students in their schools.
For the growth model to be effective and useful for gifted learners it is important to assess students above grade level or through adaptive tests. This will help deter a ceiling effect on gifted learners growth. Assessments given to students should include above grade level questions in order to appropriately assess gifted students. It is also important for teachers to use the practice of pre and post-tests to illustrate student gains.
It is important for teachers to understand growth is measure beyond proficiency. That content mastered can be determined by growth and that growth does not have a ceiling as we can always stretch content beyond grade level mastery and proficiency.
RtI and Gifted Learners
RtI can be a valuable instructional model for gifted learners when used in specific ways. RtI is based on the idea of monitoring student growth. This can be beneficial for gifted learners when they are able to move from tier to tier within the instructional model. In the manner in which RtI provides interventions based on students needs, it too can provide extensions and enrichments based on student needs as well.
Many gifted students will struggle in showing growth when tested at grade level. Assessments are most times written to measure growth of average/typical students; most gifted students have already mastered grade level skills. Therefore it is essential in the RtI model to allow students to assess above their grade level. When students are moved into the tier 2 and tier 3 they will dive deeper into advanced content and concept development and make real-world connections helping them to become experts in the content. RTI tiers differentiates the depth, breadth, pacing and complexity of content by acceleration and enrichment opportunities. This sometimes is missing for many gifted learners as teaching is too often targeted to fill in gaps for students who are missing skill rather than already mastering skills.
Using a universal screener and progress monitoring is a key component to RtI and providing this for gifted students will help to ensure they are getting instruction appropriate to their individual learning needs. High quality instruction must accompany the results of the universal screener results for students to get the most effective instruction and largest amount of growth.
As Elissa Brown states in Is Response to Intervention and gifted education compatible? in Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, “ If gifted education were to adopt the implementation of the assessment approaches systematically and coherently, the use of universal screening, curriculum-based measures, progress monitoring, and fidelity of assessment measures, then excellence could be the standard and schools would be more likely to promote talent development in all areas of the school and provide appropriate challenges for all learners.” The best is out there if gifted education programs can find the ways to do it.
Portfolios of Student Learning
Portfolio assessment can be extremely useful for gifted students for many reasons, but more importantly is that it can show mastery beyond proficiency of skills and content within a course or subject. The creation of portfolios can greatly enhance the learning experience for gifted students. Often providing opportunities to challenge and motivate beyond the basic curriculum and making learning more valuable and applicable to the real world.
This format of assessment allows in depth studies that can be assessed through a variety of students work including work samples, presentations, projects, and assessments over a period of time which can minimise the stress that some students feel over a single high stakes assessment. Teachers are still able to determine understand and mastery of knowledge and skills that students gain in the classroom but assessment portfolios do not limit the students to having the opportunity to show what they know.
Students should be the primary decision making in determining work to be including in their portfolio, but guided through teacher recommendations and explanations. They need to explain why the evidence of learning has been including and what they learned from doing it. It is also helpful to teach students how to evaluate the work and identify what they could do in order to improve.
One of the greatest benefits of portfolios is that teachers can monitor students’ progress and use these to help them adjust their own teaching. The purpose of assessment is to learn more about student needs and understandings, and what better way to do so then through a display of student performance and artifact of this performance. . Assessment portfolios help students to develop these skills like evaluating their own work and making decisions on how to improve and adjust based on their performance, rather than looking at a score and not questioning how to go beyond the standard and make more useful applications of the learning.
Often times when one hears the word assessment the immediate response is what grade did the student receive? How did the student perform on the standardized or summative exam? Where does the student rank in comparison to his/her peers?
The truth is assessment has a much more valuable role in student learning than just the grade earned at the end of the course or unit of study. Teachers can and should use data collected from student assessments in order to not rate the student, but to evaluate their teaching. The data should help instructors to refine their programs and instruction to improve student learning.
Teachers should use various forms of assessment to create a well rounded picture of student learning. This learning should encompass what students know, understand, are able to do with the knowledge gained through their learning experiences.
Assessment is needed for students to accurately measure what students have learned and the growth they have made. Feedback on student assessments are just as critical as the assessments themselves. Students need feedback that is timely and informative to help them progress monitor achievement of their learning goals.
The Role of Formative Assessment
The process of formative assessment is ongoing for all students. Students all enter courses and topics of study at different levels. Some students have different levels of schema, or background knowledge, in specific areas allowing them to show mastery of skills at different times. It is imperative for teachers to continually assess students through an array of formative measures to determine when enrichment, extension, and intervention is needed.
Formative assessment can both measure student understanding and the effectiveness of the teaching. When formative assessment is used at its’ best to provide students feedback on their learning and understandings and to differentiate learning for students. By providing formative feedback teachers allow students to learn the value of improvement and growth in learning as much as summative grade earned at the end of instruction.
By doing continuous formative assessment teachers can tell where are students are in the learning process so that they can adjust teaching to make sure gifted learners are not bored and stagnant when it comes to their growth. Simple practices like tickets out the door, thumbs up/ thumbs down, pair and share, and check in quizzes can allow teachers to understand when students are ready to break away from the classroom instruction and engage in more rigorous activities to enrich their learning. For gifted students, this often means giving them extension activities or opportunities to think deeper. This is a result of the background knowledge many of these students have prior to engaging in the unit of study that is about to be taught. During enrichment and intervention time, gifted students can sometimes get overlooked because so much focus goes to helping struggling students. These gifted students need a chance to extend their learning with fun and engaging activities to keep them interested in the learning process.
Growth Models and the Gifted Learner
Schools that use growth often show greater successes in adequate yearly progressions when working under a growth model within the school. This measures growth of students toward grade level proficiency. Growth models collect and interpret student achievement data several times to determine if the student has made progress in learning of content and skills.
Research shown through data collected by NAEP (National Assessment of Education Progress) that gifted students often make less growth yearly on summative end of year exams than their low performing peers. Many schools nationwide have now adopted one of the many versions of the growth model to help correct this lack of growth of the most gifted and talented students in their schools.
For the growth model to be effective and useful for gifted learners it is important to assess students above grade level or through adaptive tests. This will help deter a ceiling effect on gifted learners growth. Assessments given to students should include above grade level questions in order to appropriately assess gifted students. It is also important for teachers to use the practice of pre and post-tests to illustrate student gains.
It is important for teachers to understand growth is measure beyond proficiency. That content mastered can be determined by growth and that growth does not have a ceiling as we can always stretch content beyond grade level mastery and proficiency.
RtI and Gifted Learners
RtI can be a valuable instructional model for gifted learners when used in specific ways. RtI is based on the idea of monitoring student growth. This can be beneficial for gifted learners when they are able to move from tier to tier within the instructional model. In the manner in which RtI provides interventions based on students needs, it too can provide extensions and enrichments based on student needs as well.
Many gifted students will struggle in showing growth when tested at grade level. Assessments are most times written to measure growth of average/typical students; most gifted students have already mastered grade level skills. Therefore it is essential in the RtI model to allow students to assess above their grade level. When students are moved into the tier 2 and tier 3 they will dive deeper into advanced content and concept development and make real-world connections helping them to become experts in the content. RTI tiers differentiates the depth, breadth, pacing and complexity of content by acceleration and enrichment opportunities. This sometimes is missing for many gifted learners as teaching is too often targeted to fill in gaps for students who are missing skill rather than already mastering skills.
Using a universal screener and progress monitoring is a key component to RtI and providing this for gifted students will help to ensure they are getting instruction appropriate to their individual learning needs. High quality instruction must accompany the results of the universal screener results for students to get the most effective instruction and largest amount of growth.
As Elissa Brown states in Is Response to Intervention and gifted education compatible? in Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, “ If gifted education were to adopt the implementation of the assessment approaches systematically and coherently, the use of universal screening, curriculum-based measures, progress monitoring, and fidelity of assessment measures, then excellence could be the standard and schools would be more likely to promote talent development in all areas of the school and provide appropriate challenges for all learners.” The best is out there if gifted education programs can find the ways to do it.
Portfolios of Student Learning
Portfolio assessment can be extremely useful for gifted students for many reasons, but more importantly is that it can show mastery beyond proficiency of skills and content within a course or subject. The creation of portfolios can greatly enhance the learning experience for gifted students. Often providing opportunities to challenge and motivate beyond the basic curriculum and making learning more valuable and applicable to the real world.
This format of assessment allows in depth studies that can be assessed through a variety of students work including work samples, presentations, projects, and assessments over a period of time which can minimise the stress that some students feel over a single high stakes assessment. Teachers are still able to determine understand and mastery of knowledge and skills that students gain in the classroom but assessment portfolios do not limit the students to having the opportunity to show what they know.
Students should be the primary decision making in determining work to be including in their portfolio, but guided through teacher recommendations and explanations. They need to explain why the evidence of learning has been including and what they learned from doing it. It is also helpful to teach students how to evaluate the work and identify what they could do in order to improve.
One of the greatest benefits of portfolios is that teachers can monitor students’ progress and use these to help them adjust their own teaching. The purpose of assessment is to learn more about student needs and understandings, and what better way to do so then through a display of student performance and artifact of this performance. . Assessment portfolios help students to develop these skills like evaluating their own work and making decisions on how to improve and adjust based on their performance, rather than looking at a score and not questioning how to go beyond the standard and make more useful applications of the learning.