Assessment in Golden Hills is comprised of a balance between summative and formative measures and tools. Use of descriptive feedback, clear targets and exemplars are integral to the assessment process in Golden Hills. Grading occurs within the context of sound assessment practices in order to achieve accuracy in reporting student understanding of the curricular outcome. Assessments need to assess what they say they will measure in order to be valid and reliable. Evidence of students learning is collected through a variety of methods including conversations, observations and products. The summative grade is then assigned and communicated using grading practices that align with the “Golden Hills School Divisions Seven Principles of Assessment”. These practices serve to establish, sustain and grow student learning and confidence as well as accurately communicate what the students knows, understands and is able to do.

Summative Assessment (Assessment of Learning)

Summative assessment is defined as assessment designed to collect information about learning to make judgments about student performance and achievement at the end of a period of instruction to be shared outside of the classroom (AAC).

Learning is an ongoing process and does not end because of a summative assessment. If your student has demonstrated that they have mastered the outcome then you can turn the summative assessment into a formative assessment based on the most recent evidence.

An assessment can be either summative or formative depending upon what you do with it. If the assessment is used to “sum up” or describe what the student knows or can do, then it is summative. If the assessment is used as part of learning and students incorporate the feedback to keep learning improve  a task before marking,  then it is formative.

Assessment as Learning

Assessment as Learning is the ongoing self-assessment by students in order to monitor their own learning. In Golden Hills we have included this idea within the AFL definition and within the metacognition section of this document.

Formative Assessment (Assessment for Learning)

Formative assessment that result in an ongoing exchange of information between students and teachers about student progress toward clearly specified learner outcomes. (AAC)

Formative assessment can be seen as a process that relies on several measures over time.  It is viewed as a process rather than a singular event (Bennett, 2011). Information collected through the use of formative assessment is used to further student learning (Ayala, 2005).  Teachers create instruction based on evidence gathered through formative uses of assessment.  These formative interactions are designed to encourage thought on the student’s part (Black & William, 2009).  Teachers use information from these interactions in order to make decisions surrounding the curriculum and the direction of learning.  They determine whether to move forward, how to move forward and where to encourage student focus.  This view focuses on the process of developing and changing instruction to match student needs.

Golden Hills has focused on improving student learning through developing teacher practice in attending to ongoing “minute-by-minute and day-to-day formative assessment” (William, 2011, p. 27). Formative assessment “encompasses all those activities undertaken by teachers and /or students, which provide information to be used as feedback to modify the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged” as cited in William, 2011. William states “An assessment functions formatively to the extent that evidence about student achievement is elicited, interpreted, and used by teachers, learners, or their peers to make decisions about the next steps in instruction…” (William 2011, p. 43). In order for teacher and learners to determine next steps, it is imperative that teachers determine “where students are at in their learning, where they are going and how to get there”. The AFL strategies implemented in Golden Hills help teachers to plan with clear goals linked to curriculum, as well as understand how to provide extensive descriptive feedback during the learning. Hattie (2009) identified in his meta-analysis research that “feedback” is ranked as having a high impact on student learning.

Golden Hills’ achievement results have improved by integrating effective assessment for learning practices.

Golden Hills has identified the following key components of “Assessment for Learning” to be implemented during the instructional process to improve teaching and learning.

Timely and concise feedback provides students with information about what they know or don’t know and is used, by teachers, to direct further instruction.  Teachers can use this feedback to help students bridge the gap between what they know and what they need to know (Ayala, 2005). As students use feedback, they become capable of building upon their own learning and develop enhanced metacognition and increased motivation (Brookhart, 2012).  “When teachers seek, or at least open to, feedback from students as to what students know, what they understand, where they make errors, when they have misconceptions, when they are not engaged-then teaching and learning can be synchronized and powerful.  Feedback to teachers helps make learning visible” (Visible Learning, 2009, p.173).  The most effective feedback provides information to students about their tasks and how to do it more effectively (Hattie & Timberley, 2007).

Teaching mindfully and with the intent to support the success of all learners moves us away from seeing and teaching students as a unit to responding to them as individuals. According to Carol Ann Tomlinson in “Differentiation and the Brain” (2011 p 9), differentiation is not a set of strategies, but a way of thinking about teaching and learning. Her model of effective differentiation stems from research on how people learn and how strong teachers teach. This learner centered model asserts that

1. a) differentiation is a teacher’s response to learner needs and that
2. b) a teacher’s belief about the capacity of each student to succeed with essential content affects everything in the classroom.

Key reasons to differentiate are that it improves students’ access to learning, motivates them to learn and makes learning more efficient.  Applying “differentiated instruction” can help address the needs of academically diverse learners in our increasingly diverse classrooms.

Designing Powerful Learning incorporates opportunities for students to develop creativity in their classrooms. Creativity is a core competency defined by Alberta Learning as the ability to apply creative thought processes to create something of value. Moving away from scripted lessons to asking questions that encourage critical and creative thinking helps our students to think in both divergent and convergent ways, analyzing and evaluating as they learn. Drapeau states that both divergent and convergent thinking are necessary for creativity. (Drapeau, 2014) “A student uses divergent thinking to generate different solutions to a problem or challenge and then uses convergent thinking to decide which one will provide the best results”. (Drapeau, 2014)

Peter Gamwell (2018) talks about three imperatives that foster creativity. These imperatives include recognizing there is a seed of brilliance in everyone, adopting a strength-based approach and creating a culture of belonging.

“The creative process includes elaborating on the initial ideas, testing, and refining them and even rejecting them.” (Drapeau, 2011, As cited in Drapeau, 2014, p 2) This results in innovation which is one of the core competencies is defined by Alberta Learning as the capacity to create and apply new knowledge to create new products or solve complex problems. The importance of fostering creativity is recognized and the role teachers have in setting this up is also understood.

To see Creativity and Innovation in Golden Hills, go to this Powerful Story.

Metacognition awareness is the ability to notice one’s own thinking. This involves both awareness and understanding of one’s own thought process, in other words “Thinking About Thinking”.  It is the ability to monitor, evaluate, and plan for one’s own learning. (Flavell 1097, as cited in Fisher et.al. 2018 pg. 115). Research shows that metacognition can be taught in order to help students improve their own learning.

Thinking routines as outlined by Ron Ritchhart, Mark Church and Karin Morrison (2011) in “Making Thinking Visible”, strive to help students achieve deeper understanding through the use of thinking routines and effective questioning.  To think or understand “deeply” means “there is a focus on developing understanding through more active and constructive processes” (Ritchhart et al. 2011, p. 7). When students develop a greater awareness of “how they think”, they become independent learners capable of directing and managing their own thinking and learning. Ritchhart states that thinking routines act as tools for promoting thinking, as well as provide structures and patterns for thinking. Golden Hills teachers strive to build student understanding by making thinking visible in their classrooms. Routines for introducing learning, synthesizing and organizing ideas and digging deeper into ideas are outlined.

Critical thinking engages students in exploring provocative questions or challenges and encourages students to investigate, reflect, create and share their understandings. When someone is thinking critically they are assessing or judging the merits of potential options based on a set of relevant criteria.

In order to foster critical thinking, students need opportunities to build upon their prior knowledge, communicate with peers, develop knowledge and skills to analyze information and draw their own conclusions in an engaged classroom.

Golden Hills has recognized the importance of infusing critical thinking into our classrooms. Students are invited to think critically or reason using a set of criteria. When students are offered a critical challenge and encouraged to engage in critical inquiry, increased engagement and deeper learning can be achieved. Garfield encourages “teachers to activate learning about a topic by involving students in shaping questions to guide their study, giving them ownership over the direction of these investigations and requiring that students critically analyze and not merely retrieve information.”  (Gini-Newman & Gini-Newman, p. 35).  In this way, according to Garfield, a shift occurs from covering curriculum to students uncovering the curriculum”. The content of the curriculum is “problematized” which then leads to an investigation and discovery connected to the real world. Through this type of investigation students draw conclusions, make decisions and solve problems.

The Critical Thinking Consortium is a great place to for resources for Critical Thinking.

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Academic Vocabulary summary sheet

Marzano and Pickering (2005) reported that when students have general knowledge of the terms that are important to content taught in school, achievement is significantly improved. One of the most crucial advantages that teachers can provide, particularly for students who do not come from academically advantaged backgrounds, is systematic instruction in important academic terms.

Cues and Organizers – Advanced Organizers summary sheet

The use of cues and organizers provide students with a conceptual framework to hook new learning on to and they enhance student’s ability to retrieve, use and organize what they already know about a topic. The use of a variety of graphic organizers throughout the learning provides opportunities for students to extend and apply knowledge.

Advance organizers are stories, pictures and other introductory materials or tasks that set the stage for learning (Dean, Hubbell, Pitler & Stone, 2012).

Post organizers are tasks completed at the end of learning that summarizes or captures the key ideas.

Similarities and Differences summary sheet

The set of instructional strategies that cluster around identifying similarities and differences involve students in comparisons, classifications, metaphors and analogies. These strategies help students move from existing knowledge to new knowledge, concrete to abstract and separate to connected ideas. Twelve studies were reviewed in a meta-analysis, 2010, conducted by McREL researchers. The effect size of these strategies was .66 which is equivalent to a 25 percentile point gain (Dean, Hubbell, Pitler & Stone, 2012). This indicates that students benefit from the explicit instruction in processes which use similarities and differences.

Nonlinguistic Representation summary sheet

Nonlinguistic representations have been found to provide students with useful tools that merge knowledge presented in the classroom with ways of understanding and remembering knowledge (Jewitt, 2008).  Nonlinguistic representation strategies are ones which help students represent understanding and elaborate on that knowledge using mental images or imagery. Nonlinguistic representations involve imagery, creating pictures and engaging in kinesthetic activity. Research has found this to be a powerful strategy because it taps into a student’s natural tendency for visual image processing. This strategy helps students to construct meaning of relevant content and skills and have a better capacity to recall it later (Medina, 2008). Studies in Beesley and Apthorp’s, 2010, analysis indicated that the impact of using nonlinguistic representations can multiply when teachers and students use the strategy in combinations with other strategies.

Generating and Testing Hypotheses summary sheet

Generating and testing hypotheses deepens student knowledge because it requires the use of critical thinking skills when analyzing and evaluating. Problem solving, experimental inquiry and investigation are incorporated to generate and test a hypothesis.  Generating and testing hypotheses applies knowledge through the use of two thinking processes.  One of these processes is deduction which involves using general rules to make a prediction about a future event or action. Induction is the second thinking process, which involves making inferences based upon knowledge that the student already has. This involves drawing new conclusions or identifying rules based upon observations. This strategy enhances students understanding of and ability to use knowledge by engaging them in the mental process required for making and testing hypothesis.

Summarizing and Notetaking summary sheet

Summarizing and note-taking are essential elements of learning. Summarizing is the process of distilling information down into its most essential points to increase understanding, memorizing, and learning what is relevant. Note-taking is the process of capturing key ideas through writing, drawing, etc. These are essential strategies because they involve higher-order thinking skills. Note-taking strategies are not intuitive which means that students benefit from explicit instruction in note-taking, particularly those that are guided by the teacher and are structured.

Effective Questioning summary sheet

Questioning has been found to be the second most dominant teaching method after teacher talk, with teachers spending 35-50% of teaching time posing questions (Hattie, 2009, p. 182). Questioning is a powerful strategy for teaching concepts, building comprehension and helping students to assume an inquiry stance towards learning. Asking questions to foster an inquisitive stance helps students to be open to new ideas. Most questions that teachers ask are questions they already know the answer to (guess what is in the teachers head types of questions) as cited in (Hattie, 2009. P. 182). The goal is to ask questions that encourage students to think. The importance of questions that will propel learning and build curiosity are highlighted in Ritchhart et.al’s work (2011).  A balance of the types of questions and the use of questions that will foster inquiry and critical creative thinking are encouraged in the implementation of Powerful Learning.

When implementing Powerful Learning, inquiry and critical thinking are fostered through a balance of the types of questions how they are asked. The majority of questions asked by teachers are low-level questions that require students to recall facts. There is one correct answer to these questions and students play a game of “guess what is in the teacher’s head” (Hattie, 2009. p. 182).

The importance of questions that will propel learning and build curiosity are highlighted in Ritchhart et.al’s work (2011).

Powerful questions emerge from our goals and expectations for learning and may not always be planned in advance.

Ritchhart (2015, pg.221) describes five types of questions:

1. Review questions where students recall previous knowledge or procedures.
2. Procedural questions that direct classroom activity and behavior rather than focus on content.
3. Generative questions spark inquiry, invite exploration and the teacher does not already know the answer.
4. Constructive questions build new understanding and ask students to connect ideas, make interpretations, focus on big ideas and central concepts. Questions are asked to foster an inquisitive stance and help students be open to new ideas.
5. Facilitative questions ask students to explain or elaborate their thinking to make it visible.

Click here for a handout regarding question typology.

Questioning has been found to be the second most dominant teaching method used in classrooms after teacher talk, with teachers spending 35-50% of teaching time posing questions (Hattie, 2009, pg. 182).

Effective questioning criteria:

• Teachers plan the questions they ask to help students focus on the most important concepts and the criteria for success.
• Teachers use powerful questions to facilitate inquiry to find information, are specific to the person or situation, are open-ended and can have more than one correct answer.
• Teachers use provocative questions to prompt student reflection on their understanding.
• Teachers ask questions that encourage students to reflect upon peers’ ideas and respond to them.
• Teachers use appropriate wait time to elicit student responses.
• Teachers use a variety of ways to gather student responses (e.g., pulling names from a jar, students write down their responses, etc.)