Pre-Assessment for Differentiation

This blog consists of four parts:

1. Review of Teacher Works Samples
2. Creating a pre-assessment using Kahoot
3. Creating flowcharts on innovative teaching strategies using Lucidchart
4. Summary of Assessments

Teacher Works Samples

The first part of this activity is about reviewing Teacher Works Samples. I looked at the following examples from "Renaissance Teacher Works Samples Consortium." They were: 

1.Teacher Work Sample: Spring 2008, High School, Business, Topic: Marketing and Entertainment
2.Teacher Work Sample: Spring 2007, Grades 10-12, Business, Topic: Financial Services. 

Per Teacher Work Sample #1, although "the class performs at a high academic level" and has some prior marketing knowledge, the teacher assumes that students have little knowledge in regards to marketing plans. The main objective of the course is to teach students how to write a real-life marketing plan for a local theater. The teacher's assumption about students having limited knowledge about marketing is correct. The pre-assessment consisted of written questions about the four objective goals. Students scored 54%, 48%, 60%, and 50% on goals 1-4. Total pre-assessment score was 53%. This teacher work sample is representative of the types of students I'll be teaching which are high-achievers seeking knowledge in a specialized area outside of the general education curriculum.

In Teacher Work Sample #2, the subject matter is less advanced but students still did not meet the 80% acceptance rate on the three learning goals. This is because the topics were new to these students, it doesn't imply lack of academic readiness. Scores were 76%, 71% and 91% with an overall score of 81%. These results tell the teacher to focus on goals one and two. This teacher wrote a pre-assessment which consisted of ten true/false, five matching, nine multiple choice and two open-answer writing questions. Again, the subject matter is outside of the general education curriculum. This is the type of pre-assessment test I'll plan to use on my students. I want to know their thoughts about marketing.

Pre-Assessment

The second part of this activity requires that a pre-assessment be written using an app. My pre-assessment is based on State of Arizona Standard 2.0 - Demonstrate Marketing Concepts. I created a basic quiz in Kahoot deriving from the objectives listed within the standard. I will not be using it in my class because mobile devices are banned in the classroom. I also found Kahoot restrictive because it limits the amount of characters writers can use when creating test questions. In my class, I plan to give a pre-assessment which includes questions requiring written answers. I want to know what students think about marketing. 

https://play.kahoot.it/#/k/750793e3-b7cf-44b2-86a7-8da097db0758

Flowchart and Analysis

The third part of this activity is about creating a Lucidchart for three groups of students: high-academic achievers, middle-academic achievers and low-academic achievers.

Teacher Work Sample #1 describes the type of students taking elective marketing classes. These students are high-academic achievers, most will have some knowledge of marketing but will have limited knowledge of marketing plans. All students were at the same level of academic readiness and the work sample indicated a homogenous group of students. Passing a math standard is a prerequisite to taking advanced placement marketing classes. These are the types of students I expect to see in my classes as well.

The rubric in this activity focuses on three different levels of academic readiness assuming a heterogeneous classroom environment. Based on the Teacher Work Sample and my experience in the classroom, this will not be the case. For my unit, I plan to differentiate based on high-academic achievers with little knowledge of the subject matter. To fulfill the rubric, I'll develop my differentiation strategy around the criteria listed below:

1. High-academic achievement = The Most Knowledge
2. High-academic achievement = Average knowledge
3. High-academic achievement = Lowest level of knowledge

Differentiation states that teachers can effectively differentiate instruction according to content, process and product. Three areas which can be differentiated are quantity of work, same activity - different task and level of difficulty. For example, students with little knowledge can answer less test questions or complete less complicated tasks than their peers who have a higher levels of knowledge.

Because I'm teaching high-academic achievers, I'm flipping that requirement. The only difference is the level of knowledge with high-academic achievers, it is not about academic readiness. As these students have all passed math standards, they are academically ready to take advanced placement business classes. Most will want to be up to speed with their classmates (although there may be a few exceptions). This might be a high-academic achiever who is bored with classroom activities (gifted) and I'll have to provide stimulating activities based on personal interest and learning profile because academic readiness is not the issue.

My Lucidchart shows a differentiation strategy for Lesson Plan One using same task - different activities. I'd use this approach for all of the lessons were I to be teaching high-academic achieving students. The first lesson will get them up to speed and following lessons will focus on levels of interest in the subject and how to provide stimulating and challenging activities.

Summary of Assessments

Assessments used to track students for this activity are:

1. High-level = Document plus peer teaching to mid and low-level students.
2. Mid-level = Document, post-assessment quiz results and peer teaching to low-level.
3. Low-level = Document and post-assessment quiz results.

My summative assessments for this class are a midterm exam, a final exam and a group marketing plan project. Students will work in groups and select from a list of local businesses. For example, if a particular group of students has an interest in dogs, they'll select a small business specializing in dog training and daycare. If another group has an interest in sports, then they'll focus on a firm working with sports.

I'll use a mix of formative assessments and a variety of activities to keep these high-academic achievers engaged in the subject matter. I'll additionally have to determine the gifted students present in my class and how to accommodate them. There may also be students lacking organizational skills in my class. Formative assessments and activities will be developed around Marketing Standard 2.0 with personal interests and learning profiles in mind.

Resources

Lesson Planning Tips for Different Student Levels. (2016). Retrieved from: http://teaching.monster.com/benefits/articles/8976-lesson-planning-tips-for-different-student-levels.

Tomlinson, C. and Allan, S. (2000). Leadership for Differentiating Schools and Classrooms. Alexandria, VA. ASCD.

Martin, D. (2016). Lower Level Learners: Teaching Their Way. Retrieved from: http://teachinghistory.org/teaching-materials/ask-a-master-teacher/24111.
















 

High Stakes Assessments

The Current State of Arizona's High-Stakes Standardized Testing

"Tucson's largest school district (TUSD) canceled standardized state testing scheduled for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and instead will hold regular classes, after enactment Friday of a law eliminating the exam requirement . . . . . . . . . .  I congratulate the Legislature and Gov. Ducey for removing this  vestige of high stakes testing," said Diane Douglas, Arizona's superintendent of public instruction, in the news release . . . . . .  The only state test that students will be required to pass to graduate is the civics exam Ducey signed into law last month. These are the only bills he has signed so far."

Arizona's Instrument to Assess Standards, formerly known as the AIMS test, ended with Ricky Hernandez of the Pima County School Superintendent's Office stating, "We think it would make sense that at a time when our state assessments and our standards are currently in flux that our high school students would not be required to pass a statewide standardized test."

AIMS was never popular in Arizona. When it was first implemented, it had a high failure rate, so it was made easier to to ensure the receipt of federal money under the NCLB Act while appeasing politicians and parents. AIMS was viewed as either too easy or too hard and it created a no-win situation in Arizona. It was a multiple choice exam given to all 10th grade students which apparently failed to to measure higher-level skills needed for college and career, nor did it measure teacher performance.

On February 23, 2015, Arizona replaced the AIMS test with the AzMerit test to be administered to 3rd-12th grade students. The test consists of three parts: Reading, Math and Writing. I opened up the 10th grade Reading practice test and answered a few questions. It was a combination of multiple choice and paragraph selection. I thought it was quite good in promoting critical-thinking skills as it featured questions like, "Which is a central idea of the passage?" followed by "Select the detail from the passage that supports the central idea." Unfortunately, upon it's inauguration, "most of Arizona's students failed the state's revamped standardized test — unwelcome news that  many believe is necessary to pave the way toward higher student achievement in the long run." Below is a graph showing the results of the Language Arts inaugural test taken by 10th grade students. 

However, school officials predicted lower test scores during the first several years of testing because the State previously anticipated switching to Common Core, but never made the change. Despite this, some charter schools were among the highest performers on the test. But, there will be an adjustment period for everyone.

In the meantime, TUSD has implemented a new pilot program which will begin in Fall 2016. The goal is to reduce the amount of district-mandated standardized testing. Instead, TUSD plans to create one benchmark test to replace the three currently required annual tests. The benchmark test will initially be administered at 5-6 undetermined campuses. At the same time, students will still have to take the AzMerit test. Apparently, teachers have to spend approximately a week of instructional time on the AzMerit test. Reducing the amount of time teachers spend preparing for standardized tests is the goal of establishing one benchmark district-mandated test. And, “teachers and principals constantly express concerns over the volume of standardized testing that students, especially younger students, endure," says TUSD board member Mark Stegeman.

From my perspective, there is a lot of pressure on Math and English teachers to prepare students for these tests. As I'll be teaching elective courses, I won't be participating in preparing students for AzMerit or district-mandated tests. There is so much controversy around these tests, but how do you really create a test which prepares students for college and career readiness? Colleges and the workplace are so diverse themselves, what do they want? What exactly are they asking for? It seems like Arizona is changing its tests constantly and that does have an effect on teachers, their pay and bonuses. At one local school district, Catalina Foothills, 97% of teachers didn't meet performance requirements because of the new AzMerit test.

In the next part of this blog, I'll feature some questions and answers from a friend who is a special education teacher in the New York public school system.

High Stakes Testing and Special Education in the New York Public School System

“The strategy currently employed by New York City Department of Education and the State Education Department is not working for students, teachers or schools,” said Pedro Noguera, Professor of Education and executive director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education at New York University. “High-stakes standardized tests are being used to rank and measure students and teachers, and to punish schools, rather than as tools to diagnose learning needs and inform instruction . . . . . . statewide, teachers whose jobs are threatened by test scores will resist working with high-need, ELL and special-education students, Biklen said. Student teachers will be considered liabilities, and aspiring teachers as well as accomplished veterans will decline posts in struggling, hard-to-serve urban schools, where low test scores could doom a school to closure." 

 

The State of New York has loads of problems in regard to teacher certification, standardized testing and it's former involvement with Pearson Scoring, "Merryl Tisch is retiring as Chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents after trying to force Common Core, high-stakes testing, and teacher evaluations based on student test scores down the throats of the people of New York. Her efforts produced a backlash from parents and teachers including a massive opt-out campaign that helped her decide to quit. Last April, about twenty percent of the eligible students in grades third- through eighth refused to take mandated reading and math tests."

 

With these issues in mind, I asked a friend, Will Ruch, a special education teacher in the New York Public School system the following questions: 

 

1. Name of the school you're teaching at:
    NYC DOE
    Specialty:  K-1 Students with Autism
    Grade Level:  K-1
    Subjects:  All

2. How much time is spent in testing? 

In all grades there are end of unit performance tasks roughly once a month.  These are formative assessments teachers use to guide instruction.

In the fall in grades 3-5, we do a Fall Baseline in ELA and Math.

In the spring (Feb), we do a Spring Benchmark in ELA and Math approximately 2 hours per test.

Additionally, in late spring of this year we did Computer Based Field Tests, which are tests that do not count for student or teacher grades but are used to develop next year's tests.

For official testing purposes (teacher, student, school and principal "grades), we do F&P Running Records 4 times a year (testing reading levels; one-on-one with each student approx 40 minutes per test).

For state testing in the spring, there are six testing days with approx 5 hours of testing per 3 days (so 10 hours total); on the testing days the school basically shuts down, as teachers are pulled from all classes to proctor tests, as many special ed students have accommodations that entitle them to separate testing groups, extended time, etc.

To prepare for these tests, we have after school and Saturday academies for test prep, as test prep does not take place w/in the school day (so no, we do not teach to test, we teach to standards and/or performance tasks).  The after school academies are about 4 hours a week, Saturday is about 4 hours, so for a student that signs up for the whole package, that is 8 extra hours of instruction a week; all of this has to be paid for, as teachers are paid overtime to teach these academies.

3. Are teachers teaching to the test?   No, we teach to the Common Core standards and instruction is scored during observations using the Danielson Framework.

4. Are rewards or bonuses given to teachers whose students score high?  No.  Teachers earn extra money by working overtime in academies to test prep; in addition, as scores affect teacher, school, and principal ratings, a lack of performance could have dire consequences.

5. Are students required to pass the test to move to the next grade or graduate?  NYC uses multiple data to determine whether a student is promoted; obviously, if a student passes all the state tests with flying colors, that is the only data we would use; however, in the case of a lower-scoring student, student work would be considered, especially if parents are protesting a decision to hold back a student.

7. Are test scores used for teacher evaluations? Yes, in that each teacher is assigned a growth score determined by measures of student learning.  The measures of student learning are test results, numerically adjusted to account for poverty, special ed status, student attendance, etc.  Then, teachers and schools are compared with similar peers to rank them.  For example, schools in middle class neighborhoods are compared with other schools in similar neighborhoods, etc.

8. What types of tests are administered to your students?

End of unit assessments developed by teachers and /or a part of our Common Core aligned curriculums:

ELA:  F&P Running Records, and ReadyGen end of unit tests, and TC Writing Performance Tasks

Math:  GoMath End of Unit Assessments

NY State ELA and Math Spring and Fall Benchmarks, plus annual tests in Spring

NY State Field Tests in Late Spring (since these are beta tests, we usually do one subject, one grade.  This year it was grade 5 math).

Our state tests are developed by Questar and were formerly developed by Pearson.

I am not even mentioning all of the diagnostic assessments that are used by school psych, our autism program (for program admissions) and/or the data collection systems and assessments used by our Pre-K teachers.  Yikes!

I believe that testing is required to assess both student and teacher performance, but should be one of many factors used to determine student promotion and/or teacher ratings.

Observation ratings, combined with formative and summative assessment results are a good way to judge most teachers.  When the populations of students are skewed there are exceptions.  For example, students with severe disabilities or students who are gifted and talented.

Conclusion

To summarize, high-stakes testing in the U.S. is fraught with problems and mired in red tape. But it doesn't seem like other countries are much better off, except for Finland and a few others. Finland has such a low population though, it would be much easier to manage it's education system than in the U.S. or more populous countries.

Resources

Echevarri, F. (2016). TUSD Cancels AIMS Tests in Light of New State Law. Retrieved from: https://news.azpm.org/s/28604-tusd-cancels-high-school-testing-week-in-wake-of-new-state-law/.

Kossan, P. (2009, March 15). Educators seek answers beyond AIMS. Retrieved from: http://archive.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2009/03/15/20090315aims0315.html.

AzMerit Test Reading. Retrieved from: https://sat30.cloud1.tds.airast.org/student/V340/Pages/TestShell.aspx.

Cano, R. (2015, December 1). AzMerit Scores: Most students failed inaugural test. Retrieved from: http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/education/2015/11/30/azmerit-scores-most-students-failed-inaugural-test/76561.

Huicochea, A. (2016, April 15). TUSD Pilot Program seeks to reduce mandated testing. Retrieved from: http://tucson.com/news/local/education/tusd-pilot-program-seeks-to-reduce-mandated-testing/article_39e26cd3-b22d-554a-b53d-278578fa30b2.html.

NYCLU. (2012, June 27). High Stakes Tests Harm Students and Teachers, Undermine Equity in New York's Schools. Retrieved from: http://www.nyclu.org/news/high-stakes-tests-harm-students-and-teachers-undermine-equity-new-yorks-schools.

Singer, A. (2016, March 3). Overturn the Tisch Miseducation Legacy in New York. Retrieved from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/overturn-the-tisch-misedu_b_9457350.html.