Common Formative Assessment Post-Knowledge Check

For each scenario, does the action taken by the educator(s) work to establish/use meaningful learning targets to guide instruction and clarify student learning? Mark yes or no

The sixth-grade science team met to identify learning targets for the second semester. Each teacher reviewed instructional units and selected learning targets. The team then compiled and shared a list of learning targets so second semester science instruction would be consistent.

Teachers from each grade level at Sunset Elementary met to develop learning targets for math. First, the Missouri Learning Standards were examined, and each grade level identified priority standards and checked them for vertical flow. Next, the standards were unwrapped, and essential skills and concepts were identified.  

Mr. Mason posts daily learning targets on the whiteboard and explains their meaning, clarifying academic vocabulary. He has students discuss the learning targets with peers and clarifies any student questions. He refers to the  learning targets throughout lessons.

For each scenario, does the action taken by the educator(s) work to establish and use measurable student success criteria to clarify learning? Mark yes or no.

Mrs. Paxton posted the following learning target and success criteria on the whiteboard:

Learning Target: I am learning how to multiply fractions and mixed numbers.

Success Criteria:

• Work is shown.
• Correct answers are circled
• Explanation is provided
• Neatness

The Physical Education Teacher uses the following strategies to help students understand the success criteria needed for the learning target: I am learning to improve basketball free throws.

First, students brainstorms ways free throws could be improved.  The teacher then reviews strategies he had taught and will be teaching to increase the number of baskets made.  Together, the teacher and students created a list of specific success criteria explaining what students needed to do to improve free throws.

The second-grade teachers developed the following success criteria to be used with the learning target for finding proper nouns.

Learning target:

I am learning to  find proper nouns in a story.

Success Criteria:  I know I am successful when I can:

• Define a proper noun using my own words.
• Give examples of proper nouns.
• Identify and circle all the proper nouns in a sentence.

For each scenario, does the action taken by the educator(s) work to elicit evidence of learning through daily formative assessments to monitor student understanding and improve instruction? Mark yes or no.

The high school ELA teacher wants to ensure that she collects valid evidence about student learning so it can be acted on throughout lessons. She uses several tools and strategies such as white boards, exit tickets, response cards, and online apps to collect student responses to help her make decisions about her next teaching moves.

Mr. Jansen develops a comprehensive unit assessment each quarter for his science classes. The assessment includes items that require students to apply the concepts that have been taught. The assessment score is the primary source from which student quarterly grades are derived.

A team of fourth grade teachers wants to improve their formative assessment practices so they developed a plan to teach and encourage students to be much more self-reflective and metacognitive.  They included more opportunities in the plan for students to meet with peers to review and assess each other’s work.

For each scenario, does the action taken by the educator(s) work to elicit evidence of learning through common formative assessments  to improve instruction and student achievement? Mark yes or no.

Mrs. Rice, the instructional coach, reviewed the Missouri Learning Standards and developed a writing assessment for her school district’s second grade students. The purpose of this assessment was to evaluate writing skills of each student before 3^rd grade placement.

High school art teachers from several districts met to develop an assessment aligned with learning targets and success criteria they had previously identified for color and design priority standards. The assessments will be used to determine which students demonstrated proficiency on the skills and concepts and which students needed interventions. 

The following steps were implemented by the kindergarten team while developing a common formative assessment for the measurement unit:

• Determine the purpose of testing.
• Clarify essential learning targets/success criteria.
• Create an assessment plan based on the targets/success criteria.
• Select item format and number.
• Assemble the assessment.
• Give the assessment, then collect, analyze, act on data.
• Revise assessment as needed.

For each scenario, does the action taken by the educator(s) provide effective feedback and improve student learning? Mark yes or no.

The tennis coach watched John serve the ball and then provided him  the following feedback:

”When you tossed the ball for your serve, it was a bit too far in front of your body. Try picking a spot on the floor and practice tossing the ball and having it land on the same spot as you step forward. Then reflect on the process you use. This should help you hit that sweet spot when serving.”

Miss Sampson provided feedback to her writing students by corrected every punctuation, spelling, and grammatical error using a different colored marker. This method would help students easily identify mistakes they had made so errors would not be repeated in the future.

While conferencing with Susan to discuss her recent science lab drawing, Mr. Lee provided the following feedback, “Susan, you drew clear boundary structures of the amoeba and included secondary features as well.  I see that you have labeled two of the parts. Are there other parts that could be labeled? You have included the title and specimen name at the top, but the description doesn’t include very many details. What might you do to make your scientific drawing even better? “