Лекция 4. Assessment strategies to enhance students resilience by Jennifer Eidum

Assessment strategies to enhance student resilience

What is assessment?

Low stakes vs High stakes assessment

Low stakes

High stakes

Assignments or evaluations which have important consequences for the student.

Assignments or evaluations which have minor

• o r n o - consequence s fo r the student.

For example:

• Course final exam or End-of-grade testing
• University entrance exam
• Driving exam

For example:

• Daily quizzes Comprehension checks Respons e journals Manager feedback
• Daily quizzes
• Comprehension checks
• Respons e journals
• Manager feedback

Formative vs Summative assessment

Formative

• Monitor student progress toward learning goals
• Identify students’ strengths and weaknesses
• Identify where students are struggling & address problems immediately
• Typically low-stakes

Summative

• Evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark.
• Typically high-stakes

What are grades?

Late 18t h C

Early 20t h C

rankings & public examination

Yale 1785 Optimi, Inferiori, Perjores

Curve grading & IQ

John Dewey pushes back 20s & 30s

Late 19t h C

Late 20t h C

Industrialization = Standardization

Mt Holyoke 1895 first A-F

Grade inflation

Vietnam War → consumer education era

1837

Russian schools implement 4-point grading system: 5-4-3-2

Still in use today

Norm-referenced vs Criterion-referenced

Criterion-referenced

Norm-referenced

• Use specific requirements to assess student learning
• Criteria are often point-based, percentage-based, or a letter grading system

• Also called normative grading or “grading on a curve”
• Students compete for a limited number of each grade, often on a bell curve.

What is the purpose of assessment?

Why do we grade students?

• Evaluate student performance
• Evaluate student progress
• Evaluate teacher performance
• Rank students
• Provide feedback on student performance
• Understand student strengths and weaknesses
• Evaluate student learning

Sort Students

Moti v ate Students

Provide Feedback to Students

What is the impact of assessment?

Motivation

Quantification

Curriculum

Achievement

Motivation

Intrinsic: people act for internal reasons.

Examples:

• Participating in a sport because it’s fun.
• Learning a language because you enjoy it.

Extrinsic: people act for external reasons.

Examples:

• Working hard in school to get a good grade.
• Learning a language to get a good job.

Forward design vs Backward design

Learning activities

F o r wa r d Design

Backwa r d Design

Assessment

“ Losing the forest for the trees”

“ Teaching to the test”

Course Goals

Now what?

Assessment strategies to foster resilience and self-awareness

Creative Assessments

Grading for Growth

Creative Assessments

Low-Stakes Assignments

C r eati v e Assessments

Low-Stakes Assignments

Frequent small learning activities that:

• Do not heavily impact final grades or other educational outcomes
• Provide students with an opportunity to practice and/or demonstrate their learning in a course.
• May give students the opportunity for voice & choice: students selecting what they want to learn & how they want to demonstrate it.

Low-Stakes Assignments

Examples:

• Small quizzes, especially with ability to re-take
• Discussions
• Drafts of ideas/writing
• Breaking large assignments into smaller parts

P r oject-Based Learning

C r eati v e Assessments

Project-Based Learning (PBL)

• Valuable for language learning because it can teach academic vocabulary, encourages collaboration, scaffolds structure and function, allows for assessment and differentiation, and utilizes students’ language resources.
• Each of those areas (vocabulary, collaboration, project structure, assessment, and use of language) must be explicitly addressed in setting up and teaching the project.

More information: Miller 2015 “Supporting ELLs in PBL Projects”

Project-Based Learning (PBL)

Create a business that serves English-speaking customers in your community (or online): choose from a shop, a restaurant, or a tourist site.

• What is your business selling? Create a product list, menu, or site guide that includes product descriptions and pricing.
• Who works for your business? Create a list of jobs with their job descriptions.
• Name your business and create a logo for your business.

Standa r ds-Based Assessment

G r ading for Growth

Standards-Based Assessment

In short, standards-based assessment/grading means creating learning outcomes/standards that are clearly articulated and broken into parts, and evaluating a student’s competency against those standards.

• More precise than criterion-based assessment
• Provides many opportunities for developmental feedback
• Should allow for students’ based growth over time

Traditional Grading

1s t Assignment

Maria

Sam

A

2n d Assignment

3r d Assignment

Ellis

B+

A

4t h Assignment

A-

A-

D-

D+

C-

5t h Assignment

A-

Overall Grade (Averaged Performance)

A

C

B+

B-

A

A

A

C+

C

Examples from: Feldman, 2019, “Building More Inclusive Communities with Grading for Equity”

Standards-Based Grading (1-4)

Maria

Learning standard 1

Learning standard 2

Sam

4

4

Learning standard 3

3

Ellis

4

3

Learning standard 4

4

4

2

3

Learning standard 5

4

3

4

3

4

4

Final grade: Pass or Fail, Promotion to next grade, or some conversion to a standard grade

Standards-Based Grading

Example: Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR)

English self-assessment:

Collabo r ati v e Grading

G r ading for Growth

Collaborative Grading

• Working with students to determine their “grades” on a project or within a course.
• Benefits:

• Opens a conversation between student and instructor about learning Creates a learning environment of open communication and trust Increases students’ self-awareness & metacognitive capabilities Can increase investment in and motivation for learning Can decrease teacher grading workload!
• Opens a conversation between student and instructor about learning
• Creates a learning environment of open communication and trust
• Increases students’ self-awareness & metacognitive capabilities
• Can increase investment in and motivation for learning
• Can decrease teacher grading workload!

Collaborative Grading

Examples:

• When students turn in an assignment (especially written work or a project), ask students to write down 2 things they did well and 2 things they’d like to improve.
• When students turn in an assignment, first have them grade themselves according to the standards/rubric.
• When creating a final grade for a project/course, have students determine the grade they think they deserve, and why. If accurate, give that grade. If inaccurate, discuss why.

G r ading for Growth

Ungrading

Ungrading

• Ungrading eliminates or greatly minimizes the use of assigned points or letter grades in a course.
• Upgrading focuses on providing frequent and detailed feedback to students on their learning in relation to the course learning goals.
• The primary purpose of assessment is to help students learn and improve their knowledge and skills, rather than to create a summative score that students use to compare themselves against an external credential.

Ungrading

Examples:

• Labor-based grading: evaluation based on the quantity of work, not quality.
• Negotiated grading: students and instructors together determine what and how course materials should be graded.
• Partial: some components are graded for completion while other follow more traditional grading.

Ung r ading

Key questions to ask:

• What does passing performance in the class look like?

• What does exceptional performance in the class look like?

• What does failing/not learning performance look like?

Thank you!

Dr. Jennifer Eidum

Associate Professor of English, Elon University English Language Specialist

jeidum@elon.edu