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Assess and Interpret
Performance
How Have States Implemented AYP?
How Do Districts Support Schools to Meet AYP?
How Do Schools Meet AYP?


The state content standards identify what a student needs to know and be able to do.Teachers must determine where students are in relation to the standards. To obtain this information teachers must understand what makes a good opportunity for students to demonstrate what they know and can do and then to provide students with ample opportunities to do so. In their book, Knowing What Students Know, the National Research Council identifies three elements—Cognition, Observation, Interpretation—that underlie good assessments of student performance. The following questions help define the three elements:
 
Cognition: What do we know about how students learn?
Observation: How do we create situations that allow students to demonstrate what they have learned?
Interpretation: How do we draw inferences from the performance?
 
In The Intersection of Instruction and Assessment: The Classroom, Niyogi describes the characteristics of high-quality classroom-based assessments. "Assessment should be used not simply to judge how much kids know but to illuminate the nature of their knowledge and understandings in order to help kids learn…. Common sense tells us that on-going, classroom-based assessment can serve this purpose. Teachers interacting with students will observe the nuances of their cognitive growth and development over time, their individual strengths and weaknesses in ways that would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to capture through standardized or conventional testing alone."



What do we know about how students learn?
Teachers may be able to identify some cognitive models for how students learn such as Bloom's Taxonomy or Dimensions of Learning. However, they may not have used it as a foundation for creating opportunities to evaluate what students know. Most teachers will need capacity building in the areas of creating opportunities for students to demonstrate what they know as well as in interpreting student performance. These opportunities should not be limited to tests or quizzes but should also include assignments, classroom activities, and projects.
 

How do we create situations that allow students to demonstrate what they have learned?
Creating good assessments is in large part dependent on teacher understanding of the content standard indicator they are assessing and a clear idea of the characteristics of proficient work for students at a particular grade level. Richard Stiggins agrees that "to assess student achievement accurately, teachers and administrators must understand the achievement targets their students are to master. They cannot assess (let alone teach) achievement that has not been defined." He believes that this is an essential condition for schools to be able to integrate assessment into the teaching and learning process.
 
For example, if an indicator begins with evaluate and you ask the student to identify, then your question is not in alignment with the indicator you're trying to assess. Likewise, the rubric you use to evaluate the quality of your students' responses must be aligned with what you are trying to assess. An age-old challenge for teachers is how to recognize the quality of the evidence, not just the number of pieces of evidence when creating a rubric for scoring. Often scoring rubrics used by teachers are quantitative — checklists and counts - rather than qualitative — evaluation of the depth of understanding students have of the material. This is one more area that teachers at the same grade level need to make sure they are on the same page.
 
There are many ways teachers can create opportunities, and it is important that opportunities for students to demonstrate understanding should be an integral part of every instructional lesson. In "Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment," Black and Wiliam describe a number of ways this can happen or can be inhibited.
 
"Discussions in which pupils are led to talk about their understanding in their own ways are important aids to increasing knowledge and improving understanding. Dialogue with the teacher provides the opportunity for the teacher to respond to and reorient a pupil's thinking. However, there are clearly recorded examples of such discussions in which teachers have, quite unconsciously, responded in ways that would inhibit the future learning of a pupil. What the examples have in common is that the teacher is looking for a particular response and lacks the flexibility or the confidence to deal with the unexpected. So the teacher tries to direct the pupil toward giving the expected answer. In manipulating the dialogue in this way, the teacher seals off any unusual, often thoughtful but unorthodox, attempts by pupils to work out their own answers. Over time the pupils get the message: they are not required to think out their own answers. The object of the exercise is to work out — or guess — what answer the teacher expects to see or hear."

How do we interpret student performance?
Understanding how to interpret student performance is another area that teachers may need to build capacity. Many are just beginning to use rubrics for scoring student performance, and their use is inconsistent. Many don't realize that professional scorers don't use the rubric alone to score; they use anchor papers selected through a process called "range finding" to identify responses that exemplify qualitatively difference levels of understanding in student responses. These anchors help teachers determine which score a student response deserved more accurately and more consistently. Though teachers don't usually engage in a formal range-finding process, they will still need to select their own anchor papers to use for scoring a response. Selecting anchor papers as a grade level team will help ensure consistency. The collaborative discussions of the characteristics of student work at different levels of mastery provide invaluable insights not only about what students know but also about what they did or did not learn from the lesson. This information is a valuable resource for both addressing student needs and for adjusting instructional strategies.
 

How do we draw inferences from the performance?
Examining student work is an excellent way to practice drawing inferences. Though teachers have always examined student work as part of their grading process, the new focus on accountability and standards fosters a more structured and collaborative examination of student work. The focus of the examination of student work needs to shift from a summative assessment of student performance to a formative assessment that provides a diagnostic evaluation of student performance, teacher assignment, and implications for instruction.
 
David Allen, a researcher at the Harvard Project Zero, believes that educators who look at student work in a collaborative process "hope to learn about the effectiveness of their instruction, better understand students' learning and development, develop more effective curriculum and assessment, and find ways to help students do higher quality work."
 
Kate Nolan, Director of Re-Thinking Accountability for the Annenberg Institute of School Reform, believes "The process of studying student work is a meaningful and challenging way to be data-driven, to reflect critically on our instructional practices, and to identify the research we might study to help us think more deeply and carefully about the challenges our students provide us. Rich, complex work samples show us how students are thinking, the fullness of their factual knowledge, the connections they are making. Talking about them together in an accountable way helps us to learn how to adjust instruction to meet the needs of our students."
 
Joan Richardson, editor of the NSDC Results newsletter, believes that "this practice of having teachers work together to study student work is one of the most promising professional development strategies in recent years. Examining student work helps teachers intimately understand how state and local standards apply to their teaching practice and to student work. Teachers are able to think more deeply about their teaching and what students are learning. As they see what students produce in response to their assignments, they can see the successes as well as the situations where there are gaps. In exploring those gaps, they can improve their practice in order to reach all students".
 

Resources for Assessing and Interpreting Student Performance
Online Technical Assistance
 
Looking at Student Work is an Annenberg Institute for School Reform Web site that explores the general use of various protocols for looking at student work. "To ensure success and equity across school systems, successful practices like the examination of student work samples need to become part of how schools and districts do their work."
 
Looking Collaboratively at Student Work: An Essential Toolkit provides information about protocols for examining student work. This Coalition of Essential Schools Web site claims that "looking closely together at student work can unveil a treasure trove of insights to guide school communities as they reflect on their purpose, assess their progress, and plan strategies for reaching all children better." The site provides a number of useful protocols including the Tuning Protocol, the Collaborative Assessment Conference, and a Constructivist Protocol.
 
Guidelines for Looking at Student Work, produced by Philadelphia public school teachers participated in the Philadelphia Education Fund's Small Learning Community Mini-Grants program. They describe guidelines that Philadelphia public school teachers used to help teacher teams get started with a process of inquiry based on the student work generated on the standard being taught in a unit of study.
 
History Teachers Dig Deep Into Their Students' Work and Their Own Teaching shares the story of a history team at Hoover Middle School in Long Beach, California who meet weekly to scrutinize student work and their own lessons, process that team leader Mary Massich describes as "the most powerful experience in my professional life."
 
Examining Student Work http://mdk12.org/data/course/m4w4/ is a workshop on the School Improvement in Maryland Web site for school leaders to learn how to plan and lead an examination of student work.
 
Creating Assessments and Scoring Tools http://mdk12.org/data/course/m4w7/ is a workshop for school leaders on the School Improvement in Maryland Web site to deepen their understanding of how to develop good assessments and rubrics.
 
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Examine Student Responses http://mdk12.org/mspp/k_8/mathematics.html provides an oral and visual examination of some sample student responses to mathematics items in grades 3, 5, and 8.
 
Cam Miller, Extended School Administrator, Stephen Decatur Middle School, describes what makes a good assessment on the School Improvement in Maryland Web site.
 
What are the guidelines for writing good assessment items? http://mdk12.org/practices/support_success/hsa/biology/assessment.html on the School Improvement in Maryland Web site provides guidance to teachers.
 
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Online Articles
 
"Using Rubrics to Promote Thinking and Learning" by Heidi Goodrich Andrade's in Educational Leadership HG describes the types of rubrics and how they are applied.
 
In an interview in the NSDC Journal of Staff Development, Phil Schlechty recalled 10 qualities of student work he described in his book "Inventing Better Schools: An Action Plan for Educational Reform."
 
"Student work at the core of teacher learning" by Joan Richardson in the NSDC Results newsletter, writes about the success of one school and professional development center in making the examination of student work a significant part of the culture of the school.
 
"Teachers Learn from Looking Together at Student Work" in Education World examines two approaches that teachers are using to look at student work.
 
"Examining Student Work" is a collection of articles about examining student work that have been written for NSDC publications.
 
"School Leaders Look at Student Work" by Graham, B. & Fahey, K. in Educational Leadership describes how educators in one school used the Collaborative Assessment Conference model to examine student work.
 
"How Classroom Assessments Improve Learning" by Thomas R. Guskey in the February 2003 issue of Educational Leadership argues that the assessments most likely to improve student achievement are those that teachers create.
 
"Improving Teaching and Learning with Data-Based Decisions: Asking the Right Questions and Acting on the Answers" by Nancy Protheroe in the Summer 2001issue of ERS Spectrum.
 
"Assessing Student Learning-and My Teaching-Through Student Journals" by physics teacher Bill Heinmiller finds the challenges of using student journals as an embedded assessment strategy are amply repaid by the benefits.
 
"Assessing Student Understanding with Interactive-Collaborative-Electronic Learning Logs" by science teacher Paul Hickman describes how technology enhances communication between student research groups and their teacher.
 
"Implementing Portfolios and Student-Led Conferences" by middle school teacher Jennifer Williams describes an assessment strategy that caught on with teachers of all subject areas.
 
"Using Self Evaluation with Fourth Graders" by Leah Poynter describes how elementary school students learn to assess their own achievement.
 
"A Snapshot of Assessment in a Standards-Based Classroom" by Carol Midgett, a member of the NCTM Standards 2000 Writing Team, describes a single classroom activity to show how assessment provides guidance for the learning journey.
 
"Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment" by Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam in the Phi Delta Kappan argues that there is firm evidence showing that formative assessment is an essential component of classroom work and that its development can raise standards of achievement.
 


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