Focusing on Assessment: So What Do They Really Know?

I am going to wrap up my Focusing on Assessment series of blog posts with a review of Cris Tovani's So What Do They Really Know?: Assessment That Informs Teaching and Learning. Tovani's voice captured my interest in 2006 when my mentor gave me a copy of her I Read It, But I Don't Get It.  Needless to say, I was very excited to hear that she had another book coming out!

Once again, her voice resonated with me throughout the book. While reading, it is easy to tell that she is a master teacher who thinks reflectively about her teaching throughout the years. I appreciate that she doesn't buckle to the pressure to do certain aspects exactly the same as some of her colleagues, but rather, she takes criticism/suggestions as something to reflect about and consider what is truly the best for her students.

Tovani started out the book talking about the current context of education and views of assessment. She also provided some thought provoking scenarios to consider the question stated in the title. This was a nice way to frame the rest of the text. Then she continued on to highlight how she uses assessment in her classroom, as well as providing insights into the journey that led up to the decisions she has made about assessments. Her assessment ideas are practical and serve multiple purposes, such as building connections with students, while also considering what instruction they need next the most, reflecting her belief about the connection between assessments and the value in getting to know students. Throughout she provided many examples of her students' actual responses, while providing glimpses into her thought process related to the specific responses. Her writing provides a vivid picture of how her classroom operates.

One of my favorite statements from the book stood out because it closely aligns with how I feel, stating, "Grading. I hate it. As a teacher, it is what I wrestle with most. I know it is one of the necessary evils of the job, but I find myself constantly struggling with issues of management and equity," (p. 129). No matter the grade level, I always "wrestle" with this as well. I was excited to read this chapter toward the end of the book to see how she responds to this struggle. I think that captures well why I love Tovani's writing in general - I can connect with her so much and I look forward to the "conversation" that I will have with her through reading her books, viewing her as a valued mentor.

Happy New Year! Enjoy continuing to think about assessments in 2012!

Focusing on Assessment: The Hook Behind the Resources

I started this post intending to write about Accessible Assessment after talking a little bit about a common thread between it and So What Do They Really Know? Yet, I realized that my writing was going in another direction. I still had more to say about just why the types of assessments we use are so vital and as a result, why both of these texts hooked me because of their close alignment to my literacy beliefs.

The current context of education definitely has a sharp focus on data and assessment, yet I am at times worried with the type of assessments that are valued and the decisions that educators make about students based on limited data and/or without considering the full student. I know that at times teachers are not allowed to control some of the decision making process, and depending on the context, they may fall anywhere on a spectrum ranging from feeling like they are treated like a technician to feeling like a professional. Yet, I still have strong beliefs that regardless of where teachers encounter themselves, the more they understand about assessment and data the better, allowing them to carefully analyze expectations and practice in order to improve as a practitioner.

My dissertation in progress is a narrative inquiry, so I have been closely analyzing and considering my personal teaching experiences including both ends of the spectrum. My third year teaching, I was in a context where I mainly taught sixth graders with scripted reading instruction with strict expectations to follow the curriculum with fidelity, leaving little room for implementing other aspects that I highly valued.

At the time I was completing a practicum for my reading endorsement, and revisiting my practicum journal has reminded me just how conflicted I felt. The way that I taught that year clashed with my personal literacy philosophy, yet I did not necessarily feel confident that I "had all the answers". I knew what I would do if given the flexibility, but I also knew that along with that, I would need to have a supportive environment that would allow for space to build capacity over time.

During that year, placements were made primarily on measures of oral reading "fluency" (narrowly defined as speed) and in-program placement tests. I knew the needs of students in my classes were very different, and Marsha Riddle Buly influenced this thought process the summer prior when she taught a course that I attended while on exchange to Mexico. She shared articles* that she had written about findings from a study she and a colleague conducted about the varied needs of students who did not meet state assessments in Washington.

Experiences with one parent in particular stand out from that year - a parent who wanted answers, wanted to know what her child truly needed to grow as a reader. She checked in with me, as well as a couple of school leaders. I did not feel that she received the information she needed to know, a true diagnostic assessment. I was able to notice a lot about her in class, but the program and in-program assessments did not really get at the big picture, and I was told to focus on instruction. However, I knew that diagnostics and instruction were intertwined. This was an area where I would want to continually grow, and I knew that in order to truly understand my students' needs and have the flexibility to adapt instruction to tailor to those needs, I needed to look for a new position.

The few years after I had the opportunity to continually build on my base of knowledge and teach in a way that aligned with all those thoughts of how I would respond to student needs if I was not bound to a scripted program. I became familiar with a wider range of assessments and data, some more helpful than others and some easier than others to manage time-wise.

Based on my experiences, that is why as I read Accessible Assessment and So What Do They Really Know? the authors' assessment philosophies stood out so much. With those thoughts in mind, I think I will be ready to continue on with a look at each of these resources in my next posts.

*References for Riddle Buly articles.
Riddle Buly, M., & Valencia, S. W. (2002). Below the bar: Profiles of students who fail state reading assessments. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 24(3), 219-239.

Valencia, S. W., & Riddle Buly, M. (2004). Behind test scores: What struggling readers really need. The Reading Teacher, 57(6), 520-531.

Focusing on Assessment: What Really Matters?

Last week I mentioned that I would be doing a series of posts Focusing on Assessment, including thoughts about two books I just read, Accessible Assessment and So What Do They Really Know? In the next couple of days I will talk about each of these resources separately, but first I wanted to highlight one aspect that stood out right away as I was reading each of the books. Throughout the resources the intentionality behind assessments and the recognition that not all assessments and data are equally helpful for teachers was ever-present. All of the authors advocated for helpful assessments, those assessments that can truly provide teachers with data to inform instruction. 

As an educator, when reading resources, it is essential to see that the authors have an understanding of the current context of teaching and of the demands on teachers' times. The authors of both books did so. The resources were distinct, yet they had that common thread of strong convictions about why assessment is necessary and the types of assessments that they value. Ideas did not represent a narrow definition of assessment, but rather a clear understanding of various factors that teachers must consider in order to really know their students and their needs. 

State Testing Reflections - Data Teams

Last year my school started the official process of data teams, putting the spotlight on the importance of holding ourselves accountable to collecting a wide variety of student data and using it to inform our instruction. Another important piece to this process is collaborating as colleagues. Sometimes this means we meet with our grade level teams, as language teams (Spanish teachers and English teachers), content area teams, or as a whole staff. Our director frequently dedicates time at our regular staff meetings to share celebrations or new ideas as a group. While my 7th graders obviously are not working toward the same standards as the kindergarten class, as teachers we are still able to learn from each other and the processes we are using to become better practitioners.

My growth as a teacher has come from a combination of experience, support and training at my school, as well as self-directed professional development through wide reading and blogging. While I will continue revamping and fine tuning, here is a glimpse into how data teams comes into play with my current unit on inferencing in reading.

We had a brief focus on inferencing earlier in the year, but it was apparent that students could still benefit from a longer, more in depth unit on inferencing. As a result, we will be spending our remaining Spanish weeks focusing on the area. I just gave my students a pre-test on inferencing. I took an excerpt from Julia Alvarez's En busca de milagros with open-ended questions eliciting different types of inferencing that we will be emphasizing. The initial data collected from the pre-test will give me a better ideas of where my students are right now, combined with observations throughout the year from a variety of sources.

Next week we will continue on with focus lessons, drawing on ideas from When Kids Can't Read: What Teachers Can Do, Mosaic of Thought, I Read It, But I Don't Get It, and Middle School Readers. I will collect data through informal observations during focus lessons, anecdotal records during conferencing, quick checks with an iTouch during independent reading, student application of inferencing in their reader's notebooks and reading response letters, application with unfamiliar texts and state stem questions, as well as the post test.

With data teams I have been able to use data teams in combination with state blueprints and specifications to help students make the link between our independent reading with more authentic responses and state testing reading selections. Students see how they can use the same strategies with their own reading and recognize the type of wording used on state assessments. This way the bulk of my instructional time is focused on authentic self-selected reading and conferencing with adults and peers, yet there is still a piece in place for students to be aware of how the state assessment (and other assessments) work.

Middle School Readers

I have to admit, I bought Middle School Readers: Helping Them Read Widely, Helping Them Read Well by Nancy Allison without even reading that much about it. Seeing the title, knowing it was specifically about reading in middle school, as well as the fun picture was enough for me to click right over to Amazon and place my order. Though I knew the book would be focused on student choice in reading, I had no idea that it would be such a perfect fit for my personal professional development right now. With the first chapter I was ready to burst with excitement when I realized that the whole book was centered around the concept of supported independent reading. While Allison does not call it reading workshop, the concepts aligned with the components of workshop. She discussed scaffolding to help students make good decisions about the books they read, linking mini-lessons to conferences, reflections she has students do in their notebooks to practice strategies discussed in the mini-lessons.

I can not think of a better time that I could have picked up this book. I am a couple of school weeks away from completing the second quarter. It is a great time for me to reflect about what has been going well and what I want to improve. Over the break I am spending some time in my classroom to plan for the second half of the year for each content area. I had wanted to strengthen my reading mini-lessons. Allison gave me so many ideas on how I can do this, as well as how I can make sure that reflections and conferences are linked to the mini-lesson. What I love the most is that Allison advocates starting out conferences with a connection to the mini-lesson, but then of course it is individualized. If the student is already confident in the mini-lesson topic the teacher can push them further in their reading with whichever area they need. On the other hand if the teacher notices the need to go back and reteach, that is the direction the conference will take. It seems so obvious to have the mini-lesson as a starting point that as soon as I read it, it made perfect sense, but I had not been doing that intentionally with my conferences.

I thought the book complements other books I have been reading lately well, such as The Book Whisperer and Conferring. The three books read together each helped me delve deeper into the topic. While they have some conflicting views, such as Donalyn Miller (The Book Whisperer) being against reading logs and Allison advocating them, for the most part they support each others' ideas. I am actually leaning toward the benefits of logs and/or status of the class because they have given me valuable data about my students' reading habits that I might have missed otherwise. Reading the book also made me think about how I need to go back and revisit some of my favorite books on comprehension, such as I Read It, But I Don't Get It, When Kids Can't Read-What Teachers Can Do, and Mosaic of Thought.

The margins of the book are filled with notes of ideas that I want to implement in order to strengthen my existing reading block. I know that I will be revisiting this book often and that I will be a better teacher because of Allison's ideas that I will be able to easily weave into my classroom. Her ideas will help me weave together the different components of my reading workshop in order to help my students even more. I highly recommend this resource!