Fighting Assessment Freak-Out

Our school was asked to present a "high school" perspective on preparing for state assessments. I don't know that we are doing anything all that unusual, but here are some of the things we shared.

1. Teach the standards. I don't want to over-simplify this, but at a time when so much is unknown, it makes sense to focus on what we do know. In the CCSS, we have a document that states what our students need to know. Make sure you're teaching that stuff.

2. Focus on the essentials. While it is our goal to teach every standard, we know that might not be possible. We printed out the standards for each of our classes, one to a page. One at a time, we took the standards for each class and sorted them into "most", "somewhat", and "less" important. Then we took the "most important" stack and narrowed it down to the 8-10 most essential standards for each class. If we don't do anything else, we'll make sure our students don't leave our classes without mastering those standards.

3.  Assess what they've learned. All of our departments are working on regular formative assessment. Data is brought back to weekly PLC meetings where we discuss the teacher side (how can the teacher approach this topic more effectively) and the student side (what interventions can we provide for students who didn't learn).

I am piloting standards-based grading, soon to be joined by the rest of our math department and more. Each skill is based on 1-2 standards from the CCSS.  The difference is the data. Instead of identifying that a student scored a "74% on chapter 3", I can identify exactly which skills each student has mastered, and which ones need more work. If the class doesn't learn a particular skill, I can devote more class time and/or spiral back to that skill as we move forward in the curriculum. If individual students don't do well on a skill, I can provide opportunities for them to continue to work on that skill.

4.  Provide interventions. We have all kinds of interventions.

If a student is deficient in a lot of skills: We provide an extra hour of instruction in addition to their regular math class, called "math lab" or "opportunity room". Here they spend a portion of the time working on skills like math facts and solving equations. The remaining time is spent reinforcing what they are doing in their core math class. Right now this option is only available for math. English will be next.

If a student needs help on a particular concept: They may work with the teacher before or after school, or be assigned to our tutoring center "irish hub" to work with a national honor society student. We could not do this without our NHS students. They are amazing, and they often explain something in a different way that clicks with a student. This intervention is available to all students for all classes.

If a student just refuses to do something: They go through the "non-compliant" side of our intervention plan, which involves a lot of follow-up and administrative assistance to help the student be successful. This is also a school-wide intervention. Here's the flow chart:

I was surprised that standards-based grading was the portion of our talk that received the most questions/responses when we were done. There are so many in the world of blogging and twitter who use SBG that I forget it is actually not that common (in our area, at least, SBG is fairly rare). The room was full of mostly administrators who were very supportive of the idea, but they were meeting resistance. The idea (specifically the unlimited re-assessment) is apparently a tough philosophy for many to embrace.