Curriculum Leadership Institute

Pathways to School Improvement

summative

Using Data to Improve Instruction in Five Steps or Less

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In a recent conversation, a principal at a Curriculum Leadership Institute (CLI) client district expressed concern about the sixth-grade math team. The district received state test results and it was clear that the sixth-grade students, as a whole, underperformed on one specific state standard. Unsure of the correct course of action, his initial plan was to re-evaluate their current resource. It is possible that the issue may be a misalignment between the current resource and the curriculum, but there are a few things to consider prior to spending the money on adopting a new resource.

Before being able to analyze and address the solution to the problem, the school district must have some essential pieces in place. The first piece is a locally-written curriculum. As stated in a previous E-Hint, state standards or an adopted resource are not synonymous with curriculum. But rather, curriculum is what your individual district defines as essential skills and knowledge for all students. The second task for the district is to have common assessments in place that are carefully aligned to the curriculum.  Each skill and piece of knowledge included in the curriculum must also be assessed in a way that allows students to show they can demonstrate the required learning.  Additionally, instructional plans must be created throughout the district. We, at CLI, recommend using a standard planning format for all teachers. We use the Instructional Planning Resource that includes formative assessment (component assessment) with predetermined criteria, teacher methods, student activities, resources, and differentiation. Instructional plans should be housed in an easily accessible manner so they may be evaluated for effectiveness and, if effective, used from year-to-year.

When all of these pieces are in place educators may begin to look at assessment data. Remember, there are three different types of assessments: formative, interim, and summative. Formative assessments are created and used by individual teachers and PLCs to immediately drive instruction and predict student success on major assessments or high stakes tests.  Interim assessments are larger assessments that incorporate several targets (components) and assess

at the unit level (outcome). These are formative in nature as re-teaching and re-assessing are still possible. Finally, districts are state and federally required to implement summative assessments, often called state or other standardized tests. These tests are typically used to evaluate a district as a whole. They are considered summative assessments as they are not used to drive instruction for the same population of students since scores are not known during the same school year and re-teaching and re-assessing are not possible.

When teachers receive data from formative and interim assessments, it may be clear what the next steps are in terms of re-teaching and re-assessing.  But, when teachers receive data from the previous school year’s summative assessments, oftentimes the next steps may be somewhat confusing or daunting.  The first thing to keep in mind when analyzing this data, is to look for big things that stand out. In the example in the introduction, the big “Aha!” was the sixth-grade students under-performing on one entire standard. So now what?

Now, review the three essential pieces already mentioned above: curriculum, assessment, and instruction. Begin with the locally-written curriculum. Check the alignment of the curriculum to the state standards; particularly the standard that students performed poorly on. Ask yourself or your PLC these questions:

  • Does the local curriculum require the same skills and knowledge as those in the state standards?
  • Is the “essence” of the standard the same when it was transferred to curriculum language?

If the curriculum checks out, and you’ve determined that it is appropriately aligned to the standards, take a look at the corresponding local common assessment (interim) that is in place. Determine if the common assessment is aligned to the curriculum. You may cross-reference the common assessment with the curriculum rather than the standards (since you’ve already critiqued the curriculum for alignment). Ask yourself or your PLC these questions:

  • Does the content (knowledge) in the common assessment meet that which is in the curriculum? Does it go beyond?
  • Do the verbs (skills) in the common assessment align with those in the curriculum? Do they go beyond?

Then determine if the expected performance on the common assessment is appropriate. Ask yourself or your PLC these questions:

  • Is it developmentally or task appropriate?
  • Is the rigor aligned to descriptions of student performance from the curriculum?
  • Did the student performances on the common assessment match the performances on the summative assessment? Are there commonalities in the performances of students that match the data from the summative assessment performance?

If you’ve determined that your common assessment is properly aligned with the local curriculum, you should move on to evaluating instruction. Ask yourself or your PLC these questions:

  • Do in-class activities allow for practicing the same types of tasks appearing on the assessment?
  • Does the content being taught (amount and type) align with the curriculum/assessment?
  • Is the rigor of learning activities high enough to prepare students for the assessment?
  • Is there sufficient instruction, practice, and remediation?

Typically, after evaluating the local curriculum, common assessments, and instruction, you’ll be able to determine the issue and correct it. But sometimes, the issue may not fall within the documented curriculum, assessment, or instruction. If that is the case, ask yourself or your PLC these questions:

  • Do the common assessment and the state assessment value the same skills?
  • Does curriculum pacing allow for instruction and assessment of appropriate learning prior to state tests?
  • Have interventions been effective?

In the example being used, it turned out that the sixth-grade math team was teaching the standard in question after the summative assessment was given. So in their case, they were able to re-organize their pacing to solve the problem, rather than purchase or create a whole new resource. Had they not taken the time to disaggregate the summative data, they could have arbitrarily changed the curriculum, instruction, and/or assessments, or purchased a new resource without seeing any improvement in scores. This type of thorough data analysis undoubtedly leads to overall evaluation of curriculum, instruction, and assessment which benefits both teachers and students.

Reassessment Done Right

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The words Time to Evaluate on an ornate white clock, counting down to the moment a manager will perform an evaluation, review, assessment or reevaluation of a worker, property or process
Reteaching is not about punishment, it is about the end goal—learning.

download_pdf_smWhen thinking about mastery and student learning over time, it is almost impossible not to think about reassessment.  Philosophically, if you believe in allowing students to retake assessments, you may struggle with the application of this belief in actual classrooms.  The question is not whether students shall be allowed to reassess, but instead, how to reassess effectively.  So, when a student takes an initial assessment and performs below required proficiency, what happens next?  The following steps will guide the creation of your own reassessment procedures.

1.  Conference with the student.  Part of building relationships with students is communicating openly with them about expectations and learning.  As soon as you realize a student is not meeting proficiency, have a conversation and begin to make a plan.

2.  Set a timeline for reteaching and reassessment. During the conference, set up a schedule for reteaching to provide time and support for the student to demonstrate successful learning.  This must always occur before students are allowed to reassess.  If reteaching does not occur, how can a student be expected to perform at a higher level?  Also, schedule the reassessment.  Due to obvious time constraints, there must be a sense of urgency to complete the reassessment.  Some districts use a reassessment contract requiring student and/or parent signatures in order for students to retake assessments.

3.  Provide reteaching opportunities. Just like teachers, students are busy! They are taking many classes and may also be involved in activities outside of the normal school day.  It is important to provide varied opportunities for them to receive help within the reteaching timeframe.  Maybe the student needs to come in before or after school or during study hall, or maybe they can watch a video at home and complete alternate assignments to demonstrate their learning, or perhaps another teacher could provide additional instruction.  Remember, reteaching is not about punishment, it is about the end goal—learning.  It doesn’t have to be epic; in actuality, reteaching may only take a few minutes.

4.  Contact help when needed. Oftentimes, if a student is struggling on multiple assessments in one subject area, he or she will also be having trouble in other subjects.  A teacher won’t always know how a student is performing in other courses; however, counselors and parents should.  If a student continually struggles and is caught up in a reassessment cycle, it is imperative that the cycle is broken before the student gives up.  There could be a placement issue or a need for a special education referral.  Maybe the student is going through some emotional struggles due to something happening at home.  A sure sign of trouble is when a student is not meeting the timelines agreed upon within the reassessment conference.  If this is the case, reach out to the people who can help as soon as you can.

5.  Provide a reassessment that is different from the original assessment. It is always wise to have more than one version of an assessment.  If students know the reassessment is exactly the same as the original assessment, it is very easy for them not to prepare and to use the original assessment as a “practice” assessment.  Remember, it is important that you know what they know—not what they memorized after taking the first assessment.

6.  Decide whether the student needs to retake the entire assessment, or just a part. In many cases, summative assessments contain individual questions that require students to apply multiple skills or varied knowledge in order to answer them.  In these cases, students would more than likely need to retake the entire assessment.  However, an assessment may also contain very specialized questions related to one specific skill or piece of knowledge.  If students perform poorly on these types of questions, they may not need to take the entire assessment over again.  They could just retake the parts that relate to that skill or knowledge.  Particularly on project-based assessments, the student may need to improve only portions of their project—not redo the entire project.

7.  Decide how retakes will be scored.  Grading typically falls under district guidelines and policies.  It is important for all teachers to follow the same reassessment rules.  Will the most recent reassessment score replace the original?  Will the highest score be taken?  Follow district approved procedures for recording the appropriate score.