 What do we want the students to learn?

 Why does the learning matter? or Why is this learning important?

 What do we want the students to do/produce?

 How well do we expect them to do it?

Teachers’ Guide to Assessment

Types of assessment

Assessment can be both a formative and summative process.

Formative assessment is used to provide feedback to students and teachers to promote further
learning.

Summative assessment contributes to the judgement of student learning for reporting and certification
purposes.

 formative assessment – is assessment for learning. It is used at the beginning of an instructional period
and during the process of instruction as teachers check for student understanding. Diagnostic tools
determine what students already know and where there are gaps and misconceptions. Formative
assessment also includes assessment as learning, where students reflect on and monitor their own
progress. The information gained guides teachers’ decisions in how to enhance teaching and learning.
Formative assessment enables students to learn through the process of feedback and opportunities to
practise and improve. As students reflect on and monitor their progress this process effectively becomes
assessment as learning and contributes to students planning future learning goals.

 summative assessment – is assessment of learning. It is used towards and at the end of the instruction
period. Teachers document the culmination of students’ learning achievements through tasks that invite
students to demonstrate their mastery and knowledge of the course content. Summative assessment
data provides teachers with information about how effective teaching strategies have been, time
needed for instruction and how to improve teaching for future students.

Assessment of and for students’ learning is the process of gathering and analyzing information as
evidence about what students know, can do and understand. It is part of an ongoing cycle that includes
planning, documenting and evaluating students’ learning.

Principles underpinning effective assessment practice .

Ten principles that are foundational to assessment for learning.

Assessment should:

 be regarded as a key professional skill for teachers

 be part of effective planning of teaching and learning

 promote commitment to learning goals and a shared understanding of the criteria by which they are
assessed

 be recognized as central to classroom practice

 focus on how students learn

 provide constructive guidance about how to improve

 develop learners’ capacity for self-assessment so that they can become reflective and self-managing

 take account of the importance of learner motivation

 be sensitive and constructive because any assessment has an emotional impact

 recognize the full range of achievement of all learners

Best practice in assessment

Best practice includes:

 clear understanding that the purpose of assessment is for students to develop and improve in their
learning and for teachers to plan and teach effectively

 the use of diagnostic tools to determine what the students already know, understand and can do

 ongoing assessment through a variety of differentiated tasks and strategies, both formal and informal,
so that sufficient evidence is gathered to make sound judgements about individual students’ learning

 students being actively involved in, and having some control over, their learning

 learning goals that are explicit in that students know what they are learning, why the learning is
important, what products are expected, and how they will be assessed

 assessment tasks that are differentiated through offering quality choices of ways for students to
demonstrate knowledge, understanding and skills

 assessment tasks and strategies that are fair and enable all students to demonstrate their learning
achievements

 the giving of specific and timely feedback, for example, through conversations between students and
the teacher, written feedback, peer assessment and self-assessment

 students’ work being discussed and moderated through shared concepts and language

 assessment tasks that are integrated/embedded in instruction so that they are a planned and
essential part of teaching and learning

 authentic assessment tasks that align with the ways such knowledge and skills would be used in the
real world
Misunderstandings about assessment

 Misunderstandings about assessment include the following:

 Assessment is only the ‘test’ at the end of a unit of work or series of lessons. This ignores the
importance of formative assessment.
 Assessment is an auditing exercise about what students do and don’t know or can and can’t do,
by testing student memory, asking trick questions etc. This fails to align teaching objectives
(involving high intellectual quality) with assessment tasks.
 Assessment focuses on what is easiest to measure. This fails to address what is important to
learn.
 Assessment is an average of performances across a teaching period. This fails to reflect that
learning is a journey, and results closest to the end, when carefully designed summative
assessment tasks are used, should reveal an accurate ‘final’ achievement.
 Group assessment is giving the same mark or grade to each participant in a group exercise. This
ignores the importance of validly assessing each student’s work within a group process.
 Assessment is the same as grading. This confuses the purposes of both grading and assessment.
They are not synonymous because assessment focuses on gathering information about student
learning while grading is an end point judgement about achievement.
 Giving zero for unsubmitted work in the context of a learning achievement is fair. This confuses
the purpose of assessing learning with the different purpose of getting students to submit work
and is arithmetically erroneous.
 Assessment for an achievement grade includes student dispositions and behaviors. This
confuses the purpose of assessment of learning. Attendance, effort, attitudes etc should be
reported on separately from achievement.

Using one assessment for a multitude of purposes is like using a hammer for everything from
brain surgery to pile driving.
(Walt Honey, 1991, quoted in Assessment as Learning by Lorna Earl, 2003)

Assessment strategies include:

 anecdotal records: objective narrative records of student performances, strengths, needs,
progress and negative/positive behaviour
 authentic tasks: activities that are genuine and purposeful. These can include reallife shopping
tasks, measuring a ball-park, designing a home, building a bridge or tower, writing about
significant issues and so on
 checklists, scales or charts: identification and recording of students' achievement can be
through rubric levels, letter grade or numerical value, or simply by acceptable/unacceptable
 conferences: meetings between the student/parent/teacher and others where progress is
checked and goals for growth are established and agreed upon
 contracts: agreements or goals (verbal or written) set by the teacher/parents and the student
 games: games are excellent opportunities for simulations and small and large group
assessment
 diagnostic inventories: student responses to a series of questions or statements in any field,
either verbally or in writing. These responses may indicate an ability or interest in a particular
field.
 peer evaluation: assessment by students about one another's performance relative to stated
criteria and program outcomes
 portfolios: collections of student work that exhibit the students' efforts, progress and
achievements in one or more areas
 rubrics: a set of guidelines for measuring achievement. Rubrics should state the learning
outcome(s) with clear performance criteria and a rating scale or checklist.
 self-evaluations: student reflections about her/his own achievements and needs relative to
program goals
 simulations: the use of problem-solving, decision-making and role-playing tasks  student
journals: personal records of, and responses to activities, experiences, strengths, interests and
needs
 student profiles: a compilation of data which may include student work samples
 student-led conferences: where the student plans, implements, conducts and evaluates a
conference regarding their learning achievements. The purpose of the conference is to provide
a forum in which students can talk about their school work with parents/carers and
demonstrate their growth towards being self-directed lifelong learners.
 teacher observations: regular, first-hand observations of students, documented by the
teacher
Discipline With Dignity
Stresses Positive Motivation

Threats and rewards may seem to change a student's behavior, but do they last once the
punishment and rewards are gone? Discipline with Dignity teaches educators to create
positive motivators for kids so they take responsibility for their own behavior. Included:
Examples of Discipline with Dignity in action.

One of the many variations of a light bulb joke asks, "How many
psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?"

None, goes the punch line. The light bulb has to want to change. Implementing
Discipline with
Without over-analyzing the joke, most people can see it illuminates a
truth about human nature. While certain incentives or rewards might Dignity
initially alter some behaviors, a person needs insight and motivation Elementary school
for more permanent changes to take hold. And that requires time and principal Gerard Evanski
effort. gave an example of some
of the questions an
"Your goal as an educator should be to influence change," according
educator using Discipline
to Dr. Allen Mendler, one of the founders of the behavior
management approach Discipline with Dignity. "To really inspire with Dignity might ask a
change in youngsters, you have to get them to want to change." student who misbehaved:

Creating positive motivation for children to adopt new behaviors is at What were you doing?
the heart of the Discipline with Dignity approach. Some administrators "This can be very
who are fans of the philosophy said it is straightforward and yields enlightening for a kid,"
results, even if those results do not occur overnight. Evanski said.
"For schools, I don't think there is anything better than Discipline with
What will happen if you
Dignity," said Gerard Evanski, principal of Erie Elementary School in
Clinton Township, Michigan. "I found it to be the most comprehensive continue this?
and practical system -- you sit down with teachers and say, 'Use
these words, this works,' and tell them why." What can you do
differently next time?
"I think Discipline with Dignity changed my life," added Colleen  
Zawadzki, principal of the Career Academy, an alternative high
school operated by the Onondaga Cortland Madison Counties (New
York) Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES). "No one wants to be a 'screaming skull'
-- at least I don't. Not as a principal, teacher, or parent."

BUILDING CONNECTIONS
Mendler, a former school psychologist, said the framework for Discipline with Dignity grew out of his
experience working with difficult students. "I regularly got the lion's share of children who
misbehaved."
"The core of it is to do what needs to be done to prevent problems from occurring," Mendler told
Education World. "That includes making curriculum relevant, building relationships, and making the
classroom a safe place."

Discipline with Dignity maintains that if teachers take the time to build relationships with students, the
strength of those relationships can help minimize conflicts. If teachers spend time getting to know
students, kids are more likely to want to be compliant, the theory goes. Strategies for building
relationships include greeting kids when they enter the room, finding
out about their interests, being visible, and asking their opinions.
Once those relationships are built, teachers can draw on that good "You have to start to help
will when problems arise. kids realize that it
[following the rules] is the
"You build connections for the bad right thing for them to do
times," said Zawadzki, who trains -- not because someone is
teachers to use Discipline with Dignity
and has used it since she started at
Understanding watching them, but
because it will make their
her school 18 months ago, as well as Unmotivated lives better."
at a prior school. "You have to see
kids with an eye toward connecting Kids  
with kids, so when the hard stuff Brian Mendler, a former
comes up, they will listen to you." teacher who also works
for Discipline with
For example, Mendler said, instead of Dignity, said that ranting at a student for
wearing headphones in class, a measuring a student's teacher should ask the pupil
what he or she is listening to, so the teacher can ask a question or
make a comment about life that is
achievement against his or relevant to that student.
her prior performance --
One of the hardest aspects of training rather than against other teachers to use Discipline with
Dignity is convincing them that they students -- can help are not taking on another task,
Mendler added. "Most educators are motivate a student to do feeling enormous amounts of
pressure to get test scores up and are better. drilling kids," he said. "In the
process, it becomes easy to neglect things that build effective
behavior management. It takes time to "The biggest motivation build relationships and defuse
power struggles. It's hard for teachers
killer is when kids do the to convince themselves they
have time for this. But when you take an extra minute or two [to get
to know kids], it can save an enormous very best they can and still amount of time in dealing with
difficult kids." don't do well," he said. "In
the case of some difficult
kids, they may have been
LAYING THE motivated at one time, but
GROUNDWORK
they did their best on
Evanski, who also trains teachers to implement Discipline with
Dignity and has been using the something and did not get approach for about 18 years,
said the technique requires adults to a good grade. When shift their thinking about how
they deal with children. "It's thinking difficult kids start with an about how you meet kids'
basic needs in positive ways," he said. assignment that has no "We're looking at long-term
behavior changes. A kid may be in right or wrong answer, third grade, but it may take
until fifth grade for changes to take there is a high completion hold. These are not quick
fixes." rate.
Schools can start establishing Discipline with Dignity by
letting students help develop rules that
"Evaluate kids as fall under the school's
individuals -- compare the
kids to themselves,"
Mendler suggested. "See
if they do better than they
did before."
 
principles. Discipline with Dignity also emphasizes ways to avoid adult-child power struggles and to
help students take responsibility for their own behavior. All disciplinary actions -- often called logical
consequences -- are administered in private.

"You have to start to help kids realize that it [following the rules] is the right thing for them to do -- not
because someone is watching them, but because it will make their lives better," Zawadzki told
Education World.

Teachers also have to learn to ignore the "hooks" that can get them pulled into power struggles with
students. "If a [standing] student sits down when you tell him to, but wants to get in the last word, let
him," said Evanski. "It's up to the adult to stop the hostility cycle."

Mendler and his colleagues -- who include his son, Brian, and Discipline with Dignity co-founder Dr.
Richard Curwin -- work with educators to give them strategies to address what they consider three
basic needs of youngsters: a connection, competence, and control. If kids don't have those, Allen
Mendler said, they can simply shut down from lack of motivation or act out.

Curwin gave examples at an ASCD conference of two ways to deal with a potentially class-
disrupting event. If a student refuses to sit down after entering the class, the teacher can say to the
pupil, "Sit down or I will call your father." The student might sit down, but will resent the teacher's
response. That student is not motivated to change his future behavior.

Curwin recommends never attempting to alter behavior when emotions are high. Instead, try saying
to the student, "It takes courage to sit down when you have been told to sit. Not everyone is that
brave." Offer to borrow a music stand so the student can stand up for the class if that is what she or
he wants.

Then deal with the underlying issue later. The teacher can ask the student after class what was
going on. Curwin suggested saying, "I know when you usually have a hard decision to make, you do
it well. I'm glad you are in my class."

"You need optimism," according to Allen Mendler. "Once you surrender optimism, you lose to
skepticism and pessimism. You need to be difficult to offend and quick to forgive."

Other key strategies include: to listen, acknowledge, agree, and defer, said Evanski. That is, listen to
a student's comment, acknowledge what he or she said, agree that he or she is upset, and then
defer acting on the situation until after class. Then speak quietly to the student.

"You look at it as a continuum of consequences," Zawadzki said. "You have to make sure a kid
knows what he did was wrong, but also what he needs to do to do things right. Almost all the
punishments have learning opportunities."

DISCIPLINE WITH DIGNITY IN ACTION

Zawadzki recalled how Discipline with Dignity played out when she saw a boy smoking on school
grounds, a violation of school rules and state law. She and the school's social worker met with the
student and talked about how smoking is an addiction and the harm it can do to one's health. The
student said he would not smoke on school grounds again and got off with a warning.

A short time later, Zawadzki saw him smoking on campus again, and it took all of her willpower to
hang on to her Discipline with Dignity training. "I wanted to march out there, publicly address it,
humiliate him, and call his parents," she told Education World. "But you have to get over how you
were raised. Kids don't have the part of the brain that looks into the future. I was upset -- but you
have to override instinct. Don't take it personally if someone backslides."

Instead, she restrained herself and at the end of the day waited for the student on the school bus.
When he got on, they had a discussion about planning an alternative consequence for his behavior.
Zawadzki assigned the student to create a health lesson on the perils of smoking and present it to
the school -- which she viewed as a very logical consequence for his behavior.

"You have to ask yourself, 'Is it [the penalty] inflicting punishment or creating learning
opportunities?'"

Students and faculty thought the presentation was good, and the boy said he learned a lot. While he
is still a smoker, he entertains conversations about trying to stop and no longer smokes on campus.
"He understands the law and honors us by not smoking on school grounds," Zawadzki noted.

In another situation, a student was being belligerent and disrespectful to the teacher in class. The
teacher sent him to the time-out room several times, which anyone can access if they feel the need
to take a break, Zawadzki said.

When the student's behavior did not improve, the teacher, student, Zawadzki, and the student's
mother had a discussion. Educators have to consider that there could
be more behind a student acting out than just defiance, Zawadzki
noted. "We sat around and asked the right questions. What it really "You need optimism.
was, was boredom. The student is very bright and the teacher was Once you surrender
doing a lot of review." optimism, you lose to
skepticism and pessimism.
The solution was to give the student a laptop so he could work on an You need to be difficult to
independent project in class while the others were reviewing. None of offend and quick to
the other students complained about the student being able to use a
forgive."
laptop. "They were just happy he's back in class," Zawadski said.
 
"You have to personalize the approach, but don't take it [students'
actions] personally," added Zawadzki. "As Dr. Mendler said once, 'If
you went to the doctor, he wouldn't give you an aspirin when you walked in just because that's what
he gave the last person.'"

WHY EDUCATORS THINK IT WORKS

A major reason Discipline with Dignity is so effective is that it helps students build skills that they can
apply, not just in school but in all aspects of their lives, said Zawadzki, especially at a time when
many students don't have positive role models. "Discipline with Dignity is a blend with what makes
sense in the world and what makes sense for what kids need to learn," she said. "They need to be
able to navigate when no one is around. Responsibility is when kids do the right thing when they
walk out of the classroom.

"So many kids are not learning the mores and structures to live in society," she continued. "They are
not getting the face time of working with people -- they can't negotiate the ups and downs of growing
up. We're trying to develop systems that pro-actively engage kids."
Many educators also are desperate for an effective behavior management strategy and find
Discipline with Dignity can reduce their stress as well. "If anything has changed in my career, it is
that there are more students in each class that can be challenging. And if teachers can't manage
them, they become frustrated, and that leads to burnout," Mendler said.

That is why Discipline with Dignity is worth the time and effort for her staff to implement, Zawadzki
said. "We work very hard to be calmly engaged in problem-solving consequences," she said. "It also
has taught me to stand back and think before I cast any stones. One of the kids said, 'Ms. Z, maybe
you should just be meaner.' But I maintain my dignity and require my teachers to maintain their
dignity. I take a breath, ask good questions that get to the bottom of issues. Then I get to the bottom
line and use logical consequences."