The role of assessment in Evidence Based Science Teaching

Research tells us that good assessment plays a key role in the teaching and learning process. But what kind of assessments should teachers be using? How can teachers be intentional and efficient about the use of assessment? How do teachers keep from being overwhelmed by assessment tasks?

For the purposes of this essay assessment is broadly defined as any intentional practice that allows the teacher to intentionally track the progress of students toward a defined learning outcome. It is important to give the definition of assessment here because the word is often given other meanings, such as, referring only to a standardized test, or state assessment, or very broadly defined when teachers grade everything that a student produces.

Many teachers get overwhelmed by the task load of grading student assessments, yet as we know assessment, and more importantly the feedback students get from teachers based on assessment is a key to learning. So how can we know that a student has learned while still keeping teachers sane?

The answer is that teachers need to be very thoughtful about what really constitutes evidence of student learning. When thinking about assessment, teachers should ask themselves, what evidence would show me how my students are progressing toward specific learning goals? This is where standards based report cards can be wonderful, but even if your school or district doesn’t use standards based report cards, a teacher should still be able to set up their own grade book in a way that it becomes a record of evidence for learning.

Science teachers are great at showing students different ways of capturing and presenting data to make it meaningful yet are often terrible at setting up their grade books to do the same thing. At worst many grade books are a mere record of how many students completed nightly homework assignments rather than a body of evidence that shows what a student does and does not understand. Many times this is even true of “standards based grade books”. Teachers should ask themselves this: Does my grade book reflect what my students know and are able to do? Does it allow me to see what my students’ strengths and weaknesses are? Can I use it to explain to parents what students do and do not understand?

For a grade book to be truly standards based and fit into a scheme of evidence based teaching it must go beyond just reorganizing the traditional grade book in different way, it must function different than the traditional grade book.

Now that the Colorado State Academic standards, as well as many of the national standards efforts, includes both content and skills at a grain size that you can collect evidence for, setting up this type of grade book should be much easier. It all comes down to: What are the content and skills that students should master? What evidence will tell you that they have mastered it? What are the steps it takes to get to mastery? What evidence would show you when a student has achieved those steps and is ready to move on?

So an evidence based, standards based grade book contains markers about a student’s progression toward mastery as well as indicators that a student has achieved mastery. This is very different from the traditional model where the grade book ranks how well a student did on individual assignments. In an evidence based, standards based system how well students do on individual assignments is secondary to charting a student’s progress toward mastery. While seeing how well a student completed individual assignments may provide some valuable information, it does not necessarily get at the goal of a class, for students to progress to mastery.

This kind of system also allows a teacher to be more selective in what they grade, making them more efficient. And this efficiency is not just what the teacher grades and put into the grade book, but also about the types of assignments that they give students, thus making their student’s more efficient. Students often complain about school or homework that they view as busy work. The reason students see it as busy work as they don’t know the purpose behind the work and where the work will lead. So even if it isn’t busy work to the teacher, it can still be perceived as busy work by students. If students know, instead, that when they have an assignment, it is part of a bigger, well thought out system, the less chance they will think that it is just busy work.

So what does kinds of assignments should kids spend their precious time doing and what types of assignments should teachers spend their precious time grading? Only those that provide evidence of a student’s progress toward mastery. This still encompasses a wide variety of assignments, but should free up both the teacher and student from unnecessary work, because all work should have meaning for both the student and teacher.

What makes a great science teacher?

Extensive research has shown that the number one factor influencing a student’s performance is the teacher. Great teachers can get students to grow on average a grade and half in one year while students in a weak teachers class may grow barely a half year. But what makes a great teacher? And for this blog, what makes a great a science teacher? Over my career I have read more and more on what makes a great teacher.

Coming from the classroom I thought that I had a handle on this. In my school we were encouraged to visit each others classrooms, I was a mentor teacher for our building, and a cooperating teacher for pre-service teachers. I enjoyed sharing my insights with others on what I thought made a good teacher. But the longer I was in the roles the more complex I realized the question really is. I thought I “knew” who the good teachers in my building were and who the “weaker” teachers were. But this was always a subjective analysis based on many factors such as did students from that teacher come prepared for my class, how did students talk about that teacher, how did admin treat that teacher, how those teachers behaved in staff meetings... But in reflection I had my biases and opinions of what made a great teacher, based a little on research, but mainly formed from my own anecdotal experiences.

You often hear teachers say “If you want to know what makes a great teacher, ask a teacher”. While there is some validity to this, not all teachers really know what makes a great teacher and all of them would have their own biases and anecdotal experiences. While asking teachers might be a good start to answering this question it is not the kind of sound scientific evidence that is really needed to inform policies, training programs, evaluations, and pay scales. Also, while a warm and gregarious personality might get a teacher’s colleagues and administration to like them and say great things about their teaching, if you don’t have a way of measuring the learning that is taking place in the class, how can really say if someone is a great teacher?

So what does science and research have to say about what makes a great science teacher? There seems to be two thoughts about great teachers. 1) They have an innate skill or ability that cannot be measured or taught. This to me is a depressing view because if great teaching is something that cannot be measured or taught, then there is nothing that can be done about weak teachers, other than convincing them to leave the profession. 2) Teaching is a science and with the right set of theoretical knowledge, content knowledge, and pedagogical knowledge anybody can teach.

As with most issue, the reality lies somewhere in between these two extremes. In my career I have met first year teachers that I thought were great, right out of the gate and experienced teachers who I thought didn’t know how to teach despite their years doing it, as well as the reverse. I have witnessed new teachers who struggle their first couple of years grow to become incredible teachers and others that didn’t seem to grow at all. Recently the New York Times came out with an article Building a Better Teacher the article quotes Bill Gates as saying “Unfortunately, it seems the field doesn’t have a clear view of what characterizes good teaching” after a gates foundation initiative into what makes a great teacher. I disagree with this assessment.

Robert Marzano really got it right in his title The Art and Science of Teaching there is both an art and a science to it. If you take the insights of research from Marzano, along with the cognitive aspects of teaching from researchers such as Marcia Tate and Eric Jensen, sprinkle in the research that went into the “Classroom Instruction that Works” series, along with school district’s that have put research into what should go into a good teacher evaluation such as St Vrain Valley School District and Eagle County School District, a picture of what makes a great teacher starts to emerge.

To start with research shows the most important factor for a great science teacher is having a deep understanding of the content they are are going to teach. Dan Goldhaber and Dominic Brewer concluded in their 1996 study Evaluating the Effects of Teacher Degree Level on Education Performance “in mathematics and science, it is the teacher subject-specific knowledge that is the important factor in determining tenth-grade achievement.”

Beyond content knowledge what emerges from research is that good and great teachers engage students in a minds on way that goes far beyond just having manipulative and hands on experiences. Students in our best classrooms are following sets of strategies that engage the brain, many of which are described by Marzano in Classroom Instruction that Works and Tate in Worksheets Don’t Grow Dendrites.

More than that research also shows great teachers ask themselves great questions about their students. One of the great contributions of the standards based teaching movement is the standards based teaching and learning cycle. In this cycle teachers are constantly asking the questions: What do students need to know, understand, and be able to do? How will we teach effectively to ensure that students learn? How we will know that students have learned? And what do we do when students don’t learn or reach proficiency before expectations?

The Building a Better Teacher article in the Times investigates Doug Lemov’s research into techniques of good teachers. Many of these techniques seem to stem from Marzano’s category of withitness. What makes Lemov’s research compelling to me is that withitness always seemed a little nebulous and Lemov’s taxonomy in Teach Like a Champion makes withitness something more concrete and something that can be taught.

In the coming weeks I will be expanding on this subject. Fortunately research is taking much of the mystery out of great teaching. While there will always be an art to teaching, science has much to tell us about what makes a great teacher, what techniques we should be looking for in doing teacher evaluation, and how to teach teachers to get better.

10 things you can do to improve student outcomes

At the recent Colorado Science Conference I did a presentation on “10 things you can do to improve student achievement”. I have always been interested in what the best ways to engage students with knowledge are and how to ensure that students retain that knowledge. A combination of combing research and personal experience using various techniques; I have come up with this list of 10 strategies to improve student achievement.

1.Science study should involve doing science, that is questioning and discovering, not just covering material.

2.A Limited, judicious use of information giving. Students should only receive information in 10 minute time frames with time to then process and apply what they have learned.

3.Students should explore fewer topics in depth, not skim many superficially.

4.Develop a clear, coherent, science content storyline.

5.Integrate and teach how scientists read, write, speak, and do math.

6.Provide applications of science and technology.

7.Teacher use of Formative Assessments to guide instruction and improvement rather than to assign blame.

8.Interactive engagement of students (Students Are Intellectually Engaged with Important Ideas Relevant to the Focus of the Lesson).

9.Science is shown as a dynamic body of knowledge.

10.Sufficient time for Sense-Making.

Sources:
• Weiss and the Horizon research group
• TIMSS Video study
• Brain based teaching
• Linking science and literacy
• Use of Formative Assessments
• Brain Considerate Classrooms