More than 50 percent of students entering high school are two or more years behind in at least one subject on meeting the academic grade level standards; less than 40 percent are proficient; and only 5 percent are advanced. What do we do about the more than percent of students who are missing the necessary prerequisite skills to master their current standards?
Good instructional leaders have a vision of individualizing instruction to meet the needs of individual students. Unfortunately, they lack the assessment and diagnostic tools to make this vision a reality. Assessments are the tools used to address student improvement. They range from “thermometers” that tell us what standards a student has mastered or not mastered to diagnostic tools that identify skill strengths and deficiencies, and provide materials to teach missing skills so that standards can be mastered.
The starting point for attacking the student performance problem is understanding the purposes and functions of the three different types of assessments:
- Formative assessments
- Adaptive assessments
- Diagnostic assessments
Formative/benchmark assessments measure whether an academic standard has been learned. Formative assessments are the most commonly used type of assessment. They are administered three or four times during the school year to provide data to teachers and schools about whether students and classes are mastering standards. These assessments measure whether a standard required for the current year’s curriculum—for example, eighth grade math—has been learned. Some of the name brands of benchmark assessments are Acuity, Thinklink, and Scantron Achievement Series. School systems value these assessments as determining whether students and classes have mastered the standards being measured on the end-of-year accountability test.
What format/benchmark assessments do not do is measure whether students have or lack the prerequisite skills needed to master this year’s curriculum standard requirements. Given that more than 30 percent of students cannot master this year’s standards because they lack the necessary prerequisite skills, this shortcoming of formative/benchmark assessments—their failure to provide teachers with information about which prerequisite skills are missing and how to remediate them—is critical.
Adaptive assessments measure growth and identify where the student is on the learning-ladder continuum. A scale score, or RIT score, is provided to show at what level the student is currently performing. This type of assessment is the best measure of academic progress. While other assessments are like a line in the sand showing what a student has mastered, an adaptive assessment shows where a student is currently, where he or she has grown, and what level of instruction in needed to achieve grade-level performance. Adaptive assessments, like formative assessments, are administered two to four times a year. The name-brand adaptive assessments are NWEA Map and the Scantron Performance Series. Unfortunately, adaptive assessments do not provide sufficient detail to specifically remediate deficiencies. After looking at results from adaptive assessments, teachers are usually left with the question, Now what?
Adaptive assessments are based on Item Response Theory, or IRT. In IRT, students are given an initial question and if they are successful, they will get a more difficult question until they have reached their top level of ability. If they miss a question, they will be given a lower-level question and will continue to descend until they reach their base level. This type of bracketing continues until the standard error of measurement meets a predefined level.
Diagnostic assessments determine missing skills and remediate them.
Diagnostic assessments are the new kid on the block. The two name brands in this category are Knewton, a higher-education adaptive-learning and test-preparation product, and NWEA Skills Pointer. As Knewton has focused on the higher-education market, there is limited data on its impact in K–12 education, though the Knewton approach and algorithms are applicable to K–12 subjects. Knewton appears to include a large range of variables in its database, such as learning styles, as well as an algorithm similar to curriculum based theory.
Skills Pointer is using Curriculum-Based Theory (CBT) to develop its assessments and remediation. Curriculum-Based Theory is framed around the learning objective. Questions are presented in a format similar to that used in adaptive assessments, but instead of using Item Response Theory, which moves the test score based on each question, CBT measures each skill. A learning ladder is prepared for each skill, and the student is tested with a sophisticated algorithm to determine if all the prerequisite skills have been mastered. This method allows a teacher to see a detailed learning path of all the skills a student needs to master to get back to grade level. The learning path includes a tutorial for the student and lesson plans for the teacher with practice activities for each missing skill. This approach solves the problem of teachers not knowing what to do after they have identified a deficiency. Like formative assessments, Skills Pointer focuses on mastery of standards, not growth or progress as do the adaptive assessments.
The main thesis of this month’s blog is to differentiate the three types of assessments: formative, adaptive, and diagnostic. All three have a place in every school, but they must be used for their individual intended purposes.
The increased use of diagnostic assessment instruments is necessary to solve the current issue of low performance on standards, and to provide teachers with the tools they need to individualize instruction.
Thank you for posting this insightful analysis of what ed tech currently offers by way of assessment. Our focus, based on years of classroom study, is on diagnostic assessment. Now available on line, MathCoach Diagnostic Assessment for Kindergarten through Grade 5, offers both the quiz and the “What now” solution. After students take a quiz (selected by grade level and by topic), our system automatically calls up just the right lessons to address the learning gaps.
Mary Krisko, Ph.D.m Washakie County School District #1 Curriculum Director and Grant Manager responded to this article with the following:
After reading your article I realized that I have difficulty equating formative and benchmark assessments. Although both show whether the standard is learned, there is a distinct difference between the two. You described (quite well) benchmark assessments – a finer grain of standard/benchmark mastery than a summative assessment. But…formative assessment provides a different flavor of information for a teacher.
Formative assessment is a continuous practice – not necessarily a 3 or 4 times a year testing. It is a part of learning and supports learning during the learning process. As a quick “check for understanding,” this type of assessment directs/guides the teacher to the next step, through correctives/enrichments or moving forward, as well as decision-making about efficacious instructional practices. The frequent use of formative assessments varies considerably and can be used to understand the level of mastery for each student, affording the opportunity for individualizing and/or differentiating instruction. Various formative assessment strategies to check for understanding include practices as summaries, reflections, graphic organizers, making connections, etc. and cab be used as frequently as the teacher finds necessary.