Assessment and Intervention with Tim Kanold

Jessica Breur – Mounds View Schools, Emily Elsner – Edgewood Middle School, Donna Forbes – Mahtomedi Schools, Deb Rykken – Hill Murray Schools, and Lindsey Samec – Valentine Hills Elementary School

 

Effective Mathematics Assessment was the focus of learning on October 23, 2018 for nearly 200 Minnesota educators. The pictures you see in this article represent the group work that existed around the question, what is an effective mathematics assessment structure?” The day was led by Dr. Timothy Kanold, with each participant receiving a copy of his recent book Mathematics Assessment and Intervention in a PLC at Work.

Throughout the day, Dr. Kanold shared many reproducible tools to guide discussion around assessment literacy. Here are a few examples.

• This tool can be used to guide discussion about common assessment practices.
• This tool can be used to evaluate the quality of an assessment.
• This tool can be used to guide discussion about scoring assessments.
• This tool can be used to evaluate mathematics intervention programs.

Other reproducible tools from Dr. Kanold’s book are available here.

Throughout the day there were many key statements made by Dr. Kanold to push our thinking forward.  Here are a few key statements or anecdotes from teams who are carrying forth the work. A brief summary of the context is also given to provide clarity.

“When teams come together to look at results to impact instruction and learning – great things happen for students.” and “The PLC is an equity culture – we work together around results.” – Dr. Kanold talked about the importance of reviewing assessment data as a PLC team.  Each student in our building is the responsibility of each teacher, it is never about, ‘her kids’ or ‘my kids’.  When a team reflects on assessment data, they can not only think through instructional shifts teachers make to impact understanding they can also identify individual students and needs of those students.  Kanold pressed us to further think about questions that come from Rick DuFour. What do we do when students know the content? What do we do when students don’t know the content.

“The bar is about the standard – the intervention is to help students get to the bar.” – Dr. Kanold talked about the team deciding on what was going to be the ‘guaranteed and viable curriculum’.  What he meant by this was, what will each student have access to, what is the criteria for success, and to what level must each student learn that material.  If students are struggling, teams must not water down the ‘guaranteed and viable curriculum’, instead they must provide intervention supports to help each student reach that bar.

One of the 6 criteria of assessment literacy is calibration of scoring agreements and student feedback.  During our time together Tim gave the scenario about two different students taking the same test, and two different students being evaluated differently based on the teacher they had because the teachers did not discuss how they were going to assign points to questions and/or take off points.  Emily Elsner, a middle school teacher from Edgewood recently completed this process and this is what she had to say, “Jacklyn and I just did double scoring on a test that we took today and it was incredibly powerful! We were able to identify different areas where we would have taken off different amounts of points by just looking at 3 different tests. I’m so happy we went to that PD session!”

Teachers from Mahtomedi are also carrying forth the work.  Here are there key takeaways from both the elementary school and high school staff.

• The curriculum in the classroom should be consistent so that a person could walk into any classroom and ask a question about the learning targets and the response should be the same.
• This is easier when the group is small, one to three teachers, however when the group is six to eight it will take a lot of time to get to consensus. 
• There needs to be ‘buy-in’ from all team members when an assessment is created.  Textbook assessments, given exactly “as-is” should not be used, but can be tweaked and added to fit the needs of the group.
• Making a common cover sheet that has the learning targets listed on each assessment to send home to parents is a goal of the group
• Working on the DOK and what that looks like in the elementary classroom is a question that the elementary PLC should tackle.
• The chart in the book that has the four critical questions that every math PLC should use was a take away for the high school math PLC leader.   
  1. What do we want all students to learn?  
  2. How will we know if students learned it?
  3. How will respond when some students don’t learn?
  4. How will we extend the learning for students who are already proficient?

• To use these questions during a PLC will allow the group to stay focused and discuss pedagogy and strategies that will take the standards and incorporate engagement and the voice of students in the classroom.   
• Common assessments and common scoring will be part of the conversation and PLC work.    
• The fact that Kanold understands that grades are needed in the education world, he also stresses that formative assessment should drive what happens in day to day classroom activities.

Lindsey Samec, principal at Valentine Hills Elementary School spoke about the work and how it fits her vision for her building.  Here is what she had to say, “My biggest take away from Kanold’s presentation was that our next work is doing some backward design that starts with the assessment.  We are currently doing this in some instincts, and the level of impact requires that we dig more deeply into it. This is coupled with some common ways that we provide feedback for both students and parents on the work.”

As with anything, there is always work to be done.  As we left the session, Tim charged each participant to rank where they fell on a 1 – 4 rubric with each of the 6 components of Assessment Literacy.  The 6 components are: common essential standards, common unit assessments, calibration of scoring and student feedback, student self-assessment and action after the end of unit assessment, student self-assessment and action after common formative assessment, and team response to student learning using tier 2 interventions.  What do you notice? What do you wonder? Where would your team be placed?What questions do you have?

If you are interested in joining us for the next session or two.  Please see more information here.