Educating the Family

As my school goes through the ups and downs of transitioning to a standards based system, I have become increasingly aware of a need to educate parents. I am in a unique position to do this as I have taken a bit of a head start in the standards based effort. With all of this in mind, I have started developing  a set of video lessons for my team web page that are designed to inform parents about how things work in my classroom.

This makes sense as I've heard several questions like the following:

• What do scores of 1, 2, 3, and 4 mean?
• What are Measurement Topics, Learning Targets, and Assessments?
• How can I find out how my child is doing at reporting times?
• How can I find out how my child is doing at any time?

While the video lessons will address all of these questions and more, I'll briefly address them here as well. (It's important to note that these explanations reflect the inner workings of the Davis Language Arts class and not necessarily classes taught by other teachers.)

• What do scores of 1, 2, 3, and 4 mean? These scores can be used to report achievement levels on individual Assessments of Learning Targets and for Measurement Topics. They are defined as follows:

• 4   Proficient With Distinction (aka - Exceeding the Standard)
• 3   Proficient (aka - Meeting the Standard)
• 2   Partially Proficient (aka - Partially Meeting the Standard)
• 1   Not Yet Meeting (aka - Far Below Meeting the Standard)

• What are Measurement Topics, Learning Targets, and Assessments? These are three levels of content being assessed.  Think of them as a boxes.  The largest box is the Measurement Topic. Inside that box is the next size smaller box (actually 10 of them) representing Learning Targets. Inside each of those ten boxes are Assessments. There are 1-3 of these smallest boxes for each Learning Target.

• Measurement Topic (e.g. - Reading Informational Text)
• Learning Target (e.g. - Students will identify the author's purpose.)
• Assessment (e.g. - Moodle Assignments 6-1 and 6-2)

• How can I find out how my child is doing at reporting times? The school reports scores on a midterm and trimester schedule. At these reporting times, language arts scores are reported on report cards and in Infinite Campus by Measurement Topic. As expected, most of the scores are usually 2 for some time. This is because a student has only met some of the Learning Targets. This doesn't necessarily mean a student is doing poorly. Let's face it; a student can't learn everything at once. Over time, a successful student will meet or exceed all of the Learning Targets within each Measurement Topic, earning a score of 3 or 4. Some scores may also be left blank for a similar reason. Since a student can't learn everything at once, some Measurement Topics may be saved for later in the school year.

• How can I find out how my child is doing at any time? This is one of the great parts of standards based scoring. At any time, parents can look within Infinite Campus and see exactly how their child is doing. They can do this because listed under each Measurement Topic is a series of Assessments. If a student has at least a 3 on all of the Assessments to date, then the student is doing well. If a student has yet to earn at least a 3 on an Assessment that has become past due, that student is behind the pace. (For parent's benefit, this Assessment is labelled "MISSING" once it is past due.) If a student has earned at least a 3 on Assessments that have yet to become due, that student is ahead of the pace.

If all goes well, the parent support video lessons will prove helpful. More importantly, if parents get in the habit of looking for explanations on line, a line of communication is opened. If a parent needs further clarification, each video lesson will end with the same point: "If you have questions and/or want more information, please contact Mr. Davis at the following email address." Transparency is what parents want, and transparency is what I'm trying to provide.

Reporting Time

Okay, the end of Trimester 1 has arrived, and it's time to push out those T1 scores. This seems simple enough; I've been doing this my whole career. However, there's now more behind this task than one might think. Here are some things to consider.

I am reporting the current progress for each student in relation to the following Measurement Topics:

• Reading Informational Text
• Reading Literature
• Writing
• Language
• Speaking and Listening

The key terms in the statement above are "current progress" and "Measurement Topic". First of all, I am reporting the general amount of knowledge/skill that each student has demonstrated so far in relation to the entire Measurement Topic. Most Measurement Topics consist of ten Learning Targets. Therefore, it makes sense that for quite a while, students will have at best demonstrated Partial Proficiency (2). Students can not be declared Proficient (3) in a Measurement Topic until all of the Learning Targets within have been met. This is quite different from the traditional approach which has always been more focused on "how a student is doing so far"without pointing out the knowledge and skills that still have yet to be demonstrated.

This might be a bit startling for some parents because their child can be "doing" just fine while receiving a current score of 2 (Partially Proficient). However, this score is quite logical (and need not be alarming) as the student who is doing just fine may have only met a portion of the Learning Targets that make up the Measurement Topic. For a closer look at exactly how the child is doing, a parent need only look deeper into Infinite Campus (our online score reporting software). Within Infinite Campus, the parent can see exactly how proficient their child is in each Learning Target. This is far more informative than the general Measurement Topic score. For example, the score of 2 for the Writing Measurement Topic reveals that some writing Learning Targets still need to be met. A closer look will reveal exactly which of those Learning Targets have already been met and to what level of proficiency. That's a little more work on the parent end, but the information is worth the dig!

Is that digging too much to ask of parents? Perhaps. The math teachers at our school are reporting by Learning Targets at Trimester's end rather than Measurement Topics. This presents an extensive workload challenge for teachers (that's a ton of reporting!), but presents the information in a much more straightforward fashion. Students obviously meet individual Learning Targets as a means of meeting the requirements of a Measurement Topic. Therefore, the up front data presents a much clearer immediate picture to parents without as much digging required. This may be the way ELA reporting goes in the future, but that's yet to be determined in this pilot year.

For now, it's important to report student data as accurately as possible. It's also important to guide parents through this data. It is an unrealistic expectation to think that the typical parent is going to fully grasp the details of educational data. (Some of us teachers even struggle sometimes!) I'm hopeful that I will have taken some action to help parents, prior to the publishing of my next entry. My thought is to make use of simple online video lessons to help parents grasp the important information that is being provided for them.

Another way that we as educators can help parents is to make extensive use of comments when reporting scores. There is a big difference between the two reports below:

• Writing: 2 (Partially Proficient)

• Writing: 2 (Partially Proficient): Some Learning Targets within this Measurement Topic have been met and/or exceeded.  Student is making better than adequate progress through the Learning Targets.

Certainly, it takes a bit more time and effort to add comments. However, it is worth it if parents are better informed about the progress of their children. It might even save time in the long run as a teacher will less likely have to field a phone call or email from a parent concerned that their strong student of a child is only Partially Proficient.

For public education to work, schools need to inform parents effectively. While still a work in progress that is requiring extra thinking and effort on the part of educators and parents, at least progress is being made in this area. We simply haven't solved all the problems yet.  I'd give us a 2 (Partially Proficient).

Two Dimensional Scoring

Though shortened by Hurricane Sandy's approach, the Experts Down the Hall conference provided me with some new and old ideas to ponder. One session I attended focused on the connections between standards based education and RTI. The presenter (Ann Cutten) showed an interesting model for her presentation. While this was helpful enough, I have adopted the format of her model as a means of understanding standards based scoring. My version of the model is shown below.

This two dimensional diagram is different from the typical one dimensional approach to standards based scoring. I have to say that I prefer this model as it reflects the two major factors in scoring student work - the content level and the product level.

Content Level refers to the rigor of the content skills and/or knowledge being assessed. Content that is more challenging than the grade level expectation shifts a score upward into the purple, "4" zone. Content that is more grade level based doesn't shift the score as far up and winds up in the green, "3"zone. Content that is below grade level falls into the yellow or red, "2" or "1" zone.

Product Level refers to the rigor of the assessment form and the quality of product. Some also might prefer to consider the Product Level as a level of Blooms Taxonomy. Products that require higher level thinking shift a score toward the right into the purple, "4" zone (if done well).  Products that require a lower level of thinking don't shift as far to the right and wind up in the green, "3" zone (if done well). Tasks that are rudimentary would fall into either the yellow or red, "2" or "1", zone (if done well). Of course, if a task is not done well, then a (hopefully temporary) shift toward a lower score zone would be appropriate.

When scoring, it can be helpful to consider both dimensions of an assessment. By treating the two factors as a coordinate pair, one can get a rough idea of what a student's score on an assessment should be. For example, a student who produces a higher level thinking product involving higher level content would earn a 4. Sometimes, this easiest of cases will occur and both the content and product levels will be the same. Where it gets a bit more tricky is when the two dimensions are not the same. This is where using a .5 system can be helpful. In the .5 system, a student who produces a moderately higher level thinking product (3) involving higher than grade level content (4) can receive a score of 3.5.

While far from perfect, this two dimensional approach to standards based scoring bears some consideration. It allows for students to reach for the almighty "4" while more accurately reflecting the two main factors of any assessment.