PLCs at Work: Analyzing and Using Formative Assessment Data

Summary

In this video by the CLAS Network, a group of middle school teachers collaborate to analyze formative assessment data. They use this data to make instructional decisions during a unit aimed at meeting student learning objectives (SLOs). The teachers engage in a Professional Learning Community (PLC) meeting where they reflect on assessment norms, share strategies, and discuss the organization of student work. Through differentiation, flexible groupings, and the use of tools like graphic organizers, they aim to address diverse student needs and enhance learning outcomes.

Highlights

• The use of common formative assessments helps teachers make timely instructional decisions. ⏰
• Norms and guidelines guide the collaborative analysis of formative assessment data. 📋
• Addressing each student's progress, not just scores, is crucial for improving learning outcomes. 🌱
• Interventions like graphic organizers and flexible groupings aid in student development. 🧩
• Professional learning communities reduce individual teacher workloads and enhance student learning. 👩‍🏫

Key Takeaways

• Collaborative data analysis in PLCs enhances instructional strategies and student learning. 🤝
• Formative assessments are crucial for identifying student progress and needs. 📊
• Differentiated instruction and flexible grouping help address diverse learning needs. 🎨
• Graphic organizers and modeling are effective strategies for organizing and developing ideas. 📚
• Sharing resources and strategies among teachers strengthens teaching practices. 💡

Overview

The video features a PLC meeting where middle school teachers gather to analyze formative assessment data. This collaborative approach allows the team to make strategic decisions, ensuring they meet student learning objectives effectively. Teachers discuss how to utilize spreadsheets or templates to capture and analyze data, emphasizing the importance of recording student assessment data at points during the unit.

During the meeting, the teachers adhere to norms they've set up to ensure productive discussions. They focus on being honest about what the data reveals and remain non-judgmental. Strategies such as using graphic organizers and flexible groupings are proposed to help students better organize their ideas and improve in specific areas. The teachers emphasize differentiation to cater to both advanced and struggling students.

Through sharing experiences and strategies, the teachers enhance their teaching practices. The collaborative nature inherent in Professional Learning Communities reduces individual workloads while promoting a culture of sharing and support. This method of working helps align their teaching practices with the learning objectives, ultimately aiming to improve student outcomes through targeted instruction.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction to PLCs and Formative Assessment The chapter introduces a PLC team made up of middle school teachers focusing on collaborative analysis of data from a common formative assessment. It highlights the role of these assessments in understanding student performance in relation to learning objectives, with an emphasis on some assessments being common and recorded, while others are not.
• 01:01 - 02:30: Collaborative Analysis of Formative Assessment Data Chapter Title: Collaborative Analysis of Formative Assessment Data This chapter discusses the use of templates and electronic tools, such as Excel or Google Sheets, to capture data and student learning objectives (SLOs). It emphasizes the importance of collaborative analysis of formative assessment data by teacher teams. Such collaboration enables teachers to make informed instructional decisions during the unit to better address students' learning needs, facilitating differentiated and effective instruction.
• 02:31 - 03:30: Guidelines for Analyzing Assessment Data The chapter titled 'Guidelines for Analyzing Assessment Data' discusses the importance of timely interventions across a grade level. It introduces a professional learning community meeting where participants review previously established norms to guide their curriculum and assessment development process, emphasizing honoring start and end times.
• 03:31 - 05:00: Discussing Patterns and Interventions In this chapter, the focus is on maintaining effective communication by adhering to norms such as stating objectives clearly, active listening, responding to concerns positively, and addressing any violations. Additionally, the chapter emphasizes taking time to think and reflect on discussions. The session transitions into analyzing formative assessment data collaboratively, highlighting the importance of guidelines for effective data analysis.
• 05:01 - 06:30: Flexible Groupings and Differentiation The chapter discusses the concept of flexible groupings and differentiation in the educational context, emphasizing the importance of data in these processes. Initially, educators found it intimidating to bring data to meetings, but over time they became more comfortable with it. The guidelines highlighted include being honest about what the data reveals about the current reality without placing blame. The focus should be on understanding each student's progress and considering next steps to enhance their success levels. The overarching message is that the process is not about the individual educator but about improving outcomes for students.
• 06:31 - 08:30: Comparison of Strategies Across Classes The chapter "Comparison of Strategies Across Classes" emphasizes that data should be viewed not as a direct reflection of teaching but rather as evidence of student learning. The focus is on professionalism in using this data to improve educational practices. Educators are encouraged to reflect on and possibly revise unit activities or student strategies, share both successful practices and those that fell short, and review assessments to ensure they accurately measure student learning objectives. Additionally, if available, formative assessment data should be used to inform future instructional steps.
• 08:31 - 09:30: Implementing Effective Teaching Strategies The chapter titled 'Implementing Effective Teaching Strategies' focuses on utilizing various methods to enhance teaching effectiveness in the classroom. This includes using strategies like flexible grouping, differentiation, and providing interventions where necessary. The importance of understanding and questioning guidelines before applying them is emphasized. The chapter also discusses past approaches, such as rotating discussion leadership among teachers, and introduces the current session's approach, which involves evaluating data from a specific class. Additionally, the chapter notes the importance of understanding assessment rubrics, which are based on a four-point scale, to guide evaluations and highlight performance using three different colors.

PLCs at Work: Analyzing and Using Formative Assessment Data Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 (Introductory music) The PLC team you will see in this video, is composed of middle school teachers who will be collaboratively analyzing the data from a common formative assessment. This assessment was given to their students during a unit of study. Not all of their formative assessments are common and many will not be recorded. However, it's important that at some point during the unit, teachers record student assessment data in connection with the student learning objectives.
• 00:30 - 01:00 This template is one way of capturing the data and the SLOs. It can be done electronically, using a number of tools, including an Excel spreadsheet or Google sheets. When a team of teachers comes together to collaboratively analyze formative assessment data, they are able to make powerful instructional decisions in the middle of the unit to specifically target the learning needs of students. This is where true differentiated instruction and effective,
• 01:00 - 01:30 timely interventions across a grade level take place. Let's see how this is accomplished. Hi. Welcome to our professional learning community meeting. Thank you for attending. Before we begin our meeting, um, let's go over our norms. These are the norms that we developed together at the beginning of the year and that helped guide us along the way as we're developing, delivering, and today, reflecting on and revising curriculum and assessments. Honor start and end times.
• 01:30 - 02:00 State the objective and stay focused. Actively listen and participate. Voice and respond to concerns positively and non-judgmentally. Address violations of the norms. Slow down to think, reflect, and puzzle about things. And thank you very much, Christine. And while these norms have been great in guiding our work throughout the year, today, specifically, ah, we're going to be looking at formative assessment data. So we are going to use the guidelines for collaborative analysis of assessment data. Now remember in the beginning of the year, when we
• 02:00 - 02:30 first had to bring data to these meetings, it was very intimidating. It was a little scary, but throughout the year we've gotten much better at it-- much more comfortable--and using these guidelines we can help all of our students grow and achieve in different areas. Sherry, would you mind reading those guidelines? Sure. Be honest about what the data is saying about your current reality. No blaming. Focus on what the data says about the progress of each student. Recognize it is not about you, it is about what you can do next to improve each student's level of success.
• 02:30 - 03:00 The data is not a reflection of your teaching, it is a reflection of student learning. What you do with the data is a reflection of your professionalism. Reflect on how unit activities or student strategies can be revised. Share best practices as well as things that may not have worked as planned. Review the assessment to ensure it effectively measures the student learning objectives. And finally, if there's a formative assessment, use the data to plan next instructional steps
• 03:00 - 03:30 including flexible grouping, differentiation, and intervention. Are there any questions about the guidelines before we get started? Um, in the past we've taken turns leading the discussion. Today, we're going to be viewing data from my students' class. Ah, so would anyone like to start us off today? Well, I think we should make note that the rubric is based out of four points. Okay. >>Christine: And being that we're going to be highlighting with, ah, three colors,
• 03:30 - 04:00 we should really break up the different categories. >>Donald: Okay. Green would be for fours and threes. Yellow will be for twos and pink will be for ones. Okay. Um, so did anyone notice any patterns or anything that kind of jumped out to you as you're doing the tallying?
• 04:00 - 04:30 So one of the first things that I noticed is we still have a lot of students that are developing and emerging under the development of ideas/use of evidence category. >>Donald: Right. It seems to be a bal--almost a--balance as far as scores are concerned for the advanced or proficient under both categories. And it seems to go the same way when you have the emerging students. >>Christine: Yeah. This is really a great visual to really see...connections. Ah, so what kind of activities or interventions do you think would help their development
• 04:30 - 05:00 of ideas or their use of evidence when doing a language arts assignment? I think we can definitely focus on, um, having the students do activities such as locating...evidence by highlighting, or adding, pieces of evidence from a text into a graphic organizer so it's more, ah, concrete and a visual aid for them. Great. Um, and what about for the organization of their writing? I'd say we can definitely... do some activities that focus on these tasks as an individual task, so breaking up, um, the key components--what makes a
• 05:00 - 05:30 strong introduction and just practicing that skill--incorporating it into homework assignments. Almost making it like mini-lessons throughout... the week. Okay. Great. Seems like we have about half the students, um, emerging or developing and the other half advanced or proficient. >>Christine: Right. While we're trying to build up the emerging and developing students, are we going to lose the focus of the advanced and proficient students by repeating these activities? >>Christine: Most likely. So we'll definitely have to, you know, include some differentiation. Maybe give them some activities that can
• 05:30 - 06:00 really enhance the skills that they already have. Maybe we can even pair some of the stronger students up with the students who are in emerging and see what they can do to, you know, pull from each other. Yeah. I really like the idea of flexible groupings to help with that. So, perhaps we don't have–you don't have to just stick to your students. You can gather, >>Donald: Absolutely. maybe, the advanced or proficient students, you can work with–from all classes. So we can have flexible groupings within our own classrooms
• 06:00 - 06:30 and we can also do flexible groupings as a department. That's–that's a wonderful idea. What if, certain students after receiving the person–the professional resources, as they're receiving some sort of PD, after the flexible groupings, some students are still not performing? 'Cause again, we're looking for the students to progress from pre-assessment to the SLOs, uh, leading up to the summative assessment. I mean, at that point I would probably have a...conference with a student one-on-one. Try to figure out, you know, what exactly their strengths, weaknesses, fears are with the–the subject matter and
• 06:30 - 07:00 try to develop a plan together with that student, to figure out what exactly is going on and what we can do to help them master the skills. Alright. We've done a great job of analyzing data from the students in my class. Um, but part of a professional learning community is to compare strategies that we use from one person's class to the other person's class. Okay, so let's take a quick look at...Sherry's data. Immediately, I see that most of the students fall into the developing, but we
• 07:00 - 07:30 can look at it several different ways. We talked about, uh, revisiting the rubrics. So that's one thing. One, ah, strategy that I use for my class is...modeling. Ah, so, when I was going over the skill, um, I was looking at the novel Anne Frank, and as we're reading our novel, I helped model for the students, um, how to pull the evidence out of those texts. Okay, so it seemed like, Sherry, um, some of your students...as compared to my class,
• 07:30 - 08:00 were still in the developing and emerging stages for organization. >>Sherry: Right. Did you use a graphic organizer? >>Sherry: I did not. I actually, um, I found this great graphic organizer that I use with my class to help them with the organization of their ideas, so you can take a quick look at that. I like this. >>Christine: Yeah. This looks great. Perhaps that--we should implement this into the unit. >>Christine: Alright, so if you don't mind, since you're the only one that used the graphic organizer, if we take a look at my data, see if it's comparable to Sherry's?
• 08:00 - 08:30 Christine: And just scanning this real quick, I do notice that... like Sherry's, a lot of my students are falling into the developing range as well. If that graphic organizer, uh, made a big difference maybe we should implement that into our curriculum as well. >>Christine: Okay. Um, so I'll go ahead after the meeting and put that on the Google site. >>Christine: That'll be very helpful. Josue: For, I guess the anecdotal data, I would also put some sort of reflective writing for the students to respond where they felt they went wrong and why. And I think that's valuable, uh, for the
• 08:30 - 09:00 student's perception of, uh, the expectation. >>Christine: Absolutely. That would also be a great conversation starter if it gets down to that one-on-one conversation. Join the conferencing. >>Donald: Absolutely. So, thank you again Christine. Thank you again Sherry and thank you Dr. Falaise, um, and I hope everyone gained something very valuable and will continue to work on this as we have from the beginning of the year. In the early part of the CAR process, PLC teams unpack the standards and create a clear student-friendly learning objectives.
• 09:00 - 09:30 As you can see here, these SLOs have now been used to assess students' progress. In this way, teachers are able to make effective instructional decisions that will target the specific needs of students and improve their learning. When teachers analyze formative assessment data collaboratively, they are able to tap into each others' strengths. As they share resources, strategies, and ideas, they are doing this in relation to the SLOs of the unit and the specific needs of the students.
• 09:30 - 10:00 This is how student learning is improved. The collaborative nature of this work also reduces the workload on individual teachers. For example, if several students across the grade level are in need of reteaching, one teacher can focus on developing the resources for this group, while their colleagues develop and share resources for other groups of students. Ultimately, the goal of a PLC is to strengthen teacher practice and improve student learning.
• 10:00 - 10:30 Teachers coming together to analyze and respond to formative assessment data, do just that.