Annual ISN Fall Meeting
The Annual ISN Fall Meeting was held on November 29-30. Over then next few weeks, the ISN newsletter will be reviewing the main points of the sessions.
Student Intervention System
In the book, Whatever it Takes: How a Professional Learning Community Responds When Kids Don’t Learn (DuFour, 2004), the authors describe four questions that each school or district must ask:
1) What is it we want all students to learn? (in Kentucky, the Program of Studies)
2) How will we know when each student has learned it? (formative, interim and summative assessments)
3) What happens when a student doesn’t learn it? (interventions)
4) What happens when a student already knows it? (enrichment)
It is the third question that is the basis for the establishment of a Student Intervention System (SIS). DuFour says that in order to help all students learn at high levels, schools must provide additional time and support for students in a directive and systemic way. An SIS is a schoolwide plan for children who need intervention when research-based core instruction does not meet all their needs and ensures that all students receive timely and direct interventions at the first indication of difficulty. SIS criterion includes being multi-layered, fluid, proactive, extensive, monitored, supported by professional growth, communicated and required.
Ultimately, the shift in thinking for schools and districts to effectively implement an SIS hinges on the understanding that time must be the variable to effective instruction, not the constant. Every child must have the time necessary to learn the content, not teach the content once and then move on.
Balanced Assessment
In a balanced assessment system, summative, interim and formative assessments all have important purposes. Conversations over the last few months around coming to an agreement on common definitions and purposes of each form of assessment have taken place with district instructional leaders and KDE.
Summative assessments are tests given at the end of instruction to determine what was learned, providing a big picture of learning and showing how a program’s results matched goals. These assessments may be used to evaluate students’ performance against content standards. Examples of summative assessments are Kentucky Core Content Test (KCCT), Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills (CTBS) and final exams.
Interim assessments are:
- aimed at collecting information for classroom, school, district
- administered at prescribed intervals, with the timing set by the school or district
- used for predicted success on summative tests
- used for evaluating a program or teacher method
- used for finding gaps in students’ learning
The data from interim assessments are used by teachers and administrators and aggregated for classroom, school and district.
Examples of interim assessments are Predictive Assessment Scales (PAS), MAP, Core Content Test, Learning Checks and GRADE.
Formative assessment is assessment for learning. It is best done early and often. The primary users of formative assessment are students, educators or parents. Formative assessment cannot be separated from instruction and is used to track learning during the instructional process.
The teacher’s role in formative assessment is to
- transform standards into classroom targets
- inform students of targets
- use formative assessments daily to monitor understanding
- adjust instruction
- provide descriptive feedback
- involve students in assessment
KDE is in the process of writing an RFP to secure lower-price contracts for districts on interim assessments. In order to aid that process, KDE needs to know what districts are currently using. If you are currently using an interim assessment, please e-mail the name of that assessment to Ken Draut.
ISN Meeting EILA Certificates
For those unable to pick up their EILA certificate at the end of the ISN Annual Fall Meeting and would like it mailed, please contact Judy Littleton.
Quotable Quotes
“ However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.”
Winston Churchill, former British Prime Minister