Principle #6 Assessment and Feedback
Diagnostic tools and formative assessment practices are employed to measure students’ content knowledge, academic language competence, and participation in disciplinary practices. These assessment practices allow teachers to monitor students’ learning so that they may adjust instruction accordingly, provide students with timely and useful feedback, and encourage students to reflect on their own thinking and learning.
What Teachers Do
- Teachers review and use data (nativity, prior schooling, native language and English proficiency, etc.) when planning instruction
- Teachers provide students with timely and useful feedback; and encourage students to reflect on their own learning and thinking.
- Teachers design assessments with discipline-specific language competencies in mind.
- Teachers differentiate assessments linguistically so that ELLs show their conceptual understanding.
- Teachers help students learn the specific linguistic features of formative and summative assessments.
- Teachers collect evidence of students’ progression towards independence, adjusting instruction when necessary.
-Students demonstrate increased reading competencies using valid and reliable instrumentation and data- gathering approaches (i.e. specifically designed for ELs)
-Students benefit from feedback opportunities so they continually rethink, revise, and refine their work using content and language learning targets as criterion
-Students benefit from the use of qualitative rubrics (i.e. descriptive and not focused on quantity) for vocabulary, reading and writing tasks in tandem with student conferences
-Students benefit from collaborative conferences whereby teachers intentionally and explicitly provide feedback regarding language progression on oral and written tasks (e.g. feedback = where English learners are and what they need to do in order to improve)
-Students benefit from the use of the principles of 'evidence-centered assessment design' as well as the constructs of 'validity' and 'reliability' to design equitable formative and summative assessment tasks
- Students use progressive academic language features in oral and written classroom-based assessment tasks, including the use of complex language as they progress through the grades (i.e. vocabulary, sentence structures, and language conventions) documented in the form of checklists, anecdotal records, self-assessment logs, etc.
-Students benefit from the continuous analysis of assessment data to progress ELs to next proficiency levels
-Students benefit from teachers' reflective practice after lessons
-Students benefit from reflective use of assessment for learning to readjust instruction intentionally and explicitly for English language development and content achievement as a part of - and not apart from - the instructional process
-Students benefit from collaborative implementation of an instruction and assessment framework of 'increased language output expectations and decreased instructional supports' (i.e. more language, less scaffolding support) aligned to designated English language proficiency levels
-Students benefit from EAL teachers' continuous analysis of language usage data on oral, reading, and writing assessment to determine linguistic readiness for next-level progression (i.e. formative and summative assessment tasks)
-Students discuss the academic language that is expected of them as evidence of their meta-cognitive awareness of and involvement in the development of their academic English language proficiency
-Students benefit from collaborative use of an instructional and assessment framework to monitor and address 'fossilization' (i.e. a linguistic phenomenon of 'getting stuck' at a level of language proficiency without progression as might be the case with many LTELL {longterm English language learners})
Areas of Concern
-Assumptions that the same reading assessments used for monolingual English speakers can be used for ELs' and that bilingual reading data can be interpreted within in a monolingual framework
-Confusion surrounding the differences between assessment of learning vs. assessment for learning
-Overreliance on selected-response tests as assessment (e.g. multiple choice, true false, fill in the blank, etc)
-Overreliance on quantitative rubrics to evaluate language usage (e.g. Likert scale rating and/ or 'more is better' thinking)
-Thinking that 'once students are done with assessments, they are done'
-Use of assessment data as episodic events, and not as a way of thinking about daily classroom life (i.e. a mindset)
-Thinking that academic language development is picked up from sitting in mainstream classrooms without intentional and explicit instruction (i.e. submersion language acquisition environment)
-Not intentionally and explicitly teaching academic language progressively to ELs, meaning they are being instructed at their current proficiency level rather than the next level of proficiency (i.e. a language growth mindset vs. a language fixed mindset
POSSIBLE CONCERNS WITH WIDA FRAMEWORK:
-Thinking of the WIDA Standards as 'stand alone' rather than to be used in conjunction with grade-level content standards
-Copying the WIDA CAN DO descriptors verbatim without understanding the conceptual purpose of the instructional model
-Thinking that English language proficiency is correlated with higher-order thinking skills (e.g. Bloom's Taxonomy used as basis for CAN DO descriptors)
-Awareness that WIDA CAN DO descriptors were written with an 'IB/ AP' end-in-mind design (e.g. awareness of ESL population in international schools vs. populations in US schools)