CORTNIE BELSER'S MSED PORTFOLIO
Year-Long Assessments
To reinforce transferable content skills, year-long assessments provides formative data
throughout the year that addresses key gaps in content knowledge and skills
Table of Contents
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Introduction to Year-Long Assessments
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Introduction
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In unison with assessing reading comprehension and elements of writing on a daily basis, students are engaged in their learning progress through year-long assessments as well. Each year-long assessment offers students and teachers consistent data and measure of success throughout the school year. In my classroom, I highlight three main structures of year-long assessments to drive student growth: year-long iReady testing, year-long vocabulary and spelling assessments, and year-long homework assignments as formative assessments.
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Through year-long assessments, I am able to gather qualitative and quantitative data on gaps in student knowledge and application of skill. While the frequency of each year-long assessment differs from daily to weekly to quarterly, each component offers valuable formative data that impacts how I differentiate and support student growth.
Year-Long Assessments: i-Ready Diagnostic Test
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The district adopted the i-Ready Diagnostic assessment as the principle year-long standardized reading comprehension assessment for public school students across the city. In addition, from K-12 the i-Ready data is utilized for a variety of mediums, such as: differentiated class sections, transfer admittance in schools across the district, quantitative student data to demonstrate teacher growth, and as a pivotal component of eighth grader's composite score for high school choice applications. The assessment is administered three times a year in September, December, and March. Since the final "end-of-year" data gathered through i-Ready occurs in March, this timeframe aligns to only three-quarters of a year. The i-Ready is a computer-based reading comprehension assessment to provide each student with a profile on current grade-level growth. As an adaptive test, each student takes a different test than the other as questions are not only randomized but customized based on student performance throughout the assessment.
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Teachers have access to i-Ready data immediately after the student's completion. Each student profile offers a range of quantitative and qualitative data on each specific student's grade-level performance and general trends in gaps of content knowledge and skills. While a more comprehensive student data profile is available through i-Ready, each school administrator must provide resources to fund this extension. In utilizing the overview student profile, I am able to gather relevant data to present differentiated groups of students with academic intervention to move student growth.
The document to the left displays the primary class profile report provided through the i-Ready assessment. Each class profile includes the class averages of scale scores in each reading standard domain. Additionally, every student who completed the assessment during the testing window are featured. Each student's overall scale score and current grade level placement are provided in the i-Ready snapshot for quick instructional reference.
The document to the right is a student sample that represents less than 5 percent of my student population who are reading on or less than 2 years below grade level. The profile report is given immediately after a student completes each i-Ready assessment cycle. Since it is an adaptive test, student reports reflect an in-depth analysis of gaps in knowledge and content skills across reading domains. The i-Ready report provides next steps to supporting each student to practice skills needed to progress to the next reading level. For example, page 7 highlights data analysis and next steps of this student's lowest grade-level placement.
When designing formative and summative assessments on content standard skills, I often utilize questions stems derived from i-Ready assessment data. This familiarizes students with the language and question comprehension practice that is reflected in the assessment. As i-Ready is only administered every 3 months from September to March, I must monitor student progress towards i-Ready assessment goals during instructional formative assessments.
These samples above represent student responses to the i-Ready question stem related to CCSS R.5. Each of the three student responses represent the range of reading comprehension tiers spread across my classes. Since this was my first time using this specific question stem, it served as a diagnostic to gauge student understanding of text structure (CCSS R.5). As a tool to impact Ready data, I integrate 1-2 i-Ready question stems in each reading comprehension or writing formative assessment. The results from this sample informed my next steps for building comprehension of this standard through mini-lesson activities on text structure. To support learners in between instruction and assessments, I offer tailored feedback to eat student on areas of improvement.
Since my school does not purchase the i-Ready licenses with the accompanying mini-lessons to engage individual students in differentiated standards-based instruction, I utilize this online resource to reteach a mini-lesson to build student comprehension of text structure. ​As a direct result of the sample's formative assessment, I will now plan for instruction to intentionally address this standard prior to the next i-Ready assessment.
Year-Long Assessments: Vocabulary Comprehension
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As a year-long formative assessment, integrating spelling fluency and vocabulary assessments allow me to evaluate acquisition and comprehension of words and key concepts that align to Common Core State Standards grade-level mastery. Primarily, this year-long assessment supports CCSS R.L.7-8.4 (Determine the meaning of words) mastery as students test out of i-Ready phonics standards, but are significantly below grade-level in the vocabulary domain. I utilize formal and informal formative assessment practices throughout the day, week, and year to assess how students are retaining and practicing vocabulary comprehension and application.
This sample PowerPoint represents how students engage in vocabulary comprehension and skill-building throughout the year. Beginning in the second quarter, students lead vocabulary practice during instruction to increase their critical thinking skills and application for the iReady assessment. Since students are assigned heterogenous seating (based on local high school names and informed by i-ready data), I differentiate tasks through a jigsaw vocabulary web model. Each team of 3-4 students spends 5-7 minutes completing their task and present it whole-class for one of the vocabulary words of the week.
The year-long iReady assessments informs which tasks I ask specific student teams to do in the jigsaw per class. For example, in my 8C Honors section, the Poly team is comprised of 4 female students with close to grade-level i-Ready reading literature scores. Therefore, they were responsible for the most difficult and higher-level thinking quadrant of the Frayer vocabulary web. Likewise, in 8A, the 3 students in the Digital team's iReady data indicates that they can strengthen their score in vocabulary through identifying antonyms and synonyms.
The student work above represents a sample of the product of this formative assessment. Similar to the SAT, it is difficult to identify vocabulary to study because that level of testing data is not provided. However, by introducing students to grade-level vocabulary and teaching vocabulary study methods, such as the Frayer vocabulary web, I build learning structures in place to support assessment growth. The red boxes represent the different responses among the different classes who utilized this activity. Each of these student products demonstrate a synthesis of the whole class jigsaw activity. During this activity, I am able to not only assess vocabulary comprehension but evaluate the application of specific skills for individual students as they present.
Year-Long Assessments: Homework
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I utilize homework as a consistent year-long assessment to monitor learner progress of content knowledge and skills reinforced across other assessments. As an additional layer of assessments, students are engaged in their own learning through homework assignments that offer practice of higher-order thinking of expanded concepts and skills from instructional time.
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Each week, students are given a two-sided homework sheet, with each day addressing a specific CCSS or anchored in the learning outcome of the week. This homework assessment is given on Monday and due at the beginning of class on Friday. While homework has been de-emphasized over the years, since I have on average a 85-95 percent homework completion rate, I utilized homework as formative data to drive next week's instruction. Since homework reinforces many of the learning outcomes, central themes, and standard objectives of the week, I utilize quantitative grade book data to measure student's overall weekly growth and qualitative data from homework to support necessary grade-level interventions.
This student sample represents the work quality of 60 percent of students, on average, who turn in their homework weekly. As observed in the student sample, many students struggle to answer all parts of a question, draw connections across texts, and integrate vocabulary effectively.
This student sample represents the work quality of 40 percent of students, on average, who turn in their homework weekly. Utilizing homework as a formative assessment allows me to understand and monitor learning progress of students who consistently complete homework assignments at 70 percent or higher mastery.
Through homework as a formative assessment, I am able to gauge learner progress of i-Ready and CCSS learning objectives, such as R.7-8.4 (Interpret words and phrases) and R.7-8.7 (Integrate and evaluate different media formats). As homework will be given consistently throughout the school year, this year-long assessment data allows me and my students identify specific learning objectives from week-to-week, including skills to practice in subsequent homework.