Design in Five, Second Edition

Essential Phases to Create Engaging Assessment Practice

Second Edition

5 Design

in NICOLE DIMICH

Foreword by Douglas Reeves

Essential Phases to Create Engaging Assessment Practice

Second Edition

5Design

in NICOLE DIMICH

Foreword by Douglas Reeves

Copyright © 2015, 2024 by Solution Tree Press

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Names: Dimich, Nicole, author.

Title: Design in five : essential phases to create engaging assessment practice / Nicole Dimich.

Description: Second edition. | Bloomington, IN : Solution Tree Press, 2024. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2023046073 (print) | LCCN 2023046074 (ebook) | ISBN 9781960574107 (paperback) | ISBN 9781960574114 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Educational tests and measurements. | Educational evaluation. | Motivation in education. | Effective teaching.

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To Maya, Rhys, and Chase

May you find and facilitate grace, learning, and growing in all your circles throughout all the seasons of your life.

To all young people in schools across the world

This work is dedicated to you and your educators to inspire school experiences filled with rich and meaningful learning that inspires wonder, growth, possibility, efficacy, perseverance, high expectations, and joy.

Acknowledgments

Icontinue to be profoundly grateful for the incredible people I have met and worked with along my educational journey. The new insight and context included in this second edition of Design in Five is a direct result of sharing conversation and implementing these ideas across many different contexts across the world. The Design in Five process is based on a framework; it is not a step-by-step script. This process helps center students in the assessment process. It values relevance and meaningful work, and positions assessment as information that lifts up students, educators, and the community. At the end of the day, we want assessment to power—not just empower—our young people, so they understand their strengths and gain the confidence and hope that informs their journey as they move forward, make decisions about their future, and engage in their communities. It is the countless hours of conversation with educators, consultants, colleagues, and students that led to this second edition. Thank you to all the educators who participated in my training sessions, offered reflections on my work, loaned me moments in their classrooms, invited me to their team meetings, and shared their successes, challenges, and questions. The ideas in this book stand on the shoulders of all those amazing educators and students from whom I have learned so much.

There are many folks I could name who have influenced and walked alongside me. A special thanks to Mike Mattos and Luis Cruz. I am so grateful for our collaboration, your friendship, and your thoughtful insights and applications that led to spirited discussions and more powerful and refined ideas. Paula Maeker and Jessica Hannigan—your friendship alongside your deep and beautiful observations and insights makes me feel unconditionally and fiercely supported. To my assessment architect colleagues, Cassandra Erkens and Tom Schimmer—thank you for your partnership, friendship, and unending belief in me and the critical ideas that will transform assessment and grading practices to center hope. From 2019–2023, I worked with some incredible young people to codesign new ways of schooling, including Aniya Bailey and Elliot Finn. These young people offered firsthand accounts of the damage and inspiration they have found in assessment and grading practices. I am profoundly grateful for their groundbreaking partnership. They, along with some very innovative educators including Shannon Finnegan, Qorsho Hassan, Breana Jacques, Nathalee Morse, and Brooke Roper, forged pathways into new ways of thinking about assessment and grading. Katie White and Natalie Vardabasso—I’m so grateful for your forward-thinking influence and conversations. Thank you to Anisa Baker-Busby, Betty Webb, Scot Kerbaugh, and Cyndie Hays for being the incredible educators you are—committed to engaging students and empowering teachers. Our conversations have pushed my thinking and helped the ideas in this book take shape.

With special gratitude to my family—my children, Maya, Rhys, and Chase—you each have provided me with so much inspiration and insight into how students experience school, and your thoughts give life to the work I do every day with educators around the globe. I am so grateful for my parents, Tom and Judy Dimich, who lift me up and support me unconditionally. They are the reason I can do this work.

Without the support, inspiration, encouragement, and perseverance of Claudia Wheatley and Douglas Rife, the first edition of this book would not have happened. I was and continue to be indebted to you both for your unwavering support and belief in my work.

To Lesley Bolton and Ed Levy, I am incredibly grateful for your review, editing, revisions, and insights in the first edition. Thank you to Laurel Hecker for your thoughtful and critical editing of this second edition. You all have made these ideas come to life, and your patience and perseverance are unmatched.

With humble gratitude once again, I submit this work to the field for dialogue, critique, and inspiration.

Visit go.SolutionTree.com/assessment to download the free reproducibles in this book.

About the Author

Nicole Dimich is an educator who believes strongly in the power of assessment to motivate, engage, and ensure learning and confidence for students, teachers, administrators, schools, and systems. Nicole believes in tapping into the strengths of individuals, teams, and systems to extensively explore, facilitate, and implement innovative practices in school transformation. She works with elementary and secondary educators in presentations, trainings, and consultations that address critical issues in assessment, data analysis, feedback, meaningful authentic design, collaboration, and student voice, choice, and power.

As a middle and high school English teacher, Nicole teamed up with mathematics, social studies, and science teachers. Pursuing her belief in the powerful impact teacher leaders have in schools and districts, she later became a program evaluator and trainer at the Princeton Center for Leadership Training in New Jersey.

Nicole also worked closely with school and district staff to support the implementation of small learning communities in Minneapolis Public Schools. This high school

transformation work included coaching individual teachers and teams on assessment, literacy, and high expectations for all students. Nicole also helped facilitate and implement a data-templates project in collaboration with the University of Minnesota. As training coordinator, she helped elementary and secondary educators design templates to track and analyze data.

Nicole continues to work with schools and districts around the world to increase understanding of developing and using assessments to promote student learning and engagement, and to build hope, efficacy, and achievement. In addition, her passion and commitment to authentically partner with students led Nicole to launch a nonprofit centered on student voice by authentically collaborating with students to dramatically redesign school, which resulted in prototypes of school innovation and transformation.

Nicole is author of Design in Five: Essential Phases to Create Engaging Assessment Practice. As one of the architects of the Solution Tree Assessment Collaborative, she coauthored Essential Assessment, Instructional Agility, Growing Tomorrow’s Citizens in Today’s Classroom, Concise Answers to Frequently Asked Questions About Assessment and Grading, and Jackpot! Nurturing Student Investment Through Assessment. She and Carolyn Chapman coauthored Motivating Students: 25 Strategies to Light the Fire of Engagement. Nicole is also author of two chapters in assessment anthologies: “Inspiring and Requiring Action” in The Teacher as Assessment Leader and “Finding Meaning in Numbers” in The Principal as Assessment Leader

Nicole earned a bachelor’s degree in English and psychology from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, and a master’s degree in human development from Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. She has three children, Maya, Rhys, and Chase, and lives in Hopkins, Minnesota.

To learn more about Nicole’s work, visit https://allthingsassessment.info or follow @NicoleDimich on X, formerly known as Twitter.

To book Nicole Dimich for professional development, contact pd@SolutionTree.com.

Foreword

By Douglas Reeves

In this immensely practical book, Nicole Dimich provides readers with a clarion call to focus on performance, not points. She reminds us that it is possible to make assessment a meaningful contribution to learning, not merely a footnote at the end of lessons.

This new edition of the book takes into account the impact of the global pandemic and school closures. Fortunately, the author gives a positive vision of the future not only in terms of academic performance but also in the psychological needs of students and educators. The path forward is a fundamental reorientation of the use of assessments and grading practices to transform assessment from an autopsy to a physical. That is, the author transforms the purpose of assessment from simply reporting the score on a test to a collaborative process between students and teachers and a tool to improve learning in the future, not merely a report about what happened in the past.

Perhaps the most important insight in the following pages is a reframing of the audience for assessment. Traditionally, we have assumed that the audience is parents. That is,

“How’s my kid doing?” Another traditional audience is the teacher in the next grade: “Are these students ready for my class?” Other audiences are external consumers, especially in secondary schools: “Can they succeed in our college?” But this book suggests the missing audience that is most important—the students themselves. Their question is not “How bad am I?” but rather “What specifically can I do to improve and gain confidence?” Students can also start to make sense of conflicting assessment information: “How is it possible that I am failing this class and acing external exams?” and “How am I getting an A in this class when I know that I’m really struggling?” The singular contribution of this book is shifting the focus of assessment from external audiences to students.

Dimich is acutely aware of the many demands on teacher time. This is a chronic concern of teachers around the globe. A billion-dollar grant does not provide a twenty-five-hour day. That is where the practicality of this book really shines. She shows deep respect for the many demands on teacher time and, in particular, has refined the definition of formative assessment in a genuine contribution to our profession. Too often, assessment vendors label as “formative” any assessment that is not at the end of the year. Dimich, by contrast, counsels that genuine formative assessment happens every day. Her student-centered focus accepts the challenge, “How can I leave this class better than when I walked in?”

Perhaps the greatest contribution of this book is the manner in which assessments are interpreted. Students and parents might see the results as a prediction: “This kid is gifted!” or “This kid has little hope.” Dimich demurs. Assessment is like the weather—it’s just information. We don’t control whether it snows or the weather is frigid. That’s just data. What we own is our response to the data. When it’s 10 below zero and snowing, that’s just data. But if we send students outside without hats, mittens, and boots, then that’s on us—it is our response to data that matters. In Dimich’s relentlessly positive use of data, we own not the data, but rather our response to data.

There are lessons in this book not only for students, parents, and teachers, but also for leaders. With the deluge of data descending on schools, it is tempting to perseverate on the negative. Learning loss, chronic absenteeism, discipline problems. These subjects dominate the educational conversation. But Dimich counsels us to learn from our strengths. In a relentless search for what works—what works with our local culture, with our bargaining agreement, with our schedule, with our budget—learning from our strengths is the gold mine where we will find the answers to our greatest challenges.

Dimich is at her best when she describes assessment as an essential element of the learning process. She echoes the great Grant Wiggins who distinguished “assessment of learning” from “assessment as learning.” The author calls for a fundamental shift from assessment as an adversarial process in which students and parents argue with teachers about scores, to a far more productive conversation in which teachers, students, and parents are all on the same team, using assessment data not to berate and humiliate students but to help them to achieve the next level of learning.

Because teachers praise practicality over theory, this book provides the essential link between classroom practice and assessment. I have yet to hear a classroom educator say, “Please tell me more about the coefficient of variation,” or “I can’t really do any assessment until there has been an academic study of reliability and validity.” Rather, teachers want to know how to make a difference, right now, in the link between teaching and learning. This book provides the road map for that essential link.

—DouglasReeves,Author, Achieving Equity and Excellence

Introduction

My son Rhys is a thinker. Mechanically inclined, he loves to build, create, and analyze how things are put together. When Rhys was in preschool, his teacher found him trying to climb onto the trash can in the bathroom. After many days of repeat occurrences and a variety of consequences that did not reduce nor change his seemingly dangerous behavior, an astute teacher recognized Rhys’s motivation. The paper-towel dispenser broke regularly and Rhys, independent and mechanically intuitive, was trying to fix it. Once this motivation was discovered, Miss Shirley worked with him—or as she put it— watched Rhys figure out how to repair the dispenser. Rhys became the go-to guy to fix the paper-towel dispenser. He even started to teach his peers how to fix it. That brilliant teacher used observation (an effective assessment method) to understand what was contributing to Rhys’s actions. When she interpreted, or dug into, why he was doing what he was doing, she was able to re-engage Rhys by using his strengths and not solely focusing on everything he was doing wrong. Was he still high energy in the classroom? Definitely; but now the teacher could channel his energy with purpose (most of the time). This teacher’s assessment of Rhys’s actions contributed to Rhys learning more and the classroom community benefiting from his contribution.

Assessment has a bit of a reputation. You mention the word, and educators, students, and families have stories to tell and opinions to share. All too often, tests, stress, frustration , anger, and defeat emerge as people’s first thoughts about assessment and grading. Assessment is too often a game of accumulating points or “doing more” with little focus on the quality of the work or the skills and confidence students gain.

Assessment needs a major rebrand to change the experience our students and educators have in schools, districts, and classrooms across the globe. This rebrand will set up students to build meaningful skills and confidence in designing and creating their future. Assessment and grading practices at their best cultivate hope, efficacy, and achievement (Erkens, Schimmer, & Dimich, 2017). Too often, assessment practices have done just the opposite by crushing hope and perpetuating mundane busywork and hoop jumping. This has reduced students’ belief in the system and that school is a necessary place, useful in preparing them for their future. With this rebrand of assessment and grading, educators create clearer communication about learning in classrooms and schools, which is most important for our students, who will be critical and integral to solving our most pressing local and global issues.

There has never been a more important time to take on, reimagine, and realign our assessment and grading practices so schooling now and in the future is more relevant and meaningful. Many experts have been working on a new assessment paradigm and pushing for a more intentional and thoughtful approach that benefits not only students but also educators and the larger community (Brookhart & McMillan, 2019; Conley, 2018; Hernández, Darling-Hammond, Adams, Bradley, & Duncan-Grand, 2022; Leighton, 2020). As often happens in education, what is known about best practice has a much longer implementation cycle than desired. Changing an entrenched system is difficult and slow. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, our system had to learn to be a bit more agile.

The pandemic brought the world to a halt. The uncertainty and disruption during this time brought many new realities for families, students, educators, schools, communities, and the world. Education is not known for its agility in responding to change or implementing innovative and well-researched ideas in a timely manner. The pandemic forced educators and the system itself to adjust more quickly than ever before. Educators saw increases in students struggling with mental health and well-being (National Center for Education Statistics, 2022), widening achievement disparities and opportunity gaps, record-breaking drops in reading and mathematics achievement (Harris, 2023; Sparks, 2022) and decreases in academic and social behavior skills (Chatterjee, 2022). Students and staff are increasingly struggling to work together and engage in ways that create a school culture and environment where learning can thrive. Staff report more students engaging in defiant behavior more often. A deeper dive into that data shows students of all ages felt less connected to their schools—and less understood by their teachers (National Center for Education Statistics, 2022). These trends were emerging prior to the pandemic, which also exacerbated these challenging issues.

Improved assessment and grading practices aren’t the sole answer to addressing multifaceted mental health and wellness issues. However, with so many students struggling, shifting assessment and grading practices and policies can create a culture more conducive to wellness and achievement. When assessment and grading practices support strong relationships and a culture of learning, connections and relationships between students and teachers deepen. Strong assessment practices increase achievement (Andrade & Brookhart, 2020; Brookhart, Stiggins, McTighe, & Wiliam, 2019). It’s time to use our assessment practices to help students feel connected and see themselves through the lens of possibilities instead of deficits, defeat, and perceptions of insurmountable challenges.

This second edition of Design in Five is designed to help guide the conversations and practices teachers and teams engage in to intentionally change the reputation of assessment. Educators will find updated protocols and more refined steps to guide deep implementation of the process. As teachers used the ideas since 2014, new learning emerged; this edition captures some of the best iterations that resulted from educators and students implementing these ideas.

Let’s explore the rebrand of assessment schools need to make our systems more meaningful and effective for students and their educators.

Defining and Rebranding Assessment

The first step in rebranding is clarifying the definition of assessment. Susan M. Brookhart, Rick Stiggins, Jay McTighe, and Dylan Wiliam (2019), experts in the field, define educational assessment as “the process of eliciting, gathering, and interpreting evidence of student learning to describe student learning and/or inform educational decisions” (p. 7). Assessment is an intentional process of gathering information, both formal and informal, to understand a student’s learning and performance to facilitate and communicate achievement. It is both a technical and relational process.

In the technical aspect of the process, teachers define the intended learning and design assessment tasks, items, tools, and protocols to gather information (or evidence) on that learning. Assessment is more than a test; methods of assessment include everything from observation of what students do and say to artifacts they produce and pencil-and-paper (or electronic) tests they take. The technical design also includes creating tools for students to reflect on the meaning of their assessment information, known as self-reflection or self-assessment.

The relational aspect of assessment is when educators and students interpret and take action based on information from the evidence. As illustrated in Rhys’s case, the teacher obtained the information informally (through observation and conversation) and used that information to facilitate learning and engagement. The teacher obtained insight into how to help Rhys learn and engage more productively and made changes accordingly.

This interpretation and resulting action exemplify the relational aspect of assessment. The Latin root of assessment, assidere, means to “sit beside” (Assidere, n.d.). The notion of sitting beside a student to gather information to inform and inspire action is different from evaluation , where the teacher uses the information to make a judgment about a level of proficiency, communicate achievement at that moment in time, or determine the effectiveness of a program.

Gathering the information is the first part of a high-quality assessment practice. This means assessment is more about information (identifying strengths and next steps) and not as much about evaluation (or making “good” or “bad” judgments). The next steps in students’ growth could be to learn or relearn, correct a misconception, see relevance, extend their learning to new and deeper levels, and develop confidence. When teachers design assessments well technically and use the information relationally, they foster engagement in the classroom, creating a culture in which student work is meaningful and arises out of considerations of who students are, how they learn, and what conditions will encourage them to invest in the communities educators designed to help them grow.

In high-quality assessment practices, teachers design, use, and respond to assessment information in ways that build strong relationships and a classroom culture focused on learning—one that empowers students to invest. High-quality assessment practices do the following.

• Generate meaningful and relevant learning experiences.

• Motivate and engage students.

• Communicate learning strengths.

• Inform both teachers and students about their next steps to learn, improve, and grow.

• Provide intentional and required opportunities for both students and teachers to continually revise work to learn from mistakes and failure.

• Generate confidence and success.

These are the guiding ideas that help educators reimagine assessment and grading. To make these changes, educators need practical and effective processes and tools. There are many different strategies, protocols, and formats possible. There is not one way or one prescriptive template that will bring this new culture of possibilities closer to reality. The work of educators and learners is way too complex for a single tool. However, educators can explore implementing small changes and investigate the impact they have on students and teachers. When you find practices that cause students to focus on learning, identify their strengths, and develop more confidence and skill, hold onto those practices! Implement the practices, frameworks, templates, or tools that foster a sense of optimism, hope, and efficacy in students, educators, and communities.

The definition and guiding ideas form the first part of the assessment rebranding. The next part of the rebranding process includes understanding assessment as information, which leads to three fundamental shifts in mindset and practice.

1. From over-tested to balanced and informed

2. From evaluative quantities to descriptive qualities

3. From compliance and completion to evidence of learning

Using assessment well means capitalizing on the collected information and using those insights to facilitate learning and foster hope for students. Let’s examine each of the three assessment shifts in more detail.

Shift One: From Over-Tested to Balanced and Informed

Assessment is an integral part of evaluating high-quality educational systems and practices and informing the most effective next steps in creating systems where students achieve at high levels. Our systems are too often out of balance, which leads to students and educators feeling over-tested (Brookhart et al., 2019). According to Brookhart and colleagues (2019), “Many school districts use collections of assessment tools and processes that either do not serve to improve student learning, miss important learning outcomes, or underserve one or more stakeholder groups” (p. 7). They go on to say that a balanced and comprehensive system is possible if intentional educators boldly move to keep the focus on the right assessment information and use that information in productive ways at all levels of a system (Brookhart et al., 2019). This feeling of being over-tested is often a result of using different types of assessment for purposes for which they weren’t intended. Let’s look at the best ways to use different types of assessment evidence at different levels of the system.

A balanced assessment system involves identifying the types of assessments that inform each level of the system. Each assessment serves an intentional purpose, and educators use the information in informed and thoughtful ways. If educators gather assessment information but never stop to analyze or use the data in the way they intend, they end up creating a lot of additional work for students and themselves. If educators overanalyze external assessments so far from the day-to-day learning and standards students address in the classroom or focus on a singular test, students may feel like school is all about preparing for tests instead of learning critical standards and skills to set themselves up for success and open doors of opportunity. Table I.1 (page 6) describes common types of assessments and their most beneficial purpose. Figure I.1 (page 8) indicates the shift from over-testing and a heavy reliance on too much summative evidence to a more balanced approach.

TABLE I.1: The Purpose and Types of Assessment

Assessment Format

External, Large-Scale, or Standardized Assessments

Best Use of Information

School or district leaders and teams use this information to evaluate the effectiveness of approaches to schooling (such as professional learning communities [PLCs] or interdisciplinary models), initiatives, programs, or curricula. Examining these data across multiple years for all students and for specific groups of students guides teams in understanding who the structures of the current system serve well and which groups of students need something different. Note that these data are not useful for individual achievement indicators because the information is too far removed from the classroom to identify strengths and next steps in instruction or support. The more time that passes between when teachers administer the test and when they take action, the less accurate the information will be for influencing student learning. Teams usually only administer these tests once a year. They use the data to consider how to change curricula and general instructional practices for future years, including what to emphasize as a system. In addition, analyzing the previous year’s standardized data on current students (if available) may help teams identify students who need additional support from the beginning of the year. In this case, these data (along with teacher observation and other classroom assessments) can serve as universal screeners to ensure students get support from the beginning of the year (versus waiting to provide support until students are struggling).

District Benchmark Assessments

Districts and school leaders and teams use this information most often to evaluate the effectiveness of approaches to schooling (PLCs or interdisciplinary models), initiatives, programs, or curriculum, and to determine progress toward student achievement on the standardized test.

Sometimes school teams use these data to identify individual students who need additional time and support, but this is only applicable if teams have already taught and expected students to know the benchmark assessment. If what teams assess has already been taught, they could use the data to appropriately provide students with additional instruction or intervention.

Teams usually administer these assessments three or four times a year. The more immediate the results, the more impact the data can have on instruction and student learning.

Teams should analyze and share the data within a week or two. The more time that passes before teams analyze the results, the less accurate the data become, and the less able teachers are to use it to respond to student learning needs.

End-of-Course

Assessments

District leaders use these assessments to ensure equity and alignment to standards. School leaders examine these data to determine the effectiveness of curricula and instruction.

Teachers analyze these data to determine the effectiveness of the assessment and make any necessary curricula changes that need to occur the following year.

Teams administer these assessments once or twice per year, depending on the length of the course.

End-of-Unit Assessments (Common or Individual)

Department and grade-level teams or individual teachers design these assessments at grade level (as there is little need to assess learning below grade level at this time) and analyze the data and student work when they expect students to have already learned the intended content. These data are most often the evidence that contributes to the grade or overall marks indicating a students’ level of proficiency in the course or gradelevel learning.

Teams administer these assessments as often as they expect students to have learned something and when they will quantify that learning in terms of a grade, rubric score, or proficiency level (sometimes called a standards-based mark).

Teachers analyze these data. If they discover gaps in understanding essential for students to understand for success in the future, they have a few options. Teachers may spend a few extra days on the intended learning. Teachers may identify students who need support and ensure they receive that support at a separate time (sometimes called Tier 2 intervention). If teachers use the assessment this way, it is now formative, not summative. Teachers may decide the intended learning will occur again in a future unit and keep going with plans to revisit the misconceptions they observed with the current end-of-unit assessment. Finally, teachers may decide what students did not master isn’t essential, and then modify the curriculum and instruction to be more effective the following year.

If many students did poorly on an assessment item and educators then reveal the item’s poor design, the team (or individual teacher) will ignore that item for scoring purposes and revise the item (ensuring the team or teacher will not use it again). Use caution when revising items, as it is too easy to reduce the cognitive level of the item instead of responding to instruction. Ensure the item is flawed and not just too complex for where the students are.

Common or Collaborative Formative Assessments

Formative Assessments or Checks for Understanding

Teams use the information from common (or individual) formative assessment data to understand what individuals and groups of students are still working toward on the most essential learning. Teams identify the essential-to-know, hard-to-learn, and hard-to-teach concepts and plan to gather information (that is, design common formative assessments) on these essential learning goals. Teams identify individual students in need of support or extension based on this assessment information. They plan instructional responses (sometimes called Tier 1 instruction) to meet the immediate learning needs of students. Essentially, teams use common formative assessment information to plan lessons for core instruction.

Students also use these data to reflect on what the assessment data tell them about their strengths, intended learning, and next steps in that learning.

If teams meet weekly, it is possible to administer, analyze, and respond every three or four weeks. If teams meet daily, analysis can occur perhaps every one or two weeks.

If teams meet monthly, analysis can occur perhaps two or three times per year. The instructional response is essential if common formative assessments are to improve achievement.

Individual teachers use observation during instruction, structured dialogue, artifacts creation (such as quizzes and exit tickets), and other methods to make in-the-moment instructional moves during daily instruction. This type of instructional agility occurs when teachers respond to students’ understanding and misconceptions immediately (Erkens, Schimmer, & Dimich, 2016). Teachers see the most change in learning when they become experts in making these adjustments in their instruction in the moment (Brookhart, 2020; Hattie, 2023; Wiliam, 2011, 2018). Both teachers and students work to understand what they know and what they need to work on to achieve the most essential learning.

Source: Adapted from Dimich, 2009a.

External Assessments

Benchmark Assessments

Common End-of-Unit Assessments

Common Formative Assessments

Formative Assessments

Over-Tested: Educators put too much energy and emphasis on external measures.

External Assessments

Benchmark Assessments

Common End-of-Unit Assessments

Common Formative Assessments

Formative Assessments

Balanced and Informed: Educators, students, and families look at the right data with the right mindset and use it for intentional and informational purposes.

FIGURE I.1: From over-tested to balanced and informed assessments.

External , large-scale, or standardized assessments are not designed to inform instruction on a daily basis nor to guide interventions for students who need additional time and support to achieve the most essential learning. These assessments are designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the overall instructional program in a particular school or district. School and district leadership teams analyze the data and reflect on which groups of students the assessments are serving well in the system and which they are not. Leadership teams engage in reflective conversations to identify the potential practices contributing to the mixed results. The leadership teams guide the work in learning deeply about the high-leverage practices and conditions that lead to a culture of learning where all students gain confidence and critical skills. When results do not show all students achieving at high levels, reflective conversations include questions such as the following to explore what educators can do at the classroom level beyond simply giving students more practice with the structure of standardized test items.

• Are students getting access to grade-level standards, or are they only getting access to prerequisite learning (especially if they are showing skills below grade level) along with support for foundational skills?

• Are assessments at grade level or consistently below grade level?

• Is instruction scaffolded in ways that ensure students are working on gradelevel learning, and students and teachers are clear they are working toward this grade-level learning?

When there is heightened emphasis on the large-scale assessments and high-stakes decisions—and evaluation of the quality of a school or (worse) the teacher are placed on external assessments—school will feel like an exercise in preparing for a test. As a result, educators may feel like they have little control over what they teach because they feel pressure to prepare students for the test, and something bad will happen to them or their school if they don’t. As a result, educators might make everything look like the external assessment, so students constantly feel like they are practicing for this end-of-the-year assessment. The more effective response to disparities in achievement is for teachers and teams to ensure end-of-unit and common formative assessments are measuring grade-level standards. When analyzing the results of these grade-level assessments, teachers (and students) identify the learning they need to work on to achieve the grade-level learning. In other words, teachers meet students where they are in the instruction, while keeping assessments and assignments at grade level. The analysis will uncover where students need more work. In too many cases, teachers design assessments and assignments to match where students are currently, and if students are currently below grade level, they have little time to work on grade-level standards and ascend the ladder to achieve the intended learning.

Benchmark assessments are similar to external assessments; teachers often administer them two or three times per year and use them to understand if students are making progress on the learning measured in the external assessments. Students may or may not have been taught or expected to learn what is assessed, and so any use of that data to inform instruction is often too far away from the classroom for teachers to use to make instructional decisions. If the benchmark tightly aligns to what the teachers taught and expected for students to learn, some instructional moves may make sense. For example, if teachers identify students who need intervention or additional time on these grade-level standards, benchmark assessment information could help inform them as to the learning students need, but that shouldn’t be the first time students receive support on that learning.

Benchmark assessments that measure growth are designed for the adults to understand the effectiveness of their programming at a point in time. Growth measures can help educators understand the impact of instructional practices overall, but they do not often tightly align to what students are learning each day, so educators should use growth measures to make connections about what is working and what needs to change. Growth measures can also help ensure all students are growing. For students already achieving at grade level, teacher teams can ensure they receive extensions so they continue growing as well. For students who are not growing or are stuck in low achievement, teams can try something different to accelerate their growth. Again, only adults in the system should use external growth measures. These are not data students set goals about because external growth measures often assess skills not as tightly aligned to daily classroom instruction.

Educators use end-of-unit assessments (also called summative or common summative assessments) to communicate proficiency and progress at a moment in time (Buffum, Mattos, & Malone, 2018). Assigning a mark, grade, or percentage to communicate a level of

proficiency is common practice for assessments educators use summatively. This use, in itself, is not negative, but problems do occur when schools send mixed or confusing messages to students, parents, and families about what the mark, grade, or percentage means and how students will use it. This often results in a culture focused on marks (or gathering points), rather than improving, learning, and growing. For example, when teachers average scores but don’t take into consideration the growth that occurred during instruction, the grade is a fuzzy indicator of what students knew before and how much growth they achieved. (Chapter 6, page 117, will dig deeper into some key issues of grading and how to effectively communicate student learning in both formative and summative ways.) An endof-unit assessment often occurs when educators expect students to have achieved a level of mastery. In a culture of learning that commits to ensuring all students learn, an end-of-unit assessment is summative for students who have shown mastery but formative for students who need to work on the essential learning. Students not showing mastery on the essential learning receive additional instruction or intervention and then a reassessment —this, by definition, is using the assessment evidence formatively. Any assessment may be formative or summative, depending on how educators use it.

It is more complicated to respond to end-of-unit assessment information because teachers plan to move to the next unit or cycle of learning. Teachers and teacher teams don’t want to wait until the end of unit to see where students are in achieving the grade-level standard or learning target. As a result, individual teachers and teacher teams design and use formative or common formative assessments, respectively, throughout a unit to make decisions about next steps and how students might grow and improve. Teacher teams use the common formative assessments data to identify the essential learning students need more support on or time to learn, and plan new lessons or instruction before the end of the unit. Teachers bring the student work and data from the individual or common formative assessments to a team meeting to analyze and plan an instructional response, sometimes called Tier 1 prevention or core instruction (Buffum et al., 2018).

In essence, teachers use formative assessments to intentionally lesson plan based on student needs. This is not an added layer of work, but an integral part of the lesson-planning process. It means teachers will need to protect time in their lesson sequence for designing responses. Teachers are instructionally agile when they recognize students haven’t mastered the content; teachers make connections, and respond (Erkens et al., 2018). Note that teams should only administer as many common formative assessments as they can respond to. If a team administers a common formative assessment but doesn’t analyze and respond to it instructionally, it is no longer formative. This assessment becomes a compliance or completion exercise for students and additional work for teachers. This contributes to both teachers’ and students’ feelings of constant testing with not enough time for instruction. Teams engage in creating calendars to ensure they are commonly and formatively assessing the most important learning and making time for the response—an intentional response on learning crucial for students to acquire.

Both summative and formative assessments can take the form of tests, papers, quizzes, projects, blogs, informal and formal observations, dialogues, presentations, or any other process through which teachers gather information about students’ learning and understanding. In a balanced system, teachers have planned intentional evidence or student work (summative assessments) to show proficiency on a particular set of learning goals. Teachers intentionally plan moments for students to practice and revise (formative assessment) prior to these summative assessments. In an effective system, both assessment and evaluation work together to promote learning, communicate progress, and report achievement. When formative assessment is working effectively, fewer students will need additional time and support at the end of the unit.

Finally, formative assessment (or checks for understanding) occurs daily and throughout lessons so teachers are consistently responding to evidence of learning in real time, another example of their instructional agility (Erkens et al., 2018). Students make revisions in response to feedback, teachers plan discussions based on intriguing questions, students fix errors, and teachers provide minilessons based on misconceptions they found in student work or heard in student dialogue. Then students can continue to work and revise their work. This kind of assessment information has the biggest influence on student learning because it is about identifying what students understand or don’t, planning what they need to move forward, and taking action to improve (Brookhart, 2020; Brookhart et al., 2019; Hattie, 2023; Ruiz-Primo & Li, 2013). A balanced assessment system pays attention to different types of assessment and the different people in the system who use the information for their intended purpose. When the system is out of balance, leadership teams respond by helping those in the system recalibrate, stop using data in ways that don’t serve student learning, and then use data in more effective ways.

One step to a more balanced and informed assessment system is identifying the assessments in your school or system, who is using them, how these people are using them, and the impact on educators’ work flow and students’ learning and assessment experience. To do this, begin by identifying the specific types of assessments people are using. How are teachers, students, teams, district and school leaders, families, and the community using each of these assessments? Which data do people use to inform versus evaluate? How much energy and time do people spend on each type of assessment? The answers to these questions can inform any adjustments needed in classrooms and schools to create more balanced systems. The goal is for both educators and students to experience assessment as information. While there will most likely still be a little apprehension about assessment, educators can begin to shift this culture by intentionally identifying and using different types of assessment for their intended purpose.

Shift Two: From Evaluative Quantities to Descriptive Qualities

When assessment provides information on learning strengths and next steps, coupled with intentional opportunities to learn how to grow from mistakes and errors, educators

will see students’ confidence and achievement increase. Too often, students get evaluative scores —percentages, grades, rubric scores—with little understanding of what that score means. This can lead to students (and sometimes teachers and parents) perceiving mistakes as evidence that they aren’t good enough or something is wrong with them personally. When students see assessment in terms of character deficits rather than opportunities to grow, their self-confidence plummets and their hope fades. Students will often express nonverbal or verbal feelings of “I don’t care” or “This is stupid,” which often really means “I don’t know” or “I’m frustrated.” One of the root causes of this stress is an overreliance on quantities—sometimes because of a desire for efficiency and other times because quantities can feel more objective. Take, for example, a student named Sahira who earned 63 percent on an assessment. Some students may see that score and feel overwhelmed and like they failed. Other students may feel like they just made it and are glad to be done. However, that overall score does not communicate their learning strengths (they did get 63 percent, or over half right) or identify the area that needs improvement. When we shift from quantities to qualities, the design of our assessments include designs that give students’ scores broken down by learning goal, like in figure I.2.

I can organize data collected from a survey question into a chart or graph.

I can calculate measures of central tendency from a data set.

I can interpret my data. This means I can draw conclusions about data.

Communicating assessment information like this is a game changer for students. Sahira can now see exactly what that 63 percent means in terms of her learning: she is solid in organizing data and proficient in calculating measures of central tendency (assuming teachers determined 80 percent proficient), and needs to work on interpreting data. Reframing her score as success on two learning goals and one to work on makes improvement much more doable and focused for both Sahira and teacher. The items on the assessment also align to the learning goals, so Sahira (and her teacher) can see exactly what she missed and why. This is one way assessment can be a motivation and engagement strategy. Starting from a place of strength and providing specific information to improve creates a sense of hope and direction. Author Nan Henderson (2013) captures the power of building on strengths through the kind of messages from teachers that build resilience in students: “I see what is right with you, despite your struggles. And I believe what is right with you is more powerful than anything that is wrong” (p. 22). When students see their strengths, assessment practices can nurture this type of persistence and resilience.

Sahira Jones Learning Target

on the Assessment Points

FIGURE I.2: Overall score broken down by learning goal.

When students see a specific action they can take to improve, it feels doable and leads to increased confidence; they will be more likely to invest energy without coercion or aversion. Teachers must require students to address and learn from mistakes (and build this type of analysis into their instruction). When students do learn from those mistakes, they see growth—both in terms of their learning and their score or grade (“I learned more, and my grade went up”)—and can articulate the qualities in their work that show they learned more. That’s real progress in shifting from a singular evaluative or quantity-based score to quality and descriptions. When students see and experience classrooms as places where what they are doing leads to more learning, this shift from quantities to qualities builds a sense of efficacy and achievement.

Starting from a place of strength creates a culture that honors where students are and expects all students to grow. Assessment expert and author Dylan Wiliam (2018) describes another view of motivation in his book Embedded Formative Assessment : “In fact, the evidence, such as it is, suggests that causation is running in the opposite direction. Motivation is not a cause but a consequence of achievement” (p. 176). When students see hope and possibility, they are much more willing to engage, persevere, and achieve. This can happen when our practices shift from a sole focus on evaluative quantities to a focus on quality descriptions.

Shift Three: From Compliance and Completion to Evidence of Learning

During the pandemic as learning shifted online, my teenage boys were among the many students who struggled to see assignments and assessments as relevant. They disengaged as the sense of purpose, meaning, and connection slipped away. I would frequently find them with their cameras off—playing a video game, scrolling on their phone, cooking, or playing piano. My relentless prodding and suggestions to get some of the small assignments done were not met with much action but merely a roll of the eyes or a retreat to their bedrooms. As a mom and an educator, I felt paralyzed at times as I watched their grades plummet and their engagement sink with each passing day. So the day my son Rhys, a tenth grader at the time, bounded up the stairs with excitement was poignant. He said, “Mom, guess what! I took my midterm in American Sign Language. Ms. Foster said I demonstrated all of the most essential learning and she exempted me from all of the other assignments. I think I just might take ASL 2.” That teacher, in one moment, shifted her assessment practices from focusing on completion of assignments or assessments to collecting and interpreting evidence of learning. Ms. Foster had clearly defined the essential learning students needed in that course and positioned assessment as evidence of learning and not just as a series of assignments or assessments to complete and accumulate points. In essence, she was paying attention to an accumulation of evidence, suggesting with confidence and consistency that Rhys had mastered what was most important. Her communication and move to make the assessment about evidence of learning shifted the focus for Rhys—it was now about his learning and,

in turn, it felt meaningful and doable to him—so much so he completed the highest level of ASL. Assessment, in this case, was no longer about compliance and completion; it was about evidence of learning. As an aside, I did pause and have a moment of frustration with him for not doing the assignments leading up to that moment. But, at the end of the day, if students can show mastery on the essential learning without doing the assignments, then it may be time to rethink teachers’ work flow and what they ask students to do—because this shift could save students and teachers valuable time.

In this rebranded assessment practice, teachers and teacher teams identify what students will learn, and then all assignments and assessments align to that learning. When there is ample evidence students are consistently performing at grade level, they have met the goal. Teachers look for evidence of learning instead of completion of work, which can save them time and energy. Accountability and high expectations come in the form of students revising their work for quality instead of completing more assignments that may or may not contribute to their learning. More assignments can feel like increased rigor but often are not synonymous with more complexity. More assignments can unintentionally create busywork for students and additional paperwork for teachers that may not contribute to students learning more or teachers being able to target instruction for students to learn more. This shift helps teachers and students efficiently focus their work on meaningful learning.

Assessing Your Current Reality

As educators explore this move to a rebranded assessment practice, it is critical to gather information on current practices. Consider the following questions to understand your current reality.

• What is the impact of your current practices?

• Which practices build a sense of possibility in your teachers, students, families, and systems?

• Which practices focus on strengths?

• Which practices examine mistakes and failure not through a lens of blame and shame but through a lens of learning and wondering what’s next?

• Which practices build a sense of confidence for students and teachers?

• Which practices help students and teachers identify learning? What’s contributing to growth, and what gets in the way?

Different groups may provide different answers to these questions. Which groups need to engage in this conversation and contribute to a comprehensive picture of the current reality (students, families, teachers, administrators, or community members)? Gathering insights from multiple perspectives can affirm your current thinking and practices, identify questions and tensions, and help prioritize the first steps in implementing new and more

effective assessment practices. With intentional moves and a laser focus on how students are experiencing school, educators can rebrand assessment and grading practices and make a school a place where all can thrive, be inspired, and achieve.

The assessment beliefs survey (see figure I.3) can generate foundational dialogue regarding educators’ perceptions about assessment, especially at the beginning of a school’s or district’s intentional assessment journey. Educators individually reflect on their thinking and rate the statements. Then, colleagues engage in a discussion to help uncover current beliefs about assessment and motivation, and to set the stage to make shifts in assessment practice that will result in increased motivation, clearer communication about learning strengths and next steps, and actions that lead to more learning students can articulate. The Design in Five process is designed to facilitate these shifts using a practical process that leads to increased engagement, a more targeted focus on learning (not just getting points), improved results, and increased student investment. As individual teachers and teacher teams engage in the process, I encourage them to notice the impact of the process on their students’ learning and their own work flow. Design in Five is a framework, not a prescription, and so the big ideas will remain the same; however, how they play out and what they look like will be dependent on the context and the people. See the reproducible “Assessment Beliefs Survey” (page 194).

To introduce and explore changing the culture of assessment, rate your agreement on the following five statements and then debate among colleagues the merits of the ideas and accompanying practices that would suggest your agreement or disagreement. Then, ask students to rate their agreement and discuss the differences and similarities in the dialogue. When the Design in Five process is deeply implemented, students will also find assessment practices meaningful, engaging, and all about learning. Assessment practices motivate students.

communicate learning.

reflect student strengths.

Assessments reveal a student’s next steps in learning.

FIGURE I.3: Assessment beliefs survey.

About This Book

The revisions for this second edition of Design in Five emerged from the countless educators who engaged in the first iteration of the process. The updated context, templates, and protocols have more clarity and focus; I offer them as vehicles for individuals, collaborative teams, school leadership teams, district leadership teams, instructional coaches, and even students to rethink and redesign assessment approaches to cultivate hope, efficacy, and achievement. This book describes a process for intentionally designing engaging, rigorous, and meaningful assessments. The process not only includes the technical part of designing assessments but also the art of using assessment information to empower students to invest and fully engage in their learning. When this process is fully embedded in a teacher or teacher team’s practice, students understand who they are as learners, how to describe their strengths (in terms of learning), and how to take action to improve their learning. Engaging assessment practices happen in a culture focused on learning and trust, where students and teachers are working to build strong relationships through meaningful and rigorous work.

Depending on where you are on the journey, some of the ideas in this book will affirm practices already in place, while others will take your work a step further. Each teacher, team, school, district, and state or province must consider the situation and begin the conversation in a place that makes sense. This book will help guide educators’ understanding and implementation of transformative assessment practices.

Seven chapters and an appendix follow this introduction. Chapter 1 discusses assessment design qualities and the phases of the Design in Five assessment design process. Chapters 2–6 are devoted to the five phases of the Design in Five process.

• Chapter 2: Phase one—Choosing standards and planning engagement

• Chapter 3: Phase two—Analyzing standards and constructing learning progressions

• Chapter 4: Phase three—Crafting an assessment plan

• Chapter 5: Phase four—Creating the assessment and gathering the materials

• Chapter 6: Phase five—Determining a scoring scheme and student-investment strategies

Chapter 7 discusses how to analyze student work from an assessment in collaboration with a team. This is a collaborative approach to phase five, where teachers calibrate their scoring to ensure accurate interpretation and communication across classes and students, and then codevelop instruction in response to the student needs their work reveals. The specific process of examining student work to plan instruction, improve the assessment, and gain

clarity on what learning and proficiency look like is a high-leverage practice to ensure all students are learning at high levels (Brookhart & McMillan, 2019).

At the end of each chapter, a Pause and Ponder section offers some guiding questions for reflecting on the ideas in that chapter. Individual teachers and teams use these questions to reflect on their current practice and identify actions to implement transformative assessment practices that increase student achievement and confidence. In addition, while the numbered phases suggest following the steps sequentially, it is often the case that one phase is in more need of attention than another, so I invite you to enter the process in any phase, based on your strengths and needs.

An appendix contains reproducible forms of many of the tables, charts, and other resources in this book. You may also visit go.SolutionTree.com/assessment , where you can download these and numerous other resources, including examples gathered from around the globe that will prompt your own ideas about how to revise and deepen your assessment work.

When I design buildings, I think of the overall composition, much as the parts of a body would fit together. On top of that, I think about how people will approach the building and experience that space.

—Tadao Ando

Choosing Standards and Planning Engagement

CHAPTER 2

2

In the same way an architect designs buildings, in designing a high-quality assessment, teachers consider the composition —defining the learning to measure and the method by which students will demonstrate their learning—and the experience —the conditions, context, and sense of relevance and meaning students and teachers feel about the assessment. Phase one in the Design in Five process consists of making decisions about the overall context and purpose of the assessment. Individual teachers or teacher teams often begin with one unit or time frame to focus the process. Choosing the standards, learning, or competencies they will assess in this unit is the first step. This second step is planning engagement and a meaningful context for the learning and assessment. In planning engagement, teachers identify why these standards are important and how to create a meaningful context. This context emerges as educators consider who their students are and what they care deeply about. What might be intriguing, essential, and relevant about the learning also informs the context.

For example, I worked with a French teacher who had developed engaging instructional role plays for her students to learn the meaning of target vocabulary and use it in conversation. When it came to an end-of-unit assessment, the textbook-provided multiple-choice format fell flat and failed to

capture her students’ learning and interest. She also observed her students experience much stress and trepidation both the day before and day of the test. Their previous interest and confidence disappeared. Engagement doesn’t have to end with instruction. We began revising this teacher’s end-of-unit assessment by identifying the most important learning goals (derived from the standards) and a more engaging context for the assessment.

For this unit, the revised assessment was a fashion show that took place over four days. The teacher developed three methods to understand students’ proficiency levels on the targeted learning goals. First, students engaged in a round robin of conversations to brainstorm ideas for a fashion show using the target vocabulary. The teacher used observation to assess students and pulled them aside when she needed more information. She recorded her observations on a spreadsheet by student name and learning goal so she knew exactly which learning goals which students had mastered and where they needed more work. Because it was grounded in the learning goals, the French teacher was confident this partner-conversation observation accurately represented where each student was in mastering the intended learning. Second, students completed a revised version of the pencil-and-paper test. The teacher used some items from the textbook assessment that tightly aligned to the learning goals and then added an open-ended question where students described the outfit they were going to enter in the fashion show. Finally, students presented their outfits in the class fashion show using all the vocabulary and descriptions they had demonstrated in conversation and on paper in the previous two parts. Students worked with partners to refine the descriptions of their outfit choices, the accuracy and precision of their words, and the inflection and emotion necessary to make an interesting fashion show. Students created a visual (either a sketch, photograph, or the actual clothes) of their entry.

On the day of the fashion show, students were excited to share their work with another French class. The audience was not only their peers and teachers but also others in the school community. In this case, the teacher focused on the composition and also the experience. Students provided feedback on the unit, including the assessment, and noted they were not only engaged but also remembered the learning outcomes at much deeper levels. Phase one is about focusing the learning and planning a context, or engaging frame, for the learning to occur.

The following sections detail the two steps of phase one of the Design in Five process.

1. Choose the standards or learning focus.

2. Plan engagement.

Choose the Standards or Learning Focus

The process begins with teachers identifying a unit or time frame and choosing the intended learning. Some teachers organize learning by units, others by segments of time or theme. Choose standards for the assessment you intend to create or revise for a targeted unit, segment of time, or theme. Many schools, districts, states or provinces, and national organizations have

created documents to help guide the implementation of standards in instruction and assessment. Curriculum maps and resources (such as textbooks and pacing guides) offer useful tools to help focus the creation or revision of assessments and, in particular, the first step of this phase, choosing standards. These are important documents to consult and use these guidelines, if appropriate, to choose standards, competencies, or learning goals. Their placement often intentionally ensures alignment among grade levels and courses, and that the most essential standards get the most time for instruction and assessment. However, teachers must decide when and how to teach and assess these standards or competencies at the classroom level.

Some standards recur throughout multiple units or develop over time. Some standards naturally cross disciplines or support other critical areas, such as writing, reading, measurement, data analysis, and dialogue. For example, using evidence from the text to support an argument or contribute to a dialogue can occur in social studies, science, literature, and business, among other areas. Art teachers may ask students to critique a painting using evidence from a video or text about a particular era. In social studies, students may use evidence from primary sources to support their analysis of the impact of a historical event. In science, students may use evidence from lab data and articles to support their conclusions. In literature, students may use evidence from the text to support their analysis of a character. In mathematics, students may use evidence to explain the process they used to solve a complex mathematics problem. Knowing if and how the standards of a unit connect to other disciplines can enhance students’ ability to transfer skills and learning across courses and grade levels. Teachers may choose one of these cross-disciplinary skills to focus on and gather some level of mastery during the identified time frame.

While this first step seems rather simple, it is important to complete it thoroughly. In some cases, teachers quickly scan an existing assessment to determine whether it loosely reflects the topic or essence of the standard. Textbook companies also describe their assessments as aligned to standards. However, textbooks and curriculum materials often have many resources, and there won’t be time to do it all, so teachers must make thoughtful and intentional decisions about what standards they will focus on and ensure students learn. Whether teachers are modifying existing assessments, using textbook assessments, or creating assessments from scratch, choosing standards to define the scope of the learning is an important first step. Looking at available documents that describe the scope and sequence of a course or grade level informs these choices. Once teachers chose the standards or competencies for the unit, it is important to determine the purpose of the assessment.

You can determine the purpose of the assessment once you determine the time frame. If creating an end-of-semester or final assessment, choose the most essential standards you taught and intended for students to learn during the semester. These essential standards are critical for student success in the next course and important to know beyond the assessment or test for success in the future. A semester assessment or final course assessment does not need to be cumulative. In fact, at its best, it represents the engaging work at the deepest level required in that course.

When crafting an end-of-unit or theme assessment, target the standards intended for mastery (or the purpose of the summative assessment). Some teachers craft an assessment for standards that

recurs throughout a course or grade. This is often the case with standards in the early elementary years, as well as with writing, dialogue, mathematical standards of practice, and technical and literary reading. It is important that this step outlines the overall purpose and what students should know by the end of the unit.

Crafting effective formative assessments (including common formative assessments) relies on clear learning goals. Teachers plan the timing and frequency of assessments of the chosen standard during phase three, crafting the assessment plan (see chapter 4, page 63). When designing a formative assessment, the chosen standard should be absolutely essential for students to know, often hard to teach and learn, and worth more instruction time and intervention. Too often, teachers assess the simplest learning goals to get data quickly. Unfortunately, if teachers get fast information that doesn’t tell them or their students what they need to work on, it can be ineffective. Formative assessments should assess students where teachers want them to be (the learning goals students need to achieve on the summative assessment), not necessarily where they are right now. Another indicator of ineffective formative assessment is if students do well on the formative assessment and not so well on the summative assessment. It could be the formative assessment was too simplistic, and so students didn’t get enough practice or feedback at the standard level. In the best of circumstances, teachers design the formative assessment after the end-of-unit (or summative) assessment so they can thoughtfully consider where students might need more practice and feedback during instruction—that is where to formatively assess. Again, chapter 4 (page 63) will discuss in more detail how to create an assessment plan that designs both formative and summative assessments.

In many cases, an assessment targets multiple standards. This can work beautifully but also requires careful planning so students get ample instruction and practice. For example, if students write to show their understanding of or to synthesize multiple texts, that assignment inherently assesses reading standards in addition to writing standards. Similarly, a ninth-grade teacher chose the following standards, which include both Reading and Speaking and Listening standards (NGA & CCSSO, 2010a), to shape the instruction and assessment of an English language arts unit focused on the American dream:

RL.9–10.2: Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.

SL.9–10.1a: Come to discussions prepared, having read and researched material under study; explicitly draw on that preparation by referring to evidence from texts and other research on the topic or issue to stimulate a thoughtful, well-reasoned exchange of ideas.

SL.9–10.1c: Propel conversations by posing and responding to questions that relate the current discussion to broader themes or larger ideas; actively incorporate others into the discussion; and clarify, verify, or challenge ideas and conclusions.

SL.9–10.1d: Respond thoughtfully to diverse perspectives, summarize points of agreement and disagreement, and, when warranted, qualify or justify their own views and understanding and make new connections in light of the evidence and reasoning presented.

CCRA.R.9: Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.

Let’s look at another example, this time from a second-grade mathematics team. Team members chose the following standard to ground a unit on money:

2.MD.8: Solve word problems involving dollar bills, quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies, using $ and ¢ symbols appropriately. Example: If you have 2 dimes and 3 pennies, how many cents do you have? (NGA & CCSSO, 2010b)

In addition to this standard, this team chose two Standards for Mathematical Practice (NGA & CCSSO, 2010b):

Mathematical Practice 3: Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.

Mathematical Practice 4: Model with mathematics.

Not only will students solve word problems using money, but they will also explain their reasoning, critique others’ solutions, and represent the solutions with a model (most likely, in this case, an equation).

Choosing the learning to focus on during a time frame or unit is the first part of ensuring assessments are accurate and set up to provide solid information to students and teachers. Once established, teachers have the expertise and are in the best position to understand their students’ learning strengths, needs, interests, and motives to make this learning relevant and meaningful.

Plan Engagement

The second step, planning engagement, is when teachers consider how students will experience the unit and standards, plus how to position the learning as relevant and meaningful. Educational leadership expert Phillip C. Schlechty (2011) explains that “engaged students are attentive, persistent, and committed. They find value and meaning in the work and learn what they are expected to learn” (p. 14). Engaging and meaningful assessments offer students challenging work that sets them up for success throughout school and beyond. Planning engagement means ensuring the unit has relevance or meaning. The following questions can be a starting place: What is interesting or unique about these standards or how they are used in authentic ways? What possible topics,

questions, or methods might capture students’ interest or be relevant for their local or global community? Students might take on the role of a scientist, write a letter to an author, find a solution to a problem in the community, or even create something for an audience outside the classroom. Planning engagement, in effect, is planning a meaningful response to the protest, “Why do we have to know this?” Even though a reading assignment may link to an assessment, students need to know that the purpose and importance of the reading involves learning, enjoying, acquiring information to evaluate a decision, and so on—not just for doing well on a reading test. Intentionally planning and thinking about the meaning of the assessment is incredibly engaging for students. High school senior Gertrude Mongare (2009) reflects in an essay on the actions and words of teachers that influenced her learning. Teachers are most effective, she writes, “if their students are able to learn something that they can carry . . . for the rest of their lives” rather than learning “information that they can’t use because they do not know how to” (Mongare, 2009, p. 5). Francis Harris (2009), another senior reflecting on powerful teaching practices, writes:

Science classes in general are very difficult for me. I enjoy them, but sometimes I think that my brain just doesn’t work that way. One thing that helped in Mrs. P’s class was that she made mostly everything relate to the real world somehow . . . it just helped me realize that there was a reason we need to know these things; it isn’t just for the heck of it. (p. 4)

Engagement is about creating connections for students. While there are many ways teachers can make assessments meaningful, the following sections describe three common approaches.

AUTHENTIC SITUATIONS OR ROLES

When planning engagement, spend a little time brainstorming authentic connections and considering the options that might make the assessment relevant for students. One way is to connect learning to local and global problems. This kind of work requires students and teachers to reflect, ponder, wonder, struggle, and create. Given the complexity of the world, it is impossible that the solutions to our biggest problems could come from choice A, B, C, or D. Educational consultants James A. Bellanca, Robin J. Fogarty, and Brian M. Pete (2012) describe critical thinking as “the brick and mortar of problem solving and decision making” (p. 13). Problem solving involves both analyzing and evaluating to come to a solution. Clean problem solving usually follows some sort of algorithm that leads to one right answer, whereas messy problem solving involves authentic, complex, and challenging problems that have more than one solution. It is in the messy problem-solving process that taps into the creative process and finds multiple solutions to authentic world issues (Bellanca et al., 2012, 2020).

For example, at South Adams High School in Berne, Indiana, students learning of the 2009 humanitarian crisis in Haiti asked, “Since we do all sorts of science labs, why can’t we learn the

same information by developing a way for them to purify their water?” (Boss, 2011). Thus began the dots in blue water project. The efforts of these students—with the help of several engineers, chemists, and experts in water purification—resulted in a prototype that can filter and purify over fifty gallons of contaminated water to drinkability in one minute. Their critical thinking and problem solving contributed to the global community in incredible ways (Boss, 2011)!

Assessment can also be a student-created blog or paper for an audience beyond just the teacher. Sometimes, it is a presentation, dialogue, interview, or quiz that asks students to use what they are learning to solve problems, communicate ideas, or answer interesting questions. For example, third-grade students studying the water cycle might explain their understanding to a city water official and then ask the official a few questions. Or ask students learning about the U.S. Civil War to list its causes and write about the lasting influence of the war on contemporary U.S. society and politics. All of these contexts lend the assessment meaning beyond just receiving a score.

ESSENTIAL AND ENGAGING QUESTIONS

Essential questions that are challenging and create interest and intrigue can also generate engagement. Educational coauthors Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins (2013) describe essential questions as unanswerable (with finality) in a single lesson or brief sentence—and that’s the point. The aim of essential questions is to stimulate thought, provoke inquiry, and spark more questions, including thoughtful student questions, not just prompt pat answers. These questions are provocative and generative. By tackling such questions, learners engage in uncovering the depth and richness of a topic that might otherwise be obscured.

Use the following questions to guide your engagement planning.

• What key ideas do you want to last beyond the unit?

• What themes give this unit relevance and coherence?

• What is the purpose of the unit?

• What ideas and questions create a sense of intrigue?

• How do experts or masters of this discipline use the information?

• What processes do students use to solve problems and learn concepts?

• What stories, experiences, symbols, and traditions from your students’ cultural backgrounds could influence the way you formulate essential questions, authentic roles or scenarios, and connections to student interests?

• What are the multiple perspectives and experiences on the topic of focus? How could these perspectives generate interest or be used to frame learning?

Figure 2.1 (page 40) shows a few different examples of engaging scenarios.

Grade and Course

Fifth-Grade English Language Arts

Technology Course

Engagement Frame

How does soccer help create community? (Texts focused on different aspects of soccer.)

How can technology help us communicate and mobilize on global goals and sustainable development?

Ninth-Grade English Language Arts How has the American dream changed over time?

Second-Grade Mathematics

Knowing the value of money and how to add and subtract money helps me make smart choices about how to spend and save.

FIGURE 2.1: Engagement framing by grade level and course.

Considering the preceding types of questions in phase one helps open up the possibilities for the type of situations and tasks teachers design for the assessment (phases three and four).

STUDENT INTERESTS AND IDEAS

Asking students about their interests and ideas is another way to influence the assessment engagement factor. Assessments can be about what students enjoy doing, like athletics, games, music, and theater. For example, in geometry, students might analyze the best angles to use to shoot goals in hockey. Assessments can also be about the issues and situations they are passionate about, like the South Adams High School students’ interest in developing a system to purify water. Figuring out what interests students, knowing what they feel passionate about, and exploring how they might be able to contribute to the school or local or global community provides many engaging possibilities. While generating and enacting a solution to a global problem is much more intense than basing an assessment on an essential question or authentic role, there is a time and place at all grade levels and in all courses for all three ways to create engagement.

In the ninth-grade unit focused on the American dream, a teacher frames student learning on an essential question to generate engagement and inform the end-of-unit assessment (developed in phases three and four): How has the American dream changed over time? This question frames the learning on an engaging idea, and the teacher can incorporate resources and ideas students can explore. These resources can include many texts describing the American experience across decades and from different perspectives, such as “I Hear America Singing” by Walt Whitman (1860), “Winter Dreams” by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1926), “Dreaming America” by Joyce Carol Oates (1973), and so on. In addition, the Archbridge Institute, a public-policy think tank, published a survey on the changing reality of the American dream (as cited in Schwarz, 2023), and CNBC reporter Allison Linn (2013) wrote a news story questioning the state of the American dream. This question of the changing American dream sets up a rich context for discussion and deep reading.

The engaging idea that grounds the second-grade unit on money is Knowing the value of money and how to add and subtract money helps me make smart choices about how to spend and save. Teachers noticed how interested students were in making money to buy things they really wanted. Students need to know how to add money to purchase the game or treat of choice, and they need to know

that if they buy the treat, they may not have enough money left for the game. This encompasses not only solving problems but also communicating, collaborating, reasoning, and modeling—all of which relate to the standards this second-grade team wants students to learn and experience during this unit. Tying money to student interests was a small but significant step in helping students see relevance in the learning they were doing.

Put Phase One Into Play

When putting phase one into play, document the standards and the engaging ideas that inform the assessment design and instruction. An engaging idea could be a single question or statement, but it could also be a list of topics, questions, scenarios, or roles that develop as the assessment unfolds. Figures 2.2 and 2.3 (page 42) show how teachers would document phase one for the ninthgrade American dream unit and the second-grade unit on money, respectively. (Find a reproducible template of figure 2.2 on page 196.) Teams could complete this process digitally or on paper, but it is important to record as you go so you track the thinking and conversation along with the end product.

Grade Level and Focus

Ninth-Grade American Dream Unit

Engagement Ideas

• How has the American dream changed over time?

• Who are our students?

• What are our grade 9 students interested in? (Examples include friends, family, connecting on social media, playing sports, acting, pets, drawing, and arguments)

• What do our grade 9 students care about? (Examples include the environment, their friends, fairness, equality, independence, social media bullying, investing, and financial literacy)

Standards

• RL.9–10.2: Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.

• SL.9–10.1a: Come to discussions prepared, having read and researched material under study; explicitly draw on that preparation by referring to evidence from texts and other research on the topic or issue to stimulate a thoughtful, well-reasoned exchange of ideas.

• SL.9–10.1c: Propel conversations by posing and responding to questions that relate the current discussion to broader themes or larger ideas; actively incorporate others into the discussion; and clarify, verify, or challenge ideas and conclusions.

• SL.9–10.1d: Respond thoughtfully to diverse perspectives, summarize points of agreement and disagreement, and when warranted, qualify or justify their own views and understanding and make new connections in light of the evidence and reasoning presented.

• CCRA.R.9: Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.

Source for standard: NGA & CCSSO, 2010a.

FIGURE 2.2: Engagement plan and standards for the ninth-grade American dream unit.

Grade Level and Focus

Second-Grade Unit on Money

Engagement Ideas

• Knowing the value of money and how to add and subtract money helps me make smart choices about how to spend and save.

• Who are our students?

• What do our grade 2 students enjoy? (Examples include Minecraft, sports, pets, and games)

• What do our grade 2 students care about? (Examples include family, friends, getting their fair share of the pizza, making sure others treat pets fairly, and recycling)

Standards

• 2.MD.8: Solve word problems involving dollar bills, quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies, using $ and ¢ symbols appropriately. Example: If you have 2 dimes and 3 pennies, how many cents do you have?

• Mathematical Practice 3: Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.

• Mathematical Practice 4: Model with mathematics.

Note: Students will focus on solving word problems using money and explain their reasoning, critique others’ solutions, and represent the solution with a model (most likely with an equation).

Source for standard: NGA & CCSSO, 2010b.

FIGURE 2.3: Engagement plan and standards for the second-grade unit on money.

When beginning this process, choose just one assessment for each unit or time frame. It can be overwhelming to plan every assessment right away. The process will move faster as you implement plans more often, and work completed on standards that recur over the course of the year can be reused. (Visit go.SolutionTree.com/assessment to watch to a screencast of Nicole, the author, modeling phase one for a fifth-grade reading assessment.)

Pause and Ponder

The following questions are designed to help individual teachers or teams focus on the essential ideas in this chapter.

Knowing that essential questions, engaging scenarios, and roles are not new concepts, talk about your understanding of how they contribute to meaning and engagement in an assessment.

• Make connections to current and past work. How do these ideas connect to what you are currently doing or to work you have done in the past?

• What kind of information do you currently gather about student interests and passions? What kinds of local and global connections are available and possible given your context?

• What do you already have in place? What key ideas from this chapter are important for taking your assessments to the next level?

• Note what questions emerge as you watch the screencast of Nicole describing phase one (visit go.SolutionTree.com/assessment).

• Choose a unit or a time frame. Individually, or with your team, identify the standards, plan engagement for this unit, and then debrief.

• What worked about the process? What went smoothly?

• What was most challenging?

• What tips or techniques might you consider using when you do this phase again?

5Design in

“In this second edition of Design in Five, Nicole Dimich reaffirms her status as a trailblazer in the realm of assessment. Through a synthesis of research, practice, and unwavering dedication, Dimich offers educators a transformative road map to navigate the complexities of assessment with confidence and purpose.”

—Anisa Baker-Busby Elementary Practitioner, Educational Consultant and Coach, and Speaker

“Design in Five navigates educators through breaking down assessments, providing collaborative teams a structure to develop effective studentfriendly assessments and actual hands-on forms, which will rebuild the connection between our scholars and their educators.”

—Josh

Tovar

Principal,

Memorial Pathway Academy, Garland, Texas

“If you are looking for a tool that humanizes assessment and provides direction on how to design, deliver, and discuss student work in a sustainable, intentional manner, then Design in Five is a must-read!”

—Angie

Freese

Founder

and Principal Revitalist, the Meant for More Collaborative

“When done well, assessment can guide and empower our learners . . . and when done poorly, it can be powerfully wrong! In the second edition of this seminal work, Nicole Dimich challenges us to rethink the very purpose of assessment, shifting from an overemphasis on high-stakes testing and assigning grades to purposely collecting timely, targeted information to guide teaching and learning. Equally important, this book provides a step-by-step process to help teachers take these powerful ideas from theory into practice.”

—Mike Mattos Educator, Author, and Consultant

Visit go.SolutionTree.com/assessment to download the free reproducibles in this book.

Essential Phases to Create Engaging Assessment Practice

Second Edition

This second edition of the best-selling, awardwinning Design in Five: Essential Phases to Create Engaging Assessment Practice offers new and targeted information for reimagining assessment practices, as well as refined processes and protocols. Nicole Dimich empowers teachers to create and use effective assessments to fully engage learners. Introducing a five-phase assessment design protocol, she explores the importance and types of assessments, the traits of quality assessment, and the ways both individuals and collaborative teams can use the phases of the Design in Five process to create innovative and engaging assessments.

K–12 teachers and administrators will:

• Evaluate current assessment practices to determine their efficacy

• Ascertain the cognitive level of assessment items and tasks

• Align tasks with learning goals

• Design assessments that help students learn from their mistakes and find motivation to improve

• Access numerous reproducible surveys, charts, and sample assessments