scores. The specific strategies associated with this element appear in table 2.1 (page 22).
The strategies in table 2.1 provide teachers with a wide array of options for informal assessment. Teachers can execute voting techniques quickly and repeat them multiple times. For example, the teacher asks a series of multiple-choice questions on score 2.0 content from a proficiency scale using PowerPoint slides. Students then use voting devices (such as clickers) to signify their answers. The teacher keeps track of the number of students who vote on the correct answers but does not record individual student scores. However, the teacher does report on the percentage of students with correct answers and uses that percentage as a barometer of how well the class as a whole is doing on score 2.0 content.
Response boards are similar to voting techniques. However, they provide more information. With this technique, students record their responses on erasable boards that are small enough for them to handle individually. Response boards allow for students to write short constructed-response answers. Upon the teacher’s direction, students hold their response boards up so only the teacher can see. The teacher quickly surveys student responses and reports on what percentage of the class seems to know the correct answer.
Table 2.1: Using Informal Assessments of the Whole Class
| Strategy | Description |
| Confidence rating techniques | The teacher asks students to rate how confident they are in their understanding of a topic using hand signals (thumbs-up, thumbs-sideways, or thumbs-down) or using technology (for example, clickers or cell phones). |
| Voting techniques | The teacher asks students to vote on answers to specific questions or prompts. |
| Response boards | The teacher asks students to write their responses to a question or prompt on an erasable response board or response card. |
| Unrecorded assessments | The teacher administers an assessment and immediately has students score their own tests. The teacher uses scores as feedback but does not record them. |
Source: Adapted from Marzano Research, 2016s.
When the strategies in this element produce the desired effects, teachers will observe the following behaviors in students.
• Students readily engage in whole-class assessment activities.
• Students can describe the status and growth of the class as a whole.
• Students seem interested in the entire class’s progress.
• Students appear pleased as the whole class’s performance improves.
Element 5: Using Formal Assessments of Individual Students
Formal assessments of individual students provide accurate information about their status at a particular point in time on a specific topic. To obtain such information, the teacher designs assessments based on the proficiency scale for a unit or a set of related lessons. In effect, the proficiency scale is the foundation for any and all assessments. A specific assessment might focus on all the content levels of a proficiency scale (scores 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0 content) or it might focus on only one level of a proficiency scale (such as score 2.0 content).
The various strategies that teachers might use to address this element appear in table 2.2.
Table 2.2: Using Formal Assessments of Individual Students
| Strategy | Description |
| Common assessments designed using proficiency scales | Teachers who are responsible for the same content taught at the same level work together to design common assessments that they use to provide formative and summative feedback to students on specific topics. They then express topics as proficiency scales. |
| Assessments involving selected-response or short constructed-response items | The teacher creates and scores traditional assessments that employ selected-response and short constructed-response items. |
| Student demonstrations | The teacher asks students to generate presentations that demonstrate their understanding of a topic. Teachers typically use student demonstrations with skills, strategies, or processes. |
| Student interviews | The teacher holds conversations with individual students about a specific topic and then assigns each student a score that depicts his or her knowledge of the topic. |
| Observations of students | The teacher observes students interacting with the content and assigns a score that depicts their level of knowledge or skill regarding the specific topic observed. |
| Student-generated assessments | The teacher invites students to devise ways they will demonstrate competence on a particular topic at a particular level of proficiency. |
| Response patterns | The teacher identifies response patterns at scores 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0 as opposed to adding points to create an overall assessment score. |
Source: Adapted from Marzano Research, 2016o.
Many of the strategies in this element represent different ways to assess students. For example, common assessments are those that collaborative teams create around a specific proficiency scale (see Marzano, Heflebower, Hoegh, Warrick, & Grift, 2016). To illustrate, assume that a collaborative team of three teachers is designing a common assessment. The teachers start by creating a proficiency scale like the one in figure 2.1.
Source: Marzano Research, 2016o.
Figure 2.1: Proficiency scale for common assessment.
Creating a proficiency scale is always the first order of business when designing a common assessment. As described in chapter 1, if the district has created proficiency scales for each subject area and grade level, this work is already done for collaborative teams.
The next step is to design an assessment that addresses scores 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0 content from the scale. Such an assessment appears in figure 2.2 (page 24).
The assessment in figure 2.2 includes items and tasks for score 2.0 content in section A, items and tasks for score 3.0 content in section B, and items and tasks for score 4.0 content in section C. Other assessments individual teachers generate might follow this same format. However, there are a variety of other forms assessments might take. For example, interviews are a type of assessment that involve teacher-led discussions during which the teacher asks questions that address level 2.0 content, level 3.0 content, and level 4.0
