within approximately one to two days. To achieve a standard, you make a progression of mini learning targets to lead learners to a broad, deeper standard. For example, if the standard is to “determine the main idea of a text and explain how it is supported by key details; summarize the text,” a possible learning target might be identify the main idea and any supporting details (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010a). The learning target is one step toward mastery of a larger standard. The plan for instruction, the activities for practice, the questions you ask, the assessment method you use, the criteria required for success, and the information you provide for feedback are all based on helping students accomplish the learning target.
Figure 1.1: Assessments drive instruction.
• The focus is on the depth of learning, rather than the grade, which allows you to use a variety of tools and strategies throughout the process. For example, students could practice the learning together, thus using their strengths and supporting their growth opportunities as they approach mastery.
• The assessment informs the student and teacher about where the student is with the learning target (also known as outcome, objective, and standard subskill).
• Formative assessments, whether they are short and sweet or long and deep, are ongoing and woven into every lesson, all day long, with all students. These formative assessments give the teacher feedback on his or her teaching. He or she can see how effective it is based on the student work.
• Examined assessments lead to differentiated instruction. Based on the evidence, teachers adjust instructional activities to accomplish the goal at hand, and students apply metacognition to gauge their level of understanding and tell the teacher what they need next. The teacher can give feedback or lead students into self-assessment on that work so any gaps can be closed.
• Response to these data—the differentiated instruction—should occur seconds, minutes, or days from the initial examination (not weeks or months).
In summary, the formative assessment process is an ongoing, planned (and sometimes spontaneous), daily process. You can more easily implement this process with the students when you thoroughly plan, so you can respond wisely when the unexpected comes. These unexpected challenges happen daily. For example, while teaching mathematics, you notice a common error that four students are making. Because your plan involved several strategies to use during that lesson, you realize you need to teach a specific strategy sooner versus later.
Is There Research to Support the Formative Assessment Process?
Educational researchers Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam (1998) are instrumental in establishing that the formative assessment process is transformational, asserting that, done properly, it helps students learn markedly better. Their research concludes that student gains from this process are “amongst the largest ever reported for educational interventions” (Black & Wiliam, 1998, p. 61). In fact, the effect sizes were between 0.40 and 0.70. Any effect size greater than 0.40 is significant and will produce achievement gains. Black and Wiliam (1998) find that using assessment can make learning faster. The formative assessment process can literally help students learn twice as fast.
John Hattie (2009), in his book Visible Learning, finds that providing formative evaluation of student learning via interventions produces a 0.90 effect size on achievement. That’s almost a two-year leap. It’s about the:
Power of feedback to teachers on what is happening in their classroom so that they can ascertain, “How am I going?” in achieving the learning intentions they have set for their students, such that they can then decide “Where to next?” for the students. (Hattie, 2009, p. 181)
Hattie (2009) explains that it’s the teacher’s attention to what students are doing, making, saying, or writing—in other words, focusing on mastery evidence—that enables him or her to determine how to respond. He says a teacher’s openness to seeing where students are struggling and to innovating that are what matter most (Hattie, 2009). Achievement raises drastically when teachers take the time to examine daily evidence and respond soon.
Black and Wiliam’s (1998) effect size differs some from Hattie’s (2009). That difference stems from the total participants pooled, as well as the variety and types of research. Hattie pooled hundreds of related research to conclude his effect size. He (2009) explains that “some types of feedback are more powerful than others” (p. 174). Cues or reinforcement are crucial. The form matters also. Video, audio, or instruction feedback by computer work well, as does relating feedback to learning goals. Finally, students have to interpret and act on the feedback (Hattie, 2009).
Since about 1978, many others have conducted research reviews on feedback and other aspects of formative assessment (Fuchs & Fuchs, 1986; Shavelson, 2006). The big takeaway, according to Dylan Wiliam and Siobhán Leahy (2015), is that the less time that passes between collecting and responding to evidence, the bigger the impact. In fact, the research concludes that responding six seconds to ten minutes after examining the evidence has the biggest impact. In other words, checkpoints during the lesson should drive immediate feedback. Leahy and Wiliam’s (2012) research in schools shows that:
When formative assessment practices are integrated into the minute-to-minute and day-by-day classroom activities of teachers, substantial increases in student achievement—of the order of a 70 to 80% increase in the speed of learning—are possible, even when outcomes are measured with externally-mandated standardized tests. (p. 67)
Bottom line: respond to the visible, daily data as soon as possible and ensure your students do, too. Using the formative assessment process daily will highly benefit students, teachers, and the rest of a school. Teachers will have less reteaching and fewer students who struggle.
What Is Differentiated Instruction?
In a nutshell, differentiated instruction is meeting students’ unique, diverse needs so they successfully meet the learning target. Students may not arrive at those goals on the same day and in the same way. This approach is based on a mindset that all students can improve their skills and understanding to achieve the daily learning target and eventually the standard—it just might take more time, different tools, and more teacher support. Rick Wormeli (2018), author of the updated Fair Isn’t Always Equal, says “differentiated instruction is doing what’s fair for students” with best practices, “including giving them the tools to handle anything that is undifferentiated” (p. 3). Wormeli (2018) asserts that differentiation “isn’t individualized instruction, though that may happen from time to time as warranted. It’s whatever works to advance the students. It’s highly effective teaching” (p. 3).
Every teacher we’ve ever worked with has wanted his or her students to succeed. The challenge has always been finding the right tools and strategies to make it happen, and using these tools and strategies strategically and habitually.
Is There Research to Support Differentiation?
Though research doesn’t use the term differentiation specifically, it does strongly support all the pieces that go into differentiation as we define and explain them in this book. For example, we know formative assessment has strong effect sizes, and that responding to student needs is the last step in the process. This is differentiation. To move students forward, you look at their learning (evidence) and make changes. Then, we give feedback, which has a very strong effect size of 0.73 (Hattie, 2009). When you take time to differentiate, you can move all students to “Got it” with their own tools, support, and time.
There
