A Book Review

So What Do They Really Know?

Author: Cris Tovani








Submitted to: Angela B. Bell, PhD

TL 550: Assessment and Evaluation in ELL Education



Submitted by: Elicia Flom

May 11, 2014

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The title of Cris Tovanis book, So What Do They Really Know? Assessment That
Informs Teaching and Learning intrigued me in that Tovani connected assessment to both
teaching and learning within the first few lines. Tovani shares my view on assessments
assessments are merely tools. She acknowledges that assessments are not always viewed as
tools. Instead of used as tools promoting a partnership between students and teachers,
assessments can also create roadblocks to learning. After all, assessment is what we make it
(Tovani, 2011, Coda 3, para. 2). Even though her book is written primarily focused on
experiences from working with high school students, many of her insights and instructional
practices can be useful to adult educators as well.
Tovani begins her book focusing on how assessments related to the No Child Left Behind
legislation have been transformed into what teachers consider more of an adversarial tool often
used to rank kids and teachers (Tovani, 2011, Chapter 1, para. 2). In setting the stage for
converting assessments back into powerfully informative tools, Tovani shares her perspective on
the kinds of questions teachers should ask students; she focuses on formative assessmentsall
intended to help learn what students really know.
While promising to share her classroom, Tovani (2011) points out that her book is not
filled with new templates or checklists; instead, she believes teachers already possess the know-
how and tools required to make assessments into tools to learn what their students know and help
teachers improve their instructional practice. (Chapter 1, para. 5) She begins illustrating this
premise through the experiences shes gained that have either supported student learning or
helped her improve her teaching.
Accepting the invitation to her classroom, Tovani begins her book explaining to readers
just how powerful assessments can be to teachers. She extends her point by sharing specific
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teaching experiences (changing the names of her students) in an effort to illustrate how different
assessment tools can be used. Tovani (2011) focuses on several assessment tools such as the
conversation calendars that she uses to talk back and forth (Chapter 2, para. 3). Through this
dialog, Tovani learns more about her students motivations, family lives and pressures than can
have a significant impact on any assessment she might use in her classes. She points out that by
starting the conversation calendars and keeping them going throughout the school year, she
realized her students were doing more writing and making better connections to their reading
assignmentsthose required and those students selected. This calendar tool serves as a
formative assessment that helps Tovani prepare for daily lessons/activities in her classroom as
well as determine what things are, or are not working, in class. Her students unfettered
discussions deepen her connection to them as people first; students, second. In her description of
the dialog the conversation calendars, Tovani get to know students sensitivities toward some
topics and learns their favorite or least favorite types of material to read while getting a baseline
on their reading and writing levelslong before the standardized tests she is required to use are
administered. Tovanis conversation calendars help her figure out what they need (Tovani,
2011, Chapter 2, para. 15). While not specifically discussing ELLs, this seemingly simple tool
could be an effective assessment type when serving ELLs and prompted me to revise a similar
tool Id been using to serve the adult learnerscurrently called Burning Questions to Share.
Like the conversation calendars, adult learners can write any of their computer questions to share
in class and I will review them togetherwithout identifying who asked the questions. By
adding a third column for images, adult learners can also copy/paste a picture made with the
Snipping Tool if they are unable to use the terminology to describe their questions.
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The conversation calendars are also a scaffolding tool to prepare her students for the time
when shell eventually just ask them (Tovani, 2011, Chapter 2, para. 18) for feedback. In one
of the surveys she uses to see if her students know why theyve been put in a remedial (Tovani,
2011, Chapter 2, para. 36) reading class, Tovani uses the data to determine whether her students
are giving up because their test scores prior to her class have painted a negative picture of their
reading ability. Tovani shares many stores, but it was her acknowledging that she learned that
offering extensive feedback on a summative assessment was too lateand contributed to
students feelings of dis-ability that reminded me how careful teachers must be in the timing of
assessments. Facilitating a dialog with students early and often helps keep teachers and students
emotionally connectedan especially important element in maintaining a partnershipand a
core belief that informs much of my design and instructional practices.
This theme of partnership is evident in her connection between coaching techniques that
are similar teaching techniquesparticularly the practice strategy (Tovani, 2011, Chapter 3,
para. 15). Tovani discusses modeling, think alouds, and differentiating instructionall
techniques teachers are familiar with and can use to scaffold concepts, terms or topics students
may struggle with for different reasons. An educational partnership between teachers and
students is further developed through choice; students need ownership through choice in what
they read and write (Tovani, 2011, Chapter 3, para. 25).
To further support the partnership in learning, Tovani elaborates on exchanges with her
students in what she calls conferring (Tovani, 2011, Chapter 4, para. 26). While discussing
students annotations, often produced on sticky notes applied directly to their reading materials,
Tovani describes more formative assessment opportunities. This combination of tools, and
Tovanis video interview discussion (Tovani and Bennett, 2011) of the many things she learned
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from her students while also, again, planning or re-planning her upcoming lessons, prompted me
to consider how technology tools might be used to facilitate the benefits of the sticky note-
conferring discussions. In fact, using a tool like Twitter could make it even easier for teachers to
gather and interpret students accomplishments and challenges when debriefing in the classroom
or after class. For instance, using hash tags like #newwords or #questions may encourage new
students, shy students or ELLs to participate more frequently while giving teachers a way to
combine the feedback from other students, or classes, and make changes to the instruction or
plan for providing specific students the differentiated instruction, or support, needed. Twitter
could be used to support communication between classes among teachers and students as well.
Listening to Tovanis responses in the interview, coupled with the experiences shared in
this book, educators are encouraged, if not empowered, to use formative assessments to prepare
students for standardized testingin whatever form it takes. Formative assessments can be used
like practice activities coaches incorporate in order to build their players skills. Tovani uses the
information gathered through her daily observations, student annotations, conferring exchanges
to help her address the challenges of grading, or judging, students efforts. Summative
assessments are can be administered too late for learning and can even undo the progress toward
the learning goals teachers and students are working toward. Tovani relates stories of several
students, but one story was particularly poignantReggie refused to read her comments on a
graded paper hed received a low score for stating there was no point to read the comments since
he could not do the work again for a higher grade. Tovani discusses the game of school
(Tovani, 2011, Chapter 1, para. 25) throughout her book, but this story is related in conjunction
with Tovanis core beliefs:
Critical thinking matters more than factual recall.
Risk, struggle, practice and success are essential to learning.
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Smart is something you become.
The world is an interesting place. The more my classroom mirrors the word, the
more engaged students will be. (Chapter 7, para. 52-55)

Tovanis core beliefs inform her assessment and grading practices. She describes awarding
points for attempt/completion, growth/improvement and mastery/understanding as well as
accepting late work without penalty. (Tovani, 2011, Chapter 7, para. 35) She shares student
samples and the differences between the assessments she uses as opposed to assessments
composed primarily of multiple choice or true/false questions may save time grading in larger
classes but can diminish the progress of students. For ELLs, the more ways students can
demonstrate what they have learned, or are learning, the better teachers can make adjustments to
lessons and teaching strategies.
Throughout Tovanis book, she references educational researchers, fellow teachers
storiesand of courseextensive student stories illustrating the difference effective formative
assessments can have on teaching and learning. After reading the book the first time, I realized
that technology tools like Twitter, typically considered taboo in the classroom, could be
incorporated using Tovanis assessment strategiesespecially to facilitate daily discussion in
large classes in an effort to support differentiated instruction, engage learners with different
abilities and improve instructional practices. The presentation given to The Ohio Association of
Career & Technical Education (ACTE) was met with some concern, but after practicing the
process of reviewing the back-channel data generated during our session, educators in the session
realized that Twitter had unexpected value in terms of facilitating formative assessments.
Comments from several educators would likely have made Tovani smileespecially comments
related to getting more frequent feedback from even the most timid studentswho may be
ELLs.
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Since reading this book the first time earliest this semester, I keep coming back to it for
the questions it promptsespecially with respect to discerning hard versus rigorous grading.
(Tovani, 2011, Chapter 7, para. 70) In classes I teach, grades are not used. Occasionally, points
are awarded to encourage adult learners to revisit areas they may not fully understand. I do have
high expectations for the adult learners in our classes, but the partnership I have with them holds
me as accountable to earning all the points or the highest grades, if used, possible to demonstrate
mastery. In much the way Tovani speaks of Julias mom struggling to understand a teachers
hard grading position (para. 74), it is just as important that adult learners not perceive our
classes too easy and not give their best effort. Tovani has prompted educators to continue
considering the many different students and their learning differences as they design and
facilitate classes. Tovani encourages educators to use the tools, especially formative
assessments, to make stronger connections to students while creating engaging assessments that
improve student learning and instructional practices. Tovanis book is an excellent resource for
all educators.

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Sources
Stenhouse Publishers. (2011). Cris Tovani and Samantha Bennett: So what do they know?
Interview, part 1. Retrieved April 2014 from:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3ir43_qzPU
Stenhouse Publishers. (2011). Cris Tovani and Samantha Bennett: So what do they know?
Interview, part 2. Retrieved April 2014 from:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EK1cs2Qh2gY
Tovani, C. (2011). So what do they really know? Assessment That Informs Teaching and
Learning. [Kindle Edition] Portland, ME. Stenhouse Publishers. Available from
Amazon.com.
Related Presentation:
Flom, E. (2014). Social media in education: TwitterA formative assessment tool. Presented to
Ohio ACTE, April 2, 2014 and available at: http://www.slideshare.net/elicia1/twitter-and-
formative-assessments