Field Experience:

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Digital Tools for
Formative
Assessment
By: Nermin H. Fialkowski
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Formative Assessment Digital Tool

§ Smarter Balanced
Assessment Consortium
(SBAC) Interim Assessments
(“Blocks”) through California
Assessment for Student
Performance and Progress
(CAASPP) https://www.frostmiddleschool.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=346639&type=d
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Rational for Digital Tool
§ Current focus at my school site

§ Data from my school site suggests a large discrepancy between

students meeting college/university admissions and their SBAC
scores
§ In the 2017-2018 school year, 70% of our students met the A-G
requirements, but only 11% met or exceeded the SBAC
Mathematics Standards
§ This data is unfortunately supported by a larger trend, in which more
than 60% of all community college students in California are placed
into remedial classes (Shelton & Brown, 2010)
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Rational for Digital Tool
§ This high rate of remediation and low SBAC success rate
suggests that there is a widespread lack of college
preparation among recent high school graduates
§ Although students are underperforming in standardized tests,
they are still successful in their high school career
§ Students are still meeting the minimum course requirements for
university admission but are placed into remedial classes
§ The core of this epidemic lies between a misalignment standardized
tests, college placement exams, and high school (classroom)
assessments
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Rational for Digital Tool
§ This formative assessment digital tool gathers data on students’
knowledge and abilities
§ Information on students’ mastery of Content Standards, Claims, & Targets
§ Content Standards are tied to the Common Core State Standards

§ A Claim is a statement derived from evidence about college and career

readiness (California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress)

§ A Target is a statement that bridges the Content Standards and the

assessment evidence that supports the Claim (California Assessment of
Student Performance and Progress)

§ Purpose to support my students in all forms of assessment through

formative classroom assessment.
§ Find a balanced alignment of standardized tests, college placement exams,
and high school (classroom) assessments
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SBAC Math Claims & Targets

https://www.rcoe.us/educational-services/files/2015/12/5b-SBAC-Math-Claims-Grade-3-8-and-11.pdf
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Lesson Implementation
§ SBAC Interim Assessment: Interpreting Functions Block
§ This particular formative assessment was done during the Ch. 5 Limits section of my
class instruction, where students are able to determine various limit values based off one
graph and analyze the behaviors of functions

§ Although the formative assessment did not have actual questions on limits, students were
applying the same concepts, procedures, and problem solving skills needed for
interpreting functions and graphs

§ Interim Assessment Blocks can be given at any point in time

§ The understanding is that by the time students are in the 11th grade, they have seen all of
the content
§ Geometry

§ Functions

§ Algebra

§ Number sense

§ Probability

§ The plan is to continue to implement Interim Assessment Blocks at least once month
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Lesson Implementation

§ There were no actual barriers when using this digital formative

assessment tool, just a big learning curve
§ A new “Session ID” is needed for each time students sign in
§ Per period, per day
§ New “Session ID” to complete same assessment from the previous day

§ Viewing results are on a separate webpage from where the

assessment is administered
§ Very little tech issues
§ Laptops not working

§ Program starting up
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Enhanced Feedback
§ My ability to gain feedback was enhanced by being able to get immediate and
specific feedback on students’ knowledge and abilities.
§ Results are immediate, upon completion

§ Questions are tagged with Claims and Targets

§ Ability to do a norm-reference comparison (Woolfolk, 2017)

§ Students’ scores are compared to one another in order to gain an understanding of where
students are in relation to the class as a whole.

§ CAASPP system identifies students as having met the standards:

§ Below Standard

§ Near Standard

§ Above Standard

§ Data broken down per individual question

§ Identify most missed questions

§ Question answer frequency

z Student Feedback Results
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Use of Information
§ Formative assessment data was reviewed and analyzed
§ CAASPP system identifies students as having met the standards:
§ Below Standard

§ Near Standard

§ Above Standard

§ First, quantify the amount of students who where Near or Above Standard

§ Next, identify students who did not meet the standards

§ Identify the specific questions students answered incorrectly

§ In analyzing specific questions, narrowed my focus on Claims & Targets

§ Categorize and generalize students’ area of improvement.
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Use of Information
§ Areas of improvement as identified by Claims and Targets

§ Allows me to implement teaching moments and additional supports

to students in helping them met the Claims and Targets

§ Focus on Claims and Targets vs. specific questions

§ Allows me to continue teaching with my content and curriculum

without having to worry about teaching to the test

§ Bigger picture is to build students’ overall procedural skills and

reasoning
§ Not their ability to answer very specific test questions
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Use of Information
§ Use of Warm-Ups as additional support for students in meeting Claims and
Targets
§ Warm-Ups focus on Claim #1- concepts and procedures
§ Great way to address concepts and procedures
§ short, straightforward, and to the point, often focusing on procedural fluency

§ Additional Claims: #2- problem solving; #3- communicating reasoning; #4-

modeling and data analysis (California Assessment of Student
Performance and Progress), addressed through my content teaching.
§ Students are currently working on problem solving and being able to
communicate their reasoning
§ Although students communicate their reasoning quite often in my classroom, it
usually is in the oral form. I am now more conscience about providing students with
opportunities to communicate their reasoning through writing.

§ To support students in problem solving, they are being exposed to more word
problems while reviewing techniques on how to annotate text
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Student Reactions
§ I provided very little help and assistance to my students during the
assessment
§ The purpose was to get an accurate reflection of students’ knowledge and
abilities
§ Purpose of formative assessment- the formal and informal gathering of
student evidence, with the purpose of supporting student learning (Chappuis,
Stiggins, Chappuis & Arter, 2012)
§ I only reread the question to students and/or clarified the expectations of
the question
§ Initially, students were reserved and hesitant to answer the questions,
because they felt hopeless in approaching some problems
§ Students were reminded of what a formative assessment
§ Process that provides feedback to adjust ongoing teaching and learning to improve
students’ achievement.

§ I was fortunate enough to have buy-in from students, in which they took the
questions they did not know how to do seriously and tried their best to answer,
versus guessing and moving on
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Student Reactions
§ Students had a difficult time interpreting the questions on the
assessment
§ Students struggled with wording & vocabulary
§ Wording was excessive and provides unnecessary information

§ Assessment vocabulary did not match classroom vocabulary

§ Assessment vocabulary: “rate of change”

§ Classroom vocabulary: “slope”

§ Student reactions supported the idea that I need to provide my

students with a larger range of vocabulary words, as well as
including more strategies for annotating a prompt and analyzing
word problems
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Student Reactions
§ Textbox for free response questions

§ Math type feature

§ Students were unable to successfully use the math type feature
correctly.

§ Students’ inability to express their answers through the math type

interface, almost never had to do with students’ reasoning and ability
to answer the question

https://www.montereycoe.org/programs-services/ed-services/assess-account/caaspp-sbac/supports-accommodations-guide/
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Student Reactions
§ Calculator use
§ Interface imbeds Desmos online graphing calculator
§ Students are highly familiar with the Desmos graphing calculator, as it a tool we use
frequently in class
§ Students appreciated the familiarity of the calculator on the assessment.

§ Question “Flags”
§ Although not many students used this feature, those who did found it highly
beneficial
§ Being able to “flag” a question for review allows students to move on to the
next question but reminds them to go back.
§ This process allows students to get through the test and view all of the questions.

§ Students who did not “flag” any questions, often became fixated with the
question at hand and did not move on until they were fully confidence in their
answer.
§ Unfortunately, this can often take too much time
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Future Use
§ As I continue with instruction and assessment in my classroom, I
will be carrying over key concepts from this specific formative
assessment digital tool
§ Biggest takeaway is that I will continue to focus on is students’
college and career readiness, as identified by the Four Claims
(California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress):

§ 1- Concepts and procedures

§ 2- Problem solving

§ 3- Communicating reasoning

§ 4- Modeling and data analysis

§ As I go through my instruction, I will be diligent in making sure that

my lessons address at least one of these Claims
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Future Use

§ Initially for this formative assessment, students were provided

with almost no help, so that I could get accurate information on
students’ knowledge and abilities.
§ First, I will analyze students’ results and support their learning in
meeting the content standards,
§ Then I will assess students again on the same “block” assessment; in
the sense of a pre- and post- test
§ Measure student growth
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Future Use
§ Moving forward, I want to continue to use this digital assessment tool so that
students can become more familiar with the interface of the CAASPP system
§ When students take the actual SBAC Exam, they will be using the same CAASPP
interface and it is important that students are able to demonstrate their true
understanding of the questions, and not become distracted by the question
features, such as drag-and-drop and math type

§ My future plans are to use and implement more assessment “blocks” for my
students
§ At least once a month, with the intention of analyzing pre- and post- test results.
§ In assessing students through various assessment “blocks” I am able to cover
various topics in mathematics, such as:
§ Geometry
§ Functions

§ Algebra

§ Number sense
§ Probability
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Future Use
§ Ultimately in the end, the future use, not only of this specific
digital assessment tool, or other classroom assessments but for
classroom instruction as well, the implications are to teach with a
focus on students’ college and career readiness, through the
Four Claims

https://www.michigan.gov/mde/0,4615,7-140-28753---,00.html
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Best Practices of Selected Digital Tool
§ Immediate and descriptive student feedback
§ Gathers data on students’ knowledge and abilities
§ Common Core State Standards

§ College and career readiness

§ Aligned with actual SBAC exam students take

§ Data broken down per individual question

§ Identify most missed questions

§ Question answer frequency

§ Covers a variety of content and topics

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Best Practices of Selected Digital Tool
§ Students are able to interact with assessment
§ Different test question features
§ Drag-and-drop

§ Multiple-select

§ Free response
§ Math type

§ Online graphing calculator

§ Highlight and cross-out text

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Resources
§ California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress.
Retrieved from: http://www.caaspp.org

§ Chappuis, J., Stiggins, R., Chappuis, S. & Arter, J. (2012). Classroom

Assessment for Student Learning: Doing it Right- Doing it Well
(2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

§ Shelton, A., & Brown, R. (2010). Measuring the Alignment of High

School and Community College Math Assessments. Journal of
Applied Research in the Community College, 18(1), 6-15.

§ Woolfolk, A. (2017). Educational Psychology. Boston, MA: Pearson