Step 0: Common Assessments
How will we know if students are learning what we want them to learn?
Common Assessments:
Expert Jigsaw Resources
 Scan the resources for “Common Assessments” in your module.
 Decide as a team which resources you will select to review and
discuss. You do not have to review all resources.
 For resources selected, as a team summarize and share out key
points and any helpful PLC tools/resources.
 Be sure to summarize and share out key points and helpful PLC
tools and resources. Please be sure to include what you learned
about SMART goals and Common/formative assessments in your
team share out (e.g., Why do we need SMART goals and
Common Assessments? What PLC activities do we engage in to
support these concepts?).
Cultural Shifts in a PLC
Common Formative Assessments: Key
to Improving Schools
 In two years of working in collective teams, there was no
gains.
 It wasn’t until the teams…
 Established a guaranteed curriculum
 Monitored student learning through common assessments
 Used the evidence of student learning to identify and solve
problems through new instructional strategies
…that student achievement soared.
Tight About the Right Work
Collaborative teams monitor student
learning through an ongoing
assessment process that includes
frequent, team-developed common
formative assessments.
Keys to a Common Formative
Assessment Process
 To determine if an assessment process if formative, ask:
 Is it used to identify students who experience difficulty in learning?
 Do students receive additional time and support for learning
when they experience difficulty.
 Do students get and additional opportunity to demonstrate their
learning?
 Do teachers use the results to inform and improve their individual
and collective practice?
Why Common Formative
Assessments?
 Efficiency: By sharing the load, teachers save time.
 Fairness: They promote common goals, similar pacing and consistent
standards to assess student proficiency.
 Effective monitoring: Monitoring provides timely evidence of whether
the guaranteed and viable curriculum is being taught and learned.
 Team capacity: Collaborative teacher teams can identify and address
problem areas in their programs.
 Collective response: They support timely systematic interventions for
students.
 Informed teacher practice: Individual teachers obtain the basis of
comparison that enables them to identify strengths and weaknesses of
their teaching.
Characteristics of Common Assessments
 Measure essential student learning (includes formative and
summative uses)
 Generated/created by teachers
 Clearly defined essential understanding and student performance
outcomes exist for every unit of instruction
 Include all students taking the same course or grade level assessment
across classes/teachers
 Administered in a systematic and timely manner
 Allows for analysis of results within PLC
 Item analysis is planned and occurs immediately following each
assessments
 Clearly defined assessment criteria exist
Characteristics of Embedding
Common Assessments
 Assessment for Learning/Common Assessment
Prompts
 How can student demonstrate proficiency as
the lesson is being taught?
 Rubrics and Scales (Marzano)
 How can we utilize common student friendly
scales to assess essential student learning?
A Key Component to Effective
Leadership of PLCs at ALL Levels
Unless you are using evidence of student
learning to lead to better instructional
practices, you are not fully engaged in
the PLC process!
Two Essentials of Performance-Based
Assessment
 Can we agree on the criteria by which we will judge the
quality of student work?
 Can we apply those criteria consistently (inter-rater
reliability)?
 For an example of a writing rubric for Common Core go
to http://www.parcconline.org/
Defining S.M.A.R.T. Goals
 Specific – detailed outcomes criteria
The goal should state the exact level of performance expected.
 Measurable – measurement criteria
To achieve objectives, people must be able to observe and measure their
progress.
 Attainable – realistic criteria
Goals should challenge people to do their best, but they need also be
achievable.
 Realistic (Results-Oriented, Relevant) – significance criteria
Goals need to pertain directly to the performance challenge being managed.
 Time-bound – answers “by when?” criteria
Deadlines help people to work harder to get a task completed.
S.M.A.R.T. Goals: Specific
Specific: A specific goal has a much greater chance of being
accomplished than a general goal. To set a specific goal you must
answer the six “W” questions:
*Who:
Who is involved?
*What:
What do I want to accomplish?
*Where:
Identify a location.
*When:
Establish a time frame.
*Which:
Identify requirements and constraints.
*Why:
Specific reasons, purpose or benefits of
accomplishing the goal.
S.M.A.R.T. Goals: Measurable
Measurable - Establish concrete criteria for measuring progress
toward the attainment of each goal you set.
When you measure your progress, you stay on track, reach your
target dates, and experience success which maintains motivation
in a PLC.
Always set a criteria for success: This allows you to evaluate your
work and impact on student growth
To determine if your goal is measurable, ask questions like:
 How much?
 How many?
 How will I know when it is accomplished?
S.M.A.R.T. Goals: Attainable
Attainable – When you identify goals that are most important to
you, you begin to figure out ways you can make them come
true.
You can attain most any goal you set when you plan your steps
wisely and establish a time frame that allows you to carry out
those steps.
Example questions:
 Are these steps doable?
 Can we find the time?
 What resources and supports will make this likely to happen?
S.M.A.R.T. Goals: Realistic, Results
Oriented, & Relevant
Realistic- To be realistic, a goal must represent an objective toward
which the PLC is both willing and able to work. A goal can be both
high and realistic; you are the only one who can decide just how high
your goal should be. But be sure that every goal represents substantial
progress.
A high goal is frequently easier to reach than a low one because a
low goal exerts low motivational force.
Research shows that teams choosing higher outcomes for students
(rather than setting lower bars) often achieve better results
S.M.A.R.T. Goals: Time-Bound
Timely – A goal should be grounded within a time frame. With no
time frame tied to it there’s no sense of urgency.
Example questions:
 Now that we set a specific criteria for success, what is the target
date?
 When do we want to evaluate the success of this plan?
 What short term progress monitoring dates can we pick?
 When do we want to reach our goal?
Criteria for Establishing Team SMART
Goals
 Address all points on the SMART acronym
 Align team goal(s) to school and district goals.
 Focus on results, not activities. To achieve your goal,
more students should learn at higher levels.
 Create a goal that fosters a collective efforts and an
interdependent relationship.
Tips for Establishing SMART Goals
 Limit the number of district, school, and team goals (2-3 goals).
 Team goals should be established by teams rather than for teams.
 Aviod establishing goals that are too narrow or too broad.
 Ensure measureable targets demonstrate continuous
improvement
 Monitor work toward a goals by creating team products directly
related to the goal and establishing, benchmarks to assess
progress.
 Celebrate progress, then establish a new goal.
The Importance of Short-Term SMART
Goals
 “People can become so caught up in big dreams that don’t
manage the current reality. Short-term goals are needed to
establish credibility for a change initiative over the long haul.
Major change takes time. Zealots will stay the course no matter
what. Most of us want to see some convincing evidence that all
the effort is paying off. Nonbelievers have even higher standards
of proof. We want clear data indicating changes are working.”
Kotter, 1996, pp. 118-119
Assessment Map Example
Assessment
When Given
Given to Whom
Admin Procedures
Reading Pre/Post
Assessments
10/1-10/7
11/14-11/19
12/10-12/15
1/30-2/5
3/1-3/6
4/14-4/19
All Students
Computer-Based
Formative Reading
Assessments
- Prompts,
- Work Sample
- Performance
Tasks
TBD based
upon PLC
discussions
All Students
Embedded within
instruction
Math Pre Post
Assessments
Every 5 weeks
All Students
Students take pre tests
during third week or prior
chapter test. Test is given
whole group