Formative Assessment & Standards-Based Grading. Robert J. Marzano
Scores
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Robert J. Marzano is the cofounder and chief academic officer of Marzano Resources in Denver, Colorado. Throughout his forty years in the field of education, he has become a speaker, trainer, and author of more than thirty books and 150 articles on topics such as instruction, assessment, writing and implementing standards, cognition, effective leadership, and school intervention. His books include: The Art and Science of Teaching: A Comprehensive Framework for Effective Instruction, Making Standards Useful in the Classroom, District Leadership That Works: Striking the Right Balance, Designing and Teaching Learning Goals and Objectives, and On Excellence in Teaching. His practical translations of the most current research and theory into classroom strategies are internationally known and widely practiced by both teachers and administrators. He received a bachelor’s degree from Iona College in New York, a master’s degree from Seattle University, and a doctorate from the University of Washington.
INTRODUCTION
Formative Assessment and Standards-Based Grading is the second in a series of books collectively referred to as The Classroom Strategies Series. The purpose of this series is to provide teachers as well as building and district administrators with an in-depth treatment of research-based instructional strategies that can be used in the classroom to enhance student achievement. Many of the strategies addressed in this series have been covered in other works such as The Art and Science of Teaching: A Comprehensive Framework for Effective Instruction (Marzano, 2007), Classroom Assessment and Grading That Work (Marzano, 2006), and Classroom Instruction That Works (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001). Although those works devoted a chapter or a part of a chapter to particular strategies, The Classroom Strategies Series devotes an entire book to an instructional strategy or set of related strategies.
Designing effective assessments is critical for any teacher. In order to make judgments about the status of a student or an entire class at any given point in time, teachers need as much accurate data as possible about an individual student’s progress, or the progress of the class as a whole, to determine their next instructional steps. As straightforward as this might sound, designing assessments, using them purposefully, and incorporating them into a system of overall grading take insight and practice. Formative Assessment and Standards-Based Grading addresses the misconceptions about formative assessment and how it can be used in an overall grading scheme.
We begin with a brief but inclusive chapter that reviews the research and theory on formative assessment, instructional feedback, and grading. Although you might skip this chapter and move right into those that provide recommendations for classroom practice, you are strongly encouraged to examine the research and theory, as it is the foundation for the entire book. Indeed, a basic purpose of Formative Assessment and Standards-Based Grading and other books in The Classroom Strategies Series is to present the most useful instructional strategies that are based on the strongest research and theory available.
Because research and theory can provide only a general direction for classroom practice, Formative Assessment and Standards-Based Grading (and each book in the series) goes one step further to translate that research into applications for the classroom. Specifically, it addresses misconceptions about formative assessment, provides formatively based classroom assessment strategies, and discusses in depth how those strategies can effect change in overall grading systems on both small and large scales. It is important to note, however, that individual teachers, schools, and districts must make necessary adaptations to meet the unique needs of their students.
How to Use This Book
Formative Assessment and Standards-Based Grading can be used as a self-study text that provides an in-depth understanding of how to design and interpret assessments and use those assessments to develop meaningful grades. As you progress through the chapters, you will encounter exercises. It is important to complete these exercises and then compare your answers with those in the back of the text. Such interaction provides a review of the content and allows you to examine how clearly you understand it.
Teams of teachers or an entire faculty that wishes to examine the topics of assessment and grading in depth may also use Formative Assessment and Standards-Based Grading. When this is the case, teacher teams should do the exercises independently and then compare their answers in small-group and largegroup settings.
Chapter 1
RESEARCH AND THEORY
Assessment and grading are two of the most talked about and sometimes misunderstood aspects of K–12 education. Formative Assessment and Standards-Based Grading seeks to bring some clarity to one particular type of assessment—formative—and explore through recommendations how it interacts with traditional and nontraditional grading practices. In this chapter, we review the research and theory that underpin these recommendations. We begin by discussing feedback, the practice in which both assessment and grading have their roots.
Feedback
The topic of feedback and its effect on student achievement is of great interest to researchers and practitioners. In fact, studies on the relationship between the two are plentiful and span about three decades. In an effort to operationally define feedback, researchers John Hattie and Helen Timperley (2007) explained that its purpose is “to reduce discrepancies between current understandings and performance and a goal” (p. 86). Researcher Valerie Shute (2008) said feedback is “information communicated to the learner that is intended to modify his or her thinking or behavior for the purpose of improving learning” (p. 154).
Feedback can be given formally or informally in group or one-on-one settings. It can take a variety of forms. As the preceding definitions illustrate, its most important and dominant characteristic is that it informs the student, the teacher, and all other interested parties about how to best enhance student learning.
Table 1.1 (page 4) presents the results from a variety of studies on feedback.