Leadership on Demand:

Non-Cores usage of Assessment

Joshua Brim-Simpson
730/740 Symposium
HPL Scholar-Practitioner

The Neighborhood Academy

Our school serves as independent, college-preparatory school, for a particular
demographic, this being the case, we need to look at our students critically to
find out where they are, and where we need to get them to in order to succeed
in college and in the world beyond.
Additionally, students who enter our school in eighth or ninth grade are
typically one to three grade levels behind and incredibly unsure of their
abilities. We need to consider in our assessment model how we can change this.
Non-core educators, play a vital role in getting student to evaluate themselves
with our assistance and how they can use their cognitive abilities to his or her
advantage, and to increase their confidence in order to succeed.

Todays Goals
To conceptualize an assessment model that confronts the metanarrative of students non-core classes, not directly effecting their
efforts in standardized testing. Realizing and incorporating each
students individual abilities and interests, while optimizing
learning in a High Performance Learning environment is our goal.
Within our High Performance Learning environment, we want to
utilize the following learning theories and practices to implement
our new assessment model, while keeping students the focus of all.

High Performance Learning Environment

Student-Centered Learning - Student Focused
Collaborative - Facilitator, Peer-to-Peer Learning
Individualized Learning (the teacher) as the
catalyst for learning
Atmosphere of learning that dispels unhealthy
competition, and directly connects the interests
and characteristics of your individual learners.
Instilling life-long learning into the minds of
your learners.
Technology is incorporated into the experience
to keep students engaged working at their own
pace yet formative.

Learning Theories
Mind, Brain, Education (MBE Science)
Is knowledge and research from three areas education, neuroscience, and psychology
working together to form more perfect methodological designs.
Leslie Hart wrote back in 1983 that designing educational experiences without knowledge
of the brain is like designing a glove without knowledge of the hand (or a car without
knowledge of engines, or a windmill without knowledge of the wind (Hart, 1999).
How learning outcomes are measured and succeed:
We must create strong learning communities. The culture a person grows up in impacts the way
she can learn (Chia & Ambady, 2010). A childs environment can actually change gene
potentiation and physically reshape her brain.
Treating everyone fairly doesn't mean giving each person the same thing it means giving each
learner what he needs to succeed (Tomlinson & Edison, 2003; Tomlinson & Strickland, 2005).
The brain is highly plastic the more people develop and educate themselves the more they refine
their behavioral and cognitive options (Immordino-Yang ,pg. 35, 2016)

Learning Theories
Connectivism - Open Learning Environments
"Society no longer cares how many facts we can memorize because in the information age facts
are free....Education isn't about teaching facts. It's about stoking creativity, and new ideas. It's not
about teaching students to conform..it's about empowering students to change the world for the
better (Dan Brown, Open Letter to Educators, Youtube.com).
Learning occurs when knowledge is actuated through the process of a learner connecting to and
contributing information into a learning community: A community is the clustering of similar
areas of interest that allows for interaction, sharing, dialoguing, and thinking
together (Siemens, 2004).
Our students learn and communicate with others in so many different way and through social
networks. Social networks not just being social media. This type of global professional
networking will allow students to communicate in order to provide feedback and collaborate.
As we are in the digital age, technology is a key component of the classroom (as with HPL) and
we are plan to utilize this tool for all of our benefit.

Educational Practices
Competency-based learning
Typically digitally regulated programs, sometimes web-based that motivate students
with change-of-pace, allowing them to become more autonomous, creating an
environment that promotes student-regulated learning.
Mastery can be demonstrated in multiple ways, competence-based learning provides
options.
Accountability for knowing what skills learners must master and for seeking out
additional help.
Immense planning on the part of the teacher as they must provide descriptive feedback
to students so they know what areas they need to improve.
Students have new opportunities to pursue learning at an appropriate pace, with
greater clarity about learning objectives and progress toward them.

Assessment Model
Teacher/Facilitator - Plan and Implement

STUDENT/LEARNER

AT EACH LEVEL APPLIES INSTRUCTION VIA BEST PRACTICES AND

METHODOLOGIES THAT ARE COMPETENCY-BASED AND SUPPORT BOTH
DIGITAL AND TRADITIONAL COLLABORATIVE EFFORTS.

Diagnostic
Assessment

Formative
Assessment

Summative
Assessment

ASSESSMENT AS
LEARNING

ASSESSMENT FOR
LEARNING

ASSESSMENT OF
LEARNING

Students evaluate:

Students work on:

Students obtain:

-Understanding

- Developing

- low-stake opportunity

progressively
- Short-term success
for learning goals

to measure mastery
- evaluation of efforts

current situation.
-How to improve.
- What is needed.

Teacher/Facilitator Evaluate and Reinvigorate Plan

HAVING APPLIED INSTRUCTION VIA BEST PRACTICES AND
METHODOLOGIES THAT ARE COMPETENCY-BASED AND SUPPORT BOTH
DIGITAL AND TRADITIONAL COLLABORATIVE EFFORTS IMPROVE
LEARNING OUTCOMES IF NECESSARY.

Diagnostic Assessment
Used to determine where the student
is in order to determine where he or
she needs to go, as well as additional
component of getting to know the
learners background, interests, and
abilities, and what they need to be
successful. Pre-testing is invaluable.

Formative Assessments
Assessments carried out (in real time)
during the instructional process for the
purpose of improving teaching or learning.
W. James Popham in the first chapter of
Transformative Assessment, as a planned process
in which assessment-elicited evidence of
students' status is used by teachers to
adjust their ongoing instructional
procedures or by students to adjust their
current learning tactics. (2008)
Used to aid in a students learning process
and a teachers teaching process. To assist
in a students learning process, it can be
used to make them active in their own
learning.

Vital tool providing insight into if students

grasping the lesson and if not they can modify
the lesson or teaching approach to ensure that
the students learning needs are met.
Formative Assessment as frequent,
interactive assessments of students progress
and understanding to identify learning needs
and adjust teaching appropriately (Looney,
2005).

Gives the opportunity for communication

between the teacher and his or her
students. This is effective for any
relationship and it can aid it creating a
healthy and positive learning environment
for students and teachers.

What Formative Assessment looks like

in an HPL environment
Student Portfolios contain the students work
that is completed and in process. Also included
are notes from the teacher providing feedback,
notes from conferences, learning goals.
Student/Teacher Conferences require teachers
to meet with their students at least once a week
to evaluate their learning goals together. The
teacher will prepare questions for the student to
ensure that they are grasping the tasks at hand.
The student will bring questions and comments
about these tasks. Exit Slips and Learning
Portfolios will also be discussed at this time.

Scholar-Practitioners Examples:
Case-Studies activities are a real-world
assessments that allows teachers to see
immediately what the students learned in class,
how to adjust future lessons, and who to follow up
with. We used these to help students make
interdisciplinary connections.
Our supplemental web-based program EverFi
allows students to move at their own pace. It is
criterion-referenced and consist of 8 modules
students must successfully demonstrate
competence in, in order to become certified in
financial literacy.

Summative Assessments
From Tensions and Synergies of Teachers Summative
Practice, The impact of summative assessment on
students motivation for learning can be both
direct and indirect. A direct impact can be
through inducing test anxiety and the effect of
low scores on self-esteem and perceptions of
themselves as learners; an indirect impact can
be through the effect on their teachers and the
curriculum (2005). These types of assessments
can build up our students and not tear them
down like standardized tests.

Used to evaluate student learning and

academic achievement at the end of a
defined instructional period. These are
often completed at the end of a project,
unit, orsemester.
Can help teachers to determine whether
students are making sufficient progress
or meeting learning standards. These
type of tests will also be used to provide
descriptive feedback to a student.

What Summative Assessment looks like in an

HPL environment
Help your students to prepare starting
with the end in mind. Allow them to come
up with ideas of what would be on a test if
it aligned with the learning goals?
Have your students give you test
questions during the review so you can
answer them in the way in which you
expect them to.
After the assessment is taken and results
are received, conference with each of your
students to discuss the results. Non-core
courses must provide written feedback for
the student on the assessment that has
determined whether is not sufficient in
explaining to them their learning outcome.

Review the results to evaluate your teaching.

A good teacher evaluates themselves. Keep a
portfolio of great work and what went well
for yourself. Were you successful? What can
you do for the students who did not meet
their goal? We want our students to be
accountable but we also want to see them be
successful. Utilize the technology in your
classroom to prepare your students for these
assessments.

It is useful to understand how people learn if your goal is to help

people learn. (Mayer, 6)

As we work together as non-core course instructors, harnessing

technology as a powerful tool of networking and collaborating. This
model demonstrates a thorough representation of assessment, rooted in a
sound High Performance Learning environment that is focused primarily
on students. It ties together diagnostic, formative and summative
assessments. It is founded on new and emerging learning theories such
as Connectivism and MBE and works in cooperation with Competencybased learning practices. We will be bringing these students to their
optimum learning; confident in themselves as life-long learners