Looking at Student Work

• In Event: Practical Issues in Classroom Assessment: Deconstructing and Reconstructing Research to Offer Practical Recommendations

Abstract

During the assessment process, teachers gather and review evidence of student learning, interpret results, and use those results to make decisions. Two of the most important are deciding on what feedback to provide students and deciding on next instructional moves. In this presentation, the argument is advanced that looking at student work to understand student thinking more than correctness yields more useful information for feedback and next instructional moves than simply marking whether students’ work is correct.
Interest in looking at student work can be traced back to at least the school reform movements of the mid-1990s to early 2000s (Little, Gearhart, Curry, & Kafka, 2003). Common elements of these early successful projects included: (1) bringing teachers together to look at student work collaboratively as opposed to alone; (2) focusing on student work, which typically did not have much of a footprint in professional development; and (3) structuring conversations with protocols to make sure the collaborative talk developed teacher community.
From the mid-2000s to the present, the focus of looking at student work moved from general reform efforts to professional development in formative assessment (Beesley, Clark, Dempsey, & Tweed, 2018; Cleaves & Mayrand, 2011; Dempsey, Beesley, Clark & Tweed, 2015, 2016; Gearhart et al., 2006). The evolution of the movement to look at student work shows two major shifts from earlier professional development methods. First, looking at student work represents a switch from looking at teaching to looking at evidence of learning. That shift requires redefining “evidence of learning” to include evidence of student thinking, not just correctness. Second, looking at student work represents a move to make students, as represented in their work, more central to professional development that so often involved teachers working on instructional materials and strategies, without students.
Research suggests that four outcomes are improved when teachers look at student work for evidence of student thinking more than correctness:
• Understanding what students are thinking about concepts and skills they are learning (Furtak et al., 2016; Otero, 2006).
• Providing effective feedback that feeds student learning forward (Beesley et al., 2018; Furtak et al., 2016; Gearhart et al., 2006).
• Deciding on next instructional moves (Furtak, Circi, & Heredia, 2018; Kazemi & Franke, 2004; Steinberg et al., 2004).
• Supporting professional development (Dempsey et al., 2015, 2016; Windschitl, Thompson, & Braaten, 2011).
There is some evidence of the converse, as well: most teachers, without any special focus on student work, find deciding on feedback and next instructional moves very difficult to do (Heritage, Kim, Vendlinski, & Herman, 2009; Ruiz-Primo, Kroog, & Sands, 2015; Ruiz-Primo & Li, 2013; Schneider & Gowan, 2013).)
The presentation has two parts. First, research literature that supports the argument—that looking at student work to understand student thinking more than correctness supports these four outcomes—will be reviewed, both literature that has been cited in this proposal summary and additional studies. Second, some practical illustrations of student work and the decisions they support will be shown.

Author

• Susan M. Brookhart, Duquesne University