SERVE’s Model for Classroom Assessment:
(1)Clarifying Learning Targets
The first component of the Classroom Assessment Cycle addresses clarifying learning targets. Learning targets or standards describe what students should know and be able to do. Grant Wiggins refers to these targets as achievement targets.
“All assessment logically begins with a clear, apt, and worthy achievement target. We are assessing for some desired result, which is the capacity we seek in students and therefore that for which we must deliberately measure” (Wiggins, 1998).
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The importance of achievement targets is also discussed by Rick Stiggins. Stiggins notes that clearly stated targets are essential for teachers and students. Teachers must have a common understanding of the desired target. Clear achievement targets, therefore, will be interpreted by different teachers to have essentially the same meaning. Students must also understand the expectations for their performance. Clear achievement targets, as a result, will communicate in “kid-friendly” language so that students understand precisely what is expected in their work (Stiggins, 2001).
Many teachers have not had opportunities to reflect upon or define effective learning related to key learning targets such as standards, benchmarks, or objectives. They may lack extensive formal training in curriculum and they may not understand how to “unpack” such targets into component types of learning as knowledge, reasoning, dispositions, skills, or product categories. Teachers may also fail to understand how these components interact in complex ways. To complete the assessment cycle, teachers first must be clear about what effective learners need to know and be able to do based on quality targets. For example, in reading, when we ask teachers to tell us what effective readers do, they tell us that such students demonstrate oral fluency (a knowledge component), demonstrate comprehension (a reasoning component), use appropriate reading strategies (a skill component), demonstrate higher-order thinking about what they are reading (another reasoning component), and are motivated to read (a dispositional component). The key to effective assessment to enhanced student achievement is to ensure that these targets, along with the learning components, are clear to both the students and the teacher. It is also essential that the instructional strategies and assessment methods used actually measure the learning in a manner that provides good feedback to the learner and the teacher. |
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