MYP Assessment Policy | International Scholars Academy

ISA International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program (MYP) ASSESSMENT POLICY

Mission

The International Baccalaureate (IB) aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect. Toward this end, the organization works with schools, governments, and international organizations to develop challenging programs of global education and rigorous assessment. These programs encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and life-long learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.

Our mission at ISA, is to enable students to excel academically while maintaining the values of Islam and proficiency with the Arabic language. The Academy endeavors to provide a caring, challenging and supportive learning environment where our students achieve their highest potential while exhibiting civic responsibility and multicultural appreciation. Our goal is to engage all students in a meaningful, educational experience to help students become actively responsible for their own learning in preparation for the unique challenges of the global environment. Our assessment practices are intended to gauge student progress towards acquisition of the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of responsible global citizens.

Philosophy

Assessment enables educators to gather data and analyze student learning and progress. Assessment identifies what students know and how they process information at different stages of learning. In an IB school, assessment is an ongoing process that values growth and progress. By understanding the needs of our students, we can tailor instruction to help students and teachers reach expectations set forth by the IB Programs.

The Assessment Policy is a working document reviewed by a committee of IB teachers, leadership staff, and administrators from ISA. Consistent with the standards and practices of the IB Programs, this document provides an overview of our school’s beliefs and practices regarding the purpose and use of assessments. This assessment policy also serves to provide clear expectations for teachers, families, students, staff, and administration regarding assessment policies and practices.

MYP AIMS OF ASSESSMENT

The MYP aims to:

support and encourage student learning by providing feedback on the learning process
inform, enhance and improve the teaching process
provide opportunity for students to exhibit transfer of skills across disciplines, such as in the personal project and interdisciplinary unit assessments
promote positive student attitudes towards learning
promote a deep understanding of subject content by supporting students in their inquiries set in real-world contexts
promote the development of critical- and creative-thinking skills
reflect the international-mindedness of the programme by allowing assessments to be set in a variety of cultural and linguistic contexts
support the holistic nature of the programme by including in its model principles that take account of the development of the whole student.

(MYP: From Principles into Practice, 2014/2015)

PURPOSE OF ASSESSMENT

To determine the students’ instructional needs and learning problems and maximize overall student learning experience.
To keep a record of students’ progress over time.
To act as a feedback mechanism for curriculum development.
To ascertain the learning outcome is in alignment with curriculum objectives and goals.
To facilitate student inquiry and reflection as critical components of independent learning.

PRINCIPLES OF ASSESSMENT

For students’ progress, Assessment design should:

Have criteria that are known and understood by students in advance
Measure student learning and suggest areas of improvement.
Allow student to synthesize and apply their learning in more than one way.
Show student learning in a variety of ways.
Challenge students to perform at a higher level.
Encourage students to be reflective and partake in self and/or peer evaluation.

Responsibilities of Stakeholders

At ISA, we believe that all stakeholders must take responsibility for student achievement. In terms of assessment, this means the following:

Teachers will:

Design appropriate, engaging, and rigorous units of study and assessments.
Align assessments with stated learning objectives/criteria, inquiry questions, significant concepts, and approaches to learning skills.
Provide students with clear rubrics and task specific clarifications at the beginning of each unit.
Create assessments with real-world contexts, to broaden students’ perspectives and promote international-mindedness.
Provide opportunities for students to reflect on their performance on a given assignment or assessment.
Provide timely and meaningful feedback to students and parents regarding student progress and areas of growth.
Collaboratively work with other teachers to maintain consistent assessment procedures, including developing task-specific assessment descriptors, and standardizing grading practices. (See process described below).
Use professional judgment when determining levels of achievement.
Seek advice from peers, the academic leadership team and administration, as needed, for support in adhering to this policy.

Students will:

Do their best to model the IB learner profile and Academic Integrity in their assessments.
Familiarize themselves with the criteria rubrics and learning objectives for each of their subject groups.
Reflect on the content knowledge and skills that they are developing.
Work meaningfully with teachers and peers to develop content knowledge and skills.
Reflect on their progress with regards to MYP criteria in their courses.

Administrators will:

Provide time, resources, and focus to teachers for maintenance of assessment policies.
Provide time for vertical and horizontal collaborative planning.
Conduct MYP meetings.
Provide opportunities for IB professional development workshops.
Continually observe teachers using the IB informed observation documents and provide feedback.
Support a spirit of collaboration and collegiality among all stakeholders.
Arrange parent and student conferences with all MYP teachers in which students discuss their achievement levels according to MYP rubrics.

Parents and Guardians will:

Familiarize themselves with the criteria rubrics and learning objectives for each of their children’s courses.
Communicate with teachers, students, and administrators/leadership/IB Coordinator/staff with questions or comments regarding their student’s progress in the MYP.

Overview of Assessment Strategies

Assessment strategies are methods used to gather information about students’ learning. They can be applied during the learning process or at the end of a unit to assess student comprehension and achievement level. Assessments can also be given before a unit of study to determine the student’s prior knowledge.

Observations – Teachers can assess student comprehension by engaging students in discussions or observing the whole class/ individual students when completing tasks.
Reflections – These journal entries require students to develop responsibility for their own learning by becoming active learners.
Selected Responses – As formative assessments, these may be used during or at the conclusion of a unit in the form of quizzes and unit exams to measure student achievement and comprehension. This provides teachers and students with immediate feedback on learning.
Open-ended tasks – Students elaborate on their understanding of specific prompts by constructing creative presentations, discussions, or writing tasks.
Performance Tasks – These give students an opportunity to demonstrate knowledge, skills, and understandings they have gained in relationship to the learning objectives. They may be, but are not limited to, project-based assessments.
Standardized Tests-The MAP test is administered two times a year to determine student progress with regard to national standards for Math, Reading, and Science

ASSESSSMENT TYPES

Formative Assessments (Assessment for learning)

Formative assessment is “the essence of learning-- the continuous process of assessing one's own mastery of content and skills, and discerning and pursuing next steps to move forward toward” a learning target. A formative assessment task is not used to determine grades; instead formative assessments afford students the opportunity to learn before they are graded on mastery of content and skills. As assessment for learning, formative assessment tasks are considered practice. This practice allows students to take risk and learn from mistakes.

Feedback is an essential aspect of formative assessment. Formative tasks must provide students with information about their progress toward learning goals so they may self-correct. These tasks provide information for teachers to give quality feedback that is “timely, clear, specific and understandable.” More powerful, are formative tasks that allow students to self-assess their progress on their own or with peer assistance.

In as much as formative assessments are to prepare students for learning goals, these assessments are rooted in both the MYP area objectives as well as nationally recognized standards for the various subject areas.

Formative Assessment Tools

Formative assessment tasks include pre-assessments prior to instruction to ascertain what students already know and learning activities during instruction for students and teachers to learn about student progress. Formative assessment methods may be both formal and informal.

Warm-up activities
Exit slips
Daily work checks
Low stakes quizzes
Qualitative observation
Collection of work samples
Student self-reflection
1. Journal entries
2. Short essays
3. Charts or graphs of personal achievement
Peer assessment
Formative rubrics
Checklists
Oral questioning and think-alouds
Draft work
Student-constructed concept maps
Dress rehearsals
Peer response groups
Portfolio reviews and more.

Summative Assessments (Assessment of learning)

Summative assessment is authentic, learner-centered and inquiry based. It is created for the end of a specific unit of study and allows students to apply their understanding and skills. Unlike formative assessments, summative assessments are used to determine mastery of content and skills and are therefore used to assign evaluative grades.

A summative assessment is usually an open-ended, challenging task created by teachers used as an evaluation of the individual student’s achievement of objectives/ criteria and standards. It allows for differentiation so students can demonstrate their knowledge and comprehension in a variety of ways using both MYP area objectives and nationally recognized standards for the subject areas.

Examples of Summative Assessments

Open-ended tasks

Students are presented with prompts that allow them to communicate through their own original
responses. It can be in the form of a discussion, written, or oral presentation.
Performance tasks

Students are given an opportunity to display their skills, knowledge and understanding through
the objectives they have learned and relationships they have developed.
End of unit or End of term tasks

Summative assessments that are created for a unit and may appear in the form of either an
open-ended task or performance task.

Summative Assessment Tools

IB MYP criteria-referenced rubrics
Semester Exams
Projects
Interdisciplinary tasks

Differentiation

Formative tools such as diagnostic assessments at the start of the year and pre-assessment tasks at the start of a unit, help teachers plan differentiation strategies for the course and provide scaffolds and other differentiated learning activities throughout units. Teachers also differentiate summative task formats by allowing for student choice of types of tasks based on interests, personal interests and abilities. While formats or conditions under which assessments are administered, learning targets and goals remain the same for all students.

Backwards Planning of Unit

Teacher first determine standards and MYP objectives to teach and MYP criteria and strands to assess student work in each unit.
Next, teachers will design the summative assessments followed by formal formative assessments.
Lastly, teachers will determine which sequence of learning experiences will best equip students to be successful on the formative and summative assessments.

Relationship Between Other Standards Systems and MYP Objectives

Teachers begin planning by choosing Common Core standards, NGSS, or Standards of Learning that will be taught in each unit of instruction. Teachers then align the MYP objectives with the standards.

Teachers then determine the MYP criteria and strands that will be used to assess student work during each unit. Below are the MYP criteria for each subject area, interdisciplinary teaching and learning and the personal project.

MYP objectives/assessment criteria across the program

Recording and Reporting

Each MYP criterion (A, B, C, D) for each subject group has an accompanying MYP rubric which is divided into five achievement levels bands. Each achievement band has specific descriptors that describe what a student needs to do to reach a specific achievement level. Given that the MYP published assessment criteria are holistic, teachers are asked to develop task-specific clarifications for the different achievement levels and level descriptors on the assessed rubrics. Task-specific clarifications will bring a level of specificity to the assessment criteria and help students understand the precise areas that are being assessed. Based upon student performance, teachers use a best-fit approach to award a single numerical value from 0-8. The best-fit approach is explained in MYP: From Principles into Practice.

Currently, MYP teachers inform students of their proficiency by sharing their achievement levels on the MYP rubrics for each criterion referenced assessment. MYP teachers are encouraged to provide individual written comments on rubrics to help students learn and improve. For recording purposes, teachers include MYP achievement levels in their electronic gradebooks for both formative and summative criterion referenced assessments. For reporting purposes, ISA students reflect on their achievement levels with regards to summative assessments and during conferences with parents highlight areas of strengths as well as areas of necessary development for the four criteria in each class.

Internal Standardization

According to MYP: From principles into practice

Where more than one teacher is teaching the same subject group, the process of internal standardization must take place before final achievement levels are awarded. Internal standardization of assessment is also required for the personal project (or the community project if the school’s programme ends in MYP years 3 or 4). The process involves teachers meeting to come to a common understanding on the criteria and achievement levels and how they are applied. In so doing, teachers increase the reliability of their judgments.

Standardization throughout the school year promotes consistency and builds common understandings about student achievement with respect to MYP objectives.

At ISA, teachers collaborate regularly to design summative assessments and assessment options to create consistency and reliability among assessments. Teachers also engage in the process of internal standardization described below at least four times a year.

ISA End of Unit Standardization Process

Each teacher shares student samples of high, mid and low-level achievement levels, prior to grading.
Colleagues meet to discuss and commonly score samples.
Colleagues then grade their remaining class student works.

The process can also work by teachers coming to agreement about examples of student work at each achievement level and about outliers in student work.

Determining Achievement Levels

All criterion referenced summative task scores are determined by matching the student’s performance to MYP assessment criteria descriptor and assigning a corresponding award level or “score” (from 0 to 8) from the IB MYP rubric. Criterion referenced formative tasks will be similarly assessed to give students practice with meeting the standards on MYP rubrics. Below is the ISA grading scale showing the percentage equivalent for each IB award level. Non-criterion referenced formative assessments will be scored with a percentage scale.

Grading Scale

MYP Scale	Numeric
M = Not Submitted *	0
0	50
1	64
2	69
3	74
4	79
5	84
6	89
7	94
8	100

Grading Policy
Assignments fall into four categories noted below. Three of the categories are computed into the student’s semester grades which are reflected in the gradebook as percentages. Students’ academic achievement is used to determine grades. Behavior and work habits are not formally assessed and are not part of the students’ semester grades.

Criterion Reference Summatives (60% of final grade)
Criterion Referenced Formatives (30% of final grade)
Non-criterion referenced Formatives (10% of final grade)
Approaches to Learning (Feedback only /not graded)

Reporting on Approaches to Learning Skills

Approaches to Learning (ATL) are transferable skills that are essential for life-long learning. The MYP provides five skill clusters that all MYP schools must include in their curriculum. These five clusters include: Thinking skills, Communications skills, Social skills, Self-management skills, and Research skills. ISA has developed ATL skill indicators or expected behaviors for each cluster that the school is committed to developing in our students.

ATL provide a solid foundation for learning independently and with others. Approaches to learning help students prepare for, and demonstrate learning through, meaningful assessment. These skills are explicitly taught and practiced as part of units of instruction. ATL assignments are included in the gradebook and student achievement is awarded one of the following remarks: Excellent, Very Good, Good, Needs Improvement, and No Attempt. ATL remarks are for feedback purposes and, computationally, do not affect the students’ classroom grades.

MYP Personal Project

In the final year of the MYP year 5 (10th grade), each student will be expected to complete a personal project. The personal project is a significant piece of work that is the product of the student's own initiative and creativity and reflects the learning and development of that student during the their MYP experience.

The personal project may take on many different forms. Students are expected to choose their project with the guidance and supervision of a teacher or mentor in the school. Students projects are assessed against four criteria: Investigating, Planning, Taking Action and Reflecting and are assessed on an eight-point scale for each criterion. A final project assessment score of 1-7 is assigned based on criteria results.

Special Education and English as a Second Language

We believe that all students can achieve their goals given the appropriate instruction, support, and resources. Appropriate accommodations, differentiation and scaffolding of instruction are all used to ensure there is equity in assessment.

The families of Special Education students receive communication through their Individual Education Plan (IEP) progress reports. These reports are sent home quarterly with the students report cards and outlines their progress on their specific, individualized goals. Families are invited to attend annual meetings to review their students plan with the students’ teachers and support staff. These meetings are designed to review the student’s progress over their IEP year and develop a plan that includes goals to help bridge the gap between grade and instructional level. In an inclusive setting, special Education students are held to the same expectations as their peers; however, they are provided accommodations that are outlined on their IEP’s in order to offer support and promote success. The Special Education Coordinator can provide information regarding assessment support being provided for Special Education students.

Students learning English take mid-year and end-of year WIDA tests to monitor progress against language standards. These results along with teacher narratives and a portfolio of students MYP assessments are used to determine placement. Families of students who are learning English receive mid-year and end-of-year WIDA parent reports.

Learner Profile Attributes Within the Assessment Policy

Applying the learner profile attributes to formative and summative student work will establish skills and behavior which support classroom learning environments that prepare students to become successful life-long learners. Of particular focus for assessment are the following attributes:

Principled - Students act with integrity and honesty; they take responsibility for their own actions especially when completing assessment tasks.
Inquirers – Students are encouraged to ask questions and seek answers. By providing students with assessment tasks that encourage research, communication, collaboration and reflection, we promote inquiry.
Knowledgeable – Students explore concepts, ideas and of global significance within and across a range of subjects. Assessment tasks encourage students to make personal and cross-disciplinary connections and to apply their learning in unfamiliar situations to demonstrate knowledge and understanding.
Open-minded – Assessment tasks encourage students to seek and evaluate a range of points of views.
Risk-takers – Assessment tasks require students to think independently and defend their positions.
Reflective - Students reflect on their performance on assessments and set goals for improvement.
Thinkers – Inquiry-based assessment practices, such and problem and project-based assessments, require students to exercise critical and creative problem-solving skills.

Academic Integrity

Teachers agree to provide support for students to be able to demonstrate age and grade level expectations for academic integrity when completing assessments. Students are expected to upload IB and ISA standards for academic integrity when completing all assessments and the Personal Project. Before beginning major summative assignments such as end of term exams or projects, students will sign a statement affirming they agree to exercise academic integrity when completing the task.

Policy Creation Process

The assessment policy was created by the Middle School Assistant Principal/MYP Coordinator, reviewed by faculty and approved by the Administrative team. The assessment policy was informed by the publications noted below. The policy will be reviewed with staff annually and evaluated for changes every two years.

Sources

Franklin Academy Sunrise Campus Assessment Policy (2019) Retrieved January 6, 2020, from https://franklin2017.s3.amazonaws.com/6/34/myp-assessment-policy_1550692179.pdf

International Baccalaureate Organization (2014). MYP: From Principles into Practice Cardiff: UK

International Baccalaureate Organization (2018). Assessment principles and practices—Quality assessments in a digital age Cardiff: UK

International Baccalaureate Organization (2018). Standards and Practices Cardiff: UK

McTighe, J. Three Lessons for Teachers from Grant Wiggins https://jaymctighe.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Three-Lessons-from-Grant-Wiggins-1-2.pdf

Tomlinson, C. & McTighe, J (2006). Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design: Connecting Content and Kids

Tomlinson, C., Moon, T & Imbeau, M (2015) Assessment and Student Success in a Differentiated

Classroom [White Paper] http://www.ascd.org/ASCD/pdf/siteASCD/publications/assessment-and-di-whitepaper.pdf