PERSONAL

COMMUNICATION
Personal Communication
 Gathering information about students through personal
communication is just what it sounds like—we find out what
students have learned through interacting with them.
 Examples include the following:
 Looking at and responding to students’ comments in journals
and logs
 Asking questions during instruction
 Interviewing students in conferences
 Listening to students as they participate in class
 Giving examinations orally
Personal Communication
 We usually think of this as informal, rather
than formal assessment (in which results
are recorded for later use)
 Often it is.
 However, as long as
 the learning target and criteria for judging
response quality are clear,
 information gathered via personal communication
 can be used to provide descriptive feedback to
students,
 for instructional planning,
 and for student self-reflection and goal setting.
 Student responses are evaluated in one of two ways:

 Sometimes the questions we ask require

students to provide a simple, short answer,
and all we’re looking for is whether the answer
is correct or incorrect.
 This is parallel to scoring for written selected
response questions. Questions during
instruction usually call for these short answer
oral responses.
 Other times, student oral responses are longer
and more complex, parallel to extended
written response questions.
 Just as with extended written response, we

evaluate the quality of oral responses using a

rubric or scoring guide. Longer, more
complicated responses would occur, for
example, during oral examination or oral
presentations.
Assessing Knowledge
 Personal Communication is a good match with
knowledge targets for most students at all grade
levels, but tends to be inefficient if a lot of knowledge
is to be assessed for lots of students.
 Personal communication works best for real-time
sampling of student understanding during instruction.
 Also, for some students, such as those with special
needs, English language learners, or younger students,
it is the best way to gather accurate information.
Assessing Reasoning
Proficiency
 For gathering accurate information, personal
communication is a strong match to reasoning targets.
Teachers can ask students questions to explore more
deeply into a response.
 Or, students can demonstrate their solution to a problem,
explaining their reasoning out loud as they go.
 The drawbacks with using personal communication to
assess reasoning proficiency are, as always, the amount
of time it takes and the record-keeping challenge it poses.
Assessing Performance Skills
 Performance assessment overlaps with
personal communication when the
performance skills in question fall into
the category of oral proficiency, such as
speaking a foreign language or giving an
oral presentation.
Benefit of Personal
Communication
 Personal communication can be quick and efficient.
 Immediate connections are possible between
assessment and instruction.
 The user can be opportunistic—taking advantage of
teachable moments
 The method is flexible
 Assessment can attend to nonverbal responses, too.
Barriers when using personal
communication
 Sampling enough performance
 Problems with accurate record keeping
Things to investigate
 Do teacher and students share a
common language?
 Have students reached a sufficiently high
level of verbal fluency to interact
effectively?
 Do students have personalities that
permit them to open up enough to reveal
true achievement?
Things to investigate
 Do students see the environment as safe
enough to reveal their true
achievement?
 Do students understand the need to
reveal their true achievement?
 Can accurate records of achievement be
kept?
Forms of Personal Communication as
Assessment

1. Instructional Questions and

Answers
2. Conferences and Interviews
3. Class Discussions
4. Oral Examinations
5. Conversation with Others
Instructional Questions and
Answers
 This activity promotes thinking and
learning, and also provides information
about achievement.
 The teacher listens to answers, interprets
them in terms of internally held standards,
and draws inferences as to the level of
attainment of the respondent.
Key to successful use of Q
and A
 Plan key questions in advance of instruction
 Ask clear, brief questions that help students focus
on relatively narrow range of acceptable
responses.
 Probe (investigate) various kinds of reasoning, not
just recall of facts and information.
 Ask the question first and call on the person who
is to respond.
Key to successful use of Q
and A
 Call on both volunteer and nonvolunteer respondents,
to keep all students on task.
 Keep mental records of performance only for a few
students at a time no more than a day or two.
 Acknowledge correct or high-quality responses; probe
incorrect responses for underlying reasons. Also
regarding incorrect or low-quality reponses.
 After asking a question, wait three to five seconds for a
response.
Conferences and Interviews
 The teacher and student talk directly
and openly about levels of student
attainment.
 The key to successful use of conference
and interview are:
 Participants must be open to honest
communication and willing to examine the
real, important aspects of teaching and
 Interview questions must be sharply focused on the
achievement target and the purpose for meeting.
 Questions should be carefully thought out and
planned in advance.
 Plan for enough uninterrupted time to conduct the
entire interview or conference.
 Be sure to conclude an interview with a summary of
the lessons learned and their implication for how you
and the student will work together in the future.
Class Discussions
 Discussions are teacher-or student-led
group interactions in which the material
to be mastered is explored from various
perspectives.
 Teachers listen to the interaction,
evaluate the quality of student
contributions, and draw inferences about
individual student or group achievement.
Keys to successful use of
Discussions
 Prepare questions or discussion issues in advance to
focus sharply on the intended achievement target.
 Involve students in the process of preparing, being
sure their question and key issues are part of the mix.
 Rely on debate format or other team formats to
maximize the number of students who can be directly
involved.
 Pay special attention to involving low achievers.
Keys to successful use of
Discussions
 Provide those students who have more reserved
(unwilling) personal style with other equally
acceptable means of demonstrating achievement.
 In context where achievement information derived
from participation in discussion is to influence
high-sakes decision, such as grade, dependable
written records of performance are required.
Oral Examinations
 Teachers plan and pose exercises for their
students, who reflect and provide oral responses.
 Teachers listen to and interpret the responses,
evaluating the quality and drawing inferences
about level of achievement.
 In a very real sense, this like essay assessment,
but with added benefit of being able to ask
follow-up questions.
Keys to successful use of Oral
Exam
 Develop brief exercise that focus on the desired
outcome.
 Rely on exercise that identify the knowledge to
be brought to bear, specify the thinking to be
used, and identify the standards that will be
applied in evaluating responses.
 Develop written scoring criteria in advance of
the assessment.
Keys to successful use of Oral
Exam
 Be sure criteria separate content and thinking
outcomes from facility with verbal expressions.
 Prepare in advance to accommodate the needs of any
students who may confront language proficiency
barriers.
 Have a checklist, rating scale, or other method of
recording results ready to use at the time of the
assessment.
 If possible, record responses for later evaluation.
 Conversation with Others
 You can derive useful information about student achievement
by talking with others about the achievement of the student in
question.
 If you ask the right questions of those who have reason to
know about the achievement of a particular student, then
they may be able to provide insight that you are unable to
generate on your own.
 Possible sources may include other students, other teachers,
other school staffs, parents, and siblings. These people might
have sampled student performance in ways you have not.
 Keys to successful use of Conversation
with others
 Be a critical consumer of this information: probe the nature and
quality of the evidence mustered (to work to get the support that
you need for something) by the information provider.
 Be sure you share a common understanding of the meaning of the
valued achievement targets.
 Be sure they used sound (sensible, correct, and likely to produce
the right results) assessment method, sampled appropriately, and
controlled for their own biases.
 In other words, ask only those who are in a position to know about
the achievement of your students.
 Solicit (ask for) information from more than just one other source.
Assignment
 Build questions and instructions for personal
communication assessment of the following:
1. Instructional Questions and Answers
2. Conferences and Interviews
3. Class Discussions
4. Oral Examinations
 References
 Stiggins, R.J. 1994. Students-Centered
Classroom Assessment. New York: Macmillan
College Publishing Company.
 Stiggins, R.J., Arter, J., Chappuis, J. And
Chappuis, S. 2004. Classroom Assessment for
Student Learning. Assessment Training Institute.