Calibration

This week's Day 6 focus:  Calibrating the F&P Assessment

I have had the opportunity to calibrate an assessment several times throughout my teaching career - and it always surprises me!  In our meeting last week, the SMART Team agreed that this would be a worthwhile activity to do as teams.  While we all "know how to administer the F&P", you might be surprised at how we may have morphed a little bit from the assessment tool's guidelines.  It is particularly important to be aligned with our F&P scoring practices, as the information we share with next year's teacher guides the next steps in instructional decisions.

The purpose of calibration is to ensure that a group of educators evaluates student work consistently and in alignment with the scoring criteria, which increases the reliability of the assessment data. When scoring is calibrated, student work receives the same score regardless of who scores it because all scorers interpret and apply the criteria in the same way.

Calibration is necessary because scoring guidelines alone do not ensure consistent scoring. Even if educators agree upon a set of expectations, they may apply them differently over time. Through the calibration process, educators confirm their understanding of how the scoring criteria is used to measure student work. Not only will our F&P calibration bring about greater accuracy and reliability in scoring, but it also will help to deepen our understanding of expectations for a student's reading as measured by the F&P.

Lori will be meeting with each team and they will score an F&P together (teachers will pull a student from specialists for a short time).  Following the assessment, the team will discuss and calibrate the results of the running record and the comprehension conversation.

Please let me know if you have any questions! And have a great week!
Sue