Author Archives: amanda schoepp

Using Apps for Formative Assessment

I recently taught a lesson to my fellow teacher candidates on using apps for formative assessment. Many of my ideas for this lesson came from a blog post entitled Empowering Teachers with Tech-Friendly Formative Assessment Tools by Monica Burns. I created a lesson plan and Google Slides to help present the information. As part of this lesson plan I had my fellow teacher candidates explore four stations with different apps and websites that could be used for formative assessment. They then engaged in a placemat activity on Lino to share their thoughts and questions about each tool. I have made the lesson plan, slides, and Lino wall available to be viewed.

Monica Burns post provides insight into my inquiry project as well as helps all teachers considering using technology for formative assessment. This blog post looks at different tools for formative assessment. The author begins by suggesting that tech-friendly formative assessment can become a seamless part of the daily classroom, helping teachers stay organized in collecting information and providing easy and effective ways to assess on an ongoing basis (December 14, 2015). Burns suggests some factors that need to be considered when selecting a tool for formative assessment: the audience or age group, the goal of the assessment, and the type of formative assessment (December 14, 2015). It is important that formative assessment fit the grade level and not be too easy or too difficult. What works for one grade level or class may not work for another, therefore, it is important to experiment with a few different tools until you find one that you are comfortable with.

There are different purposes for formative assessment and consequently various apps to meet these different needs. Burns gives suggestions for various types of apps such as quiz apps, show what you know, and data collection (December 14, 2015). Because there are so many apps and websites available for teachers to use for formative assessment it can be overwhelming. That is why it is important to focus first on the assessment, what do you want your students to learn and demonstrate. Once you know what you want your students to show you can determine what assessment tool will best help students demonstrate their understanding. Burns states, “As you begin to develop a strategy for gathering and utilizing formative assessment data in your classroom, take a moment to think about how technology can support this work (December 14, 2015).” For technology to be a meaningful part of formative assessment, we must first construct meaningful formative assessment. These formative assessment tools can help to support formative assessment.

Burns, M. (2015, December 14). Empowering Teachers with Tech-Friendly Formative Assessment Tools. Retrieved from: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/tech-friendly-formative-assessment-tools- monica-burns

Lesson Plan Apps

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/12-UhRK5f4PMMv1a470F84Pw2bm39yrzovnm31Ip4R6I/edit?usp=sharing

http://linoit.com/groups/Inquiry%20451/canvases/Inquiry%20451

Making Assessment Matter

There are many great educational blogs that speak to assessment as well as using technology for assessment. Kelly Goodrich writes a blog for the NWEA and in her article Make Assessment Matter: A New Report from NWEA she analyzes a survey of administrators, teachers, and children to discover why assessment matters and what students want from tests. Goodrich discovered several important findings: First, “students want a voice on assessments and on their education”. Second, “students and educators value assessments—when they support learning”. Third, “collaboration empowers educators to interpret and use assessment results”. Fourth, “students and educators see silver linings in technology-based testing including increased student engagement”. Finally, “major gaps persist in assessment literacy” (2014). This blog post emphasizes the importance of several aspects of my inquiry project. It is important that all parties are involved in meaningful assessment that connects to learning outcomes. Teachers need to be well educated on how to assess students in order to help their students become a meaningful part of assessment. Not only should their collaboration between students and teachers, other educators and administrators must collaborate and learn together about assessment. Finally, more time and energy must be put towards having useful technology that will actually work properly to help teachers with assessment. This article supports the importance of well-organized assessment that can become even more meaningful with the integration of technology. In order to meet the needs of students, teachers, and administrators when it comes to assessment then steps must be taken towards more collaboration, education, and a close examination of existing assessment practices.

Goodrich, K. (2014, May 6). Make Assessment Matter: A New Report from NWEA. Retrieved from https://www.nwea.org/blog/2014/make-assessment-matter-new-report-nwea/

Playing With Technology

So far I have focused on using technology to record, share, and reflect on the learning journey. Today I was struck by how technology could be used to guide student learning and develop perseverance. Technology can help to track student progress, thinking, and failures. I attended a Makerspace workshop on Thursday evening and had the opportunity to explore Dot and Dash, Little Bits, Sphero, Osmo, and more. These various technologies had several things in common: they encouraged creativity and inquiry based learning. Many of the technologies allowed students to track their progress. Using these types of technologies lend itself to opportunities for formative assessment. This indirect connection between technology and formative assessment allows teachers greater opportunities to observe and assess student learning. While students work, play and explore with technology, teachers can be observing and assessing as well as taking photos and videos of students while they work. This can then allow teachers to upload these photos and videos and provide students opportunities to self-reflect on themselves learning. By reflecting on themselves learning, they might gain a new perspective on a problem they were working on that they didn’t recognize while they were engrossed in learning. Technology is now giving students access to new learning experiences such as coding which is offered through something like Dot and Dash. Technology provides students with new ways to visualize a problem as well as discover a new passion. This allows teachers to provide students with multi-modal learning experiences.

Integrating Formative Assessment into the Classroom

Before we can ask the question, “How does technology enhance formative assessment?” we must first understand what formative assessment is and how to successfully and meaningfully integrate it into the classroom. This article helps guide teachers through integrating formative assessment into the classroom. Formative assessment helps teachers to understand their student’s strengths and weaknesses and help guide them throughout the learning journey. Dyer states: “Formative assessment is a proven tool for moving students forward, there are many techniques that make it flexible and accommodating for nearly any classroom environment and it’s not hard to implement (2015).” Dyer suggests five quick tips for integrating formative assessment into the daily classroom routine (2015):

1.Start small
2.Be transparent with how students are doing and why
3.Teach the students about formative assessment so they can use it too
4. Integrate it daily
5. Celebrate the shifts

Starting small allows the teacher to implement one or two strategies at a time and do those well. Once these formative assessment techniques become familiar to the students then the teacher can feel free to try new strategies. An important part of the success of formative assessment is letting the students know what and why you are doing it. By informing students of your practice they become comfortable with it and can become a part of formative assessment through techniques such a self-reflection. Students often do formative assessment such as reflecting in group discussions about what they liked or did well at in an activity. Students can also be taught formative assessment techniques such as editing peer work. They can and should be an important part of the process so long as they are taught how to do so. Celebrate and enjoy the positive changes that formative assessment makes in your classroom. Dyer describes the importance of celebrating stating: “Formative assessment is an ongoing process and should therefore be part of the daily routine. As students become learners, as learning becomes the habit, as mistakes and assessments are seen as additional opportunities to learn – celebrate (2015).” Once formative assessment becomes a part of the daily routine and students learn how to assess and grow in their learning, teachers can begin to consider how technology can enhance that process.

Dyer, K. (2015, May 1). Praise for Formative Assessment and Five Steps for Successful Classroom Integration. Retrieved from https://www.nwea.org/blog/2015/praise-formative-assessment- five-steps-successful-classroom-integration/

Changing the Face of Education through Technology

This article focuses on using technology to enhance personalized learning and assessment. According to the article technology will change how we organize our schools, what the role of the teacher is and how we assess. Education will not change by simply implementing technology. West states: “By itself, technology will not remake education. Meaningful change requires alterations in technology, organizational structure, instructional approach, and educational assessment. But if officials combine innovations in technology, organization, operations, and culture, they can overcome current barriers, produce better results, and reimagine the manner in which schools function (2011, p. 1).” When technology is implemented in a meaningful way through changing the structure of the classroom then personalized learning and assessment can be more meaningful. Technology creates opportunities for meaningful, nuanced, multi-faceted assessment (West, 2011). One way to integrate formative assessment into the classroom is through electronic clickers. This article discovered that the use of electronic clickers have proven to increase test scores. The clickers help to provide instantaneous feedback which is an important aspect of formative assessment. Technology can help transform the assessment process and improve learning and drive educational change (West, 2011). Technology gives teachers the opportunity to assess every part of the learning process. West states: “With digital technology, learning can be personalized to the individual and performance evaluated in real time (2011, p. 13).” By using technology for instantaneous feedback, teachers and students can discover which aspects of learning they are struggling with and which aspects they do well. The ability to assess various aspects of learning can also help students and teachers to push their learning forward in more focused ways.

West, D. M. (2011, October 6). Using Technology to Personalize Learning and Assess Students in Real-Time. Retrieved from http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2011/10/06-personalize-learning-west/1006_personalize_learning_west.pdf

Self-Reflection as Formative Assessment

Reflection can take many forms. We can reflect alone or with others, reflect on experiences or on work, reflect at the beginning and end of a process. Whatever the form, self-reflecting can be powerful. Kallick and Costa state: “Reflecting on work enhances its meaning. Reflecting on experiences encourages insight and complex learning (2008).” Self-reflection can be a back and forth process between student and teacher.

Through technology students can reflect through video, writing, or drawing. The Early Childhood Research and Practice has found that instant video revisiting, which allows students to immediately view videos of themselves working and reflect alongside their teacher, has helped support student learning (Beyne, 2015). Through writing, drawing, and video students can reflect quickly in real time providing an authentic look at their thoughts. Technology also allows students to go back and look at their self-reflections and make meaning from those comments.

In my own teaching practice I have engaged in the process of self-reflection. Recently my students wrote self-reflection comments on an ongoing art activity. They combined various forms of self-reflection techniques including writing and visual representation. They chose one example of their work to upload to Fresh Grade and were then required to write two self-reflective comments. They were required to write one positive comment and one comment of something they could improve on, was hard for them, or something they found hard.

I helped support my students self-reflection by brainstorming questions and comments they could reflect on. Kallick and Costa suggests that it is important for teachers to set the tone for reflecting (2008). They state: “Reflective teachers help students understand that the students will now look back rather than move forward. They will take a break from what they have been doing, step away from their work, and ask themselves, ‘What have I (or we) learned from doing this activity?’ (2008).” By brainstorming with the students first they were able to focus on looking back on the work they had done over the previous weeks.

I was pleased to discover that many of my students not only wrote more than two comments but also wrote very meaningful comments that gave me insight into their process, both the joys and the struggles. By having the students reflect using technology, I was able to respond to their reflections and self-reflect on my own practice. Fresh Grade allows teachers to respond to student’s reflections and in this case see the supporting work that the students are reflecting on. By reading my student’s comments I was also able to see which students loved the activity (most of them commented that they did!) and which ones struggled. I could see individual struggles as well as group struggles. I discovered that the majority of students found the same objective to be a challenge. I then reflected on whether this goal was too challenging or pushed them just enough.

Self-reflection is part of an ongoing process and formative assessment. Technology can play a great role in helping students to document that ongoing process. Not only can students go back and look at their work, they can look back on their self-reflections. The process of good self-reflection is just as important as the work they are self-reflecting on. Costa and Kallick state: “Reflection is the time to consider what was learned from the experience. Reflection is a time to describe what students saw in their own work that changed, needed to change, or might need to be described so another person might understand its meaning (2008).” Writing meaningful self-reflections is an important skill for students to learn.

Beyne, H. (2015). Using technology for self-reflection in the classroom. Retrieved from: http://glpd.greenlightlearningtools.com/blog/2015/02/12/using-technology-self-reflection-classroom/

Costa, A. L. & Kallick, B. (2008). Learning through reflection. In A. L. Costa & B. Kallick (Eds.), Learning and leading with habits of the mind: 16 essential characteristics for success. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Sketching, Reflecting, and Asking Questions

This week I taught a lesson centered around the visual art journal again. This second opportunity to teach a similar lesson provided several important opportunities: a chance for my students to deepen their knowledge and understanding of this lesson, the ability to make adjustments to my execution of the lesson plan last week, and the chance to engage in formative assessment. For my formative assessment I looked through each student’s sketches and wrote comments for myself based on the lesson objectives: making a personal connection to art and sketching is different than making a good copy. I then took my comments and wrote questions to each student on a sticky note rather than the statements. Writing the questions on a sticky note ensures that the artwork is not wrecked. By writing questions to the students this gives them something to think about to improve without making them feel insecure. Statements could make the students feel criticized whereas the questions bring the students into a conversation with me about their work. I can then use those questions to discuss their work with them. Next week the students will be sketching once again and checking for simple, specific criteria. They will then choose one or more of their sketches to upload to Fresh Grade. They will then self-reflect on their sketches thinking about the question on the sticky note as well as a few questions that we will brainstorm together. The art journals in combination with the use of technology will allow students to look back on their journey in improving on sketching and making personal connections to a picture. Already I can see improvements in some of the student’s sketches. I hope to use some of the student’s pictures who demonstrate a strong understanding of sketching to help other students understand how to sketch.

Inquiry Proposal

Bibliography

Morning Sketches

Yesterday I introduced a new concept to my students through the morning activity. We opened the morning with a visual journaling art activity. In the activity, I showed the students a picture from a book, Owl Moon, and discussed with the students that they would be making personal connections to the picture. The instructions were given on our carpet area which allowed us to have a more intimate conversation about the activity. I asked the students to tell me some of their ideas about what sketching might entail. They were encouraged to not use erasers as this was not supposed to result in a perfect, final product. Finally, we discussed the learning goals for the activity, making personal connections to a picture and sketching.

When I sent the student’s back to their desks to begin working, there seemed to still be some confusion about the activity. I reworded the objection from “make personal connections” to “What does this picture make you think of?” With prompting from my SA I wrote this question up on the board as a reminder. I decided to wait a minute before giving further instructions about the activity as I noted that 90% of the students seemed to have begun to work. Quickly after, the students got down to work. The room was completely silent and the students were engaged in their sketches. I took this opportunity to walk around the room and ask students to explain their sketches to me. I also helped guide a few students when they got stuck. The students were open to sharing their sketches to me and I heard many great stories and connections to the picture.

In my lesson plan, I had decided that I wanted to play classical music. In the past when I have played music, I have started the music as soon as the instructions have been given. In this instance, I turned the music on after the students were settled and working. This time, the atmosphere did not change in the sense that students continued to be focused on their work. I discussed with my SA how the music provided an even safer environment for the students to share their sketches with me.

Once the students understood the activity, they far exceeded my expectations in making connections and creating sketches. One aspect of the activity that the students were challenged by was the notion that they would not be able to go back to their sketches and “finish” them. My SA and I discussed how they are used to creating a rough draft that leads to a final product. I explained to the students that we would keep their sketches in their art journals but they would not be taking them home or be given time to complete them. This was a great growth opportunity for students as it encouraged them to use their time well but did not force them to have a finished product at the end of the lesson. By placing the sketches in the art journal this will allow students to look back on their sketches and reflect on their progress throughout the year.

My SA and I decided that this lesson was successful and that the students enjoyed the activity. We decided that I would teach this lesson again next week, using a different picture. This will ensure that the learning goals introduced in the lesson will be remembered by the students and become familiar. This activity provides a creative way for them to be creative and get their brains going in the morning. Often morning activities involve writing which can be stressful for some students, particularly my students who need learning support in writing and reading. The students will continue to sketch in their art journals which will create a learning journey in art. For my own learning journey, teaching this lesson again will allow me to make modifications, reflect on how to enhance the assessment aspect, and continue to make personal connections with my students.

Killing the Notion that Assessment Kills Creativity

Does assessment kill creativity? This is the question I am asking myself as I think about how technology can enhance formative assessment. My exploration of this inquiry question has opened up a huge can of worms. We know that assessment is a necessary part of education, but how can we ensure that this assessment is meaningful for our students? How can we encourage creativity in our classrooms? What kind of messages are our assessment goals sending? How can technology help enhance my assessment goals? Does technology kill or promote creativity?

Some of these difficult questions are explored by Ronald Beghetto in “Does Assessment Kill Student Creativity?” Beghetto challenges teachers to consider what the goals of assessment are: outperformance or self-improvement. Beghetto explains that a performance goal structure stresses “avoiding making mistakes, besting others, getting the highest grades, and demonstrating one’s ability in relation to others (p. 257-258).” On the other hand, Beghetto emphasizes that mastery goal assessment focuses on “self-improvement, skill development, creativity, and understanding (p. 258).” When we focus our assessment on helping our students improve and grow as learners we allow them to be creative!

Assessment doesn’t necessarily diminish creativity, rather, students need to perceive that feedback and assessment are useful, meaningful, and provide good feedback. Beghetto tells us: “When assessing students, teachers can protect creativity by recognizing and appreciating creative expression. This doesn’t mean that teachers should throw out standards or provide empty praise for inappropriate ideas. If responses are not appropriate, teachers should provide suggestions on how students might adapt the idea so that it is useful while still preserving the novelty (p. 261).” As teachers we want to allow creativity to flow in a useful, productive manner. If assessment focuses on feedback for students and self-improvement, assessment can be much more conducive to creativity.

As technology grows rapidly, it is important to consider how it can be used as more than just a tool in the classroom. How can we use technology to encourage and strengthen creativity? How can it be used to enhance assessment? If we are trying to promote personalized learning, self-improvement, creativity, and understanding through our assessment we can consider how technology allows our students to document and reflect on their learning. Encouraging students to pursue their creative ideas will often involving using technology to take that idea to the next level. Through technology our students can document their creative process, reflect on that process, and share that process with their teacher. I believe that assessment, technology, and creativity do not have to be mutually exclusive. Instead, through thoughtful inquiry, I think it is possible to encourage creativity through well-thought out assessment and support that creativity and assessment with technology. I look forward to exploring these thoughts throughout my teaching and learning journey!

Beghetto, R. A. (2005). Does Assessment Kill Student Creativity? The Educational Forum, 69:3, 254-263.