Tag Archives: Assessment

Plan for Personalization

I believe that in order for me to best assist my students with their learning, I need to get a better understanding of their goals, needs, and current abilities. Through various resources, course notes, and experience, I have created a preliminary mind map of how I would like to approach this in my future class.

I think it is imperative to understand the student’s perceptions of school and education. By inquiring into why students believe they are at school, I can begin to explore the expectations of the students, parents, school administration, government, and teachers with the students, and help them set goals for the year based on what they want to get out of their education. During this process, I would like to provide lessons about setting SMART goals, and introduce the concept of self-regulated learning.

Exploring students’ beliefs about why they are in school would be a great starting point for discussing student and teacher roles and expectations within the classroom. From here, the class can co-construct those expectations, along with the classroom values and routines. I believe in actively teaching the values by constructing understanding through examples, which can also include lessons about the importance of positive relationships. Ensuring the students understand what positive relationships are, they can identify them, and can act in accordance with creating them, I believe the students will be better equipped to create a community with a sense of belonging for everyone.

Additionally, exploring students’ interests will help foster student-teacher relationships, and provide opportunities for me to personalize the content while I teach core competencies and skills. Topics of interest play a large role in motivation for students, in addition to an awareness of their learning process. I believe it will be important to allot time to teach students about how we learn, both on a psychological and physiological level so that students can identify the circumstances that help them learn best. This includes teaching students about metacognition, learner types, motivation, learning environments, types of questioning (Bloom’s Taxonomy), the different mindsets, etc., in addition to the role of certain important structures in the brain.

I believe that a basic understanding of neurophysiology and neuroanatomy are important for student awareness of learning, and the development of self-regulated learners. By exploring brain and mental health, students can learn about how the body deals with stress and how it affects their learning. I hope to give students time to explore what the stressors in their lives may be, how to recognize when they are stressed, and practice a variety of coping mechanisms.

I would like students to be aware of numerous strategies for each task, so they can select the optimal strategy to enhance efficiency and reduce anxiety. By praising students based on their use of strategies, and selection of appropriate strategies, I hope to foster a growth mindset within the class. At this time, I believe it is also crucial to provide instruction about fixed versus growth mindsets, and facilitate numerous discussions about learning through this lens. In particular, I would like to have a lot of dialogue about mistakes and failures, so students can learn to embrace the set backs, reflect upon them, modify/adapt, and try again without feeling defeated.

An essential component to both the learning process and the creation of a growth mindset climate is assessment. I believe that it is important to set the guidelines for assessment expectations and goals early in the year. I would like to discuss the purpose of assessment, particularly formative assessment, with the students to enhance and reiterate the idea of improvements and process over product. Additionally, I think it is essential for students to understand the importance of self-, peer- and teacher- assessments in their overall learning process.

Furthermore, 21st century learning is an important part of today’s classrooms. I would like to make sure the students have active discussions about the use of technology and the information they find with it. At the beginning of the year, I would like to explore the pros and cons of technology use, digital citizenship, digital footprints, and reliability of sources/information. I believe it is imperative to co-construct these expectations early in the year, to ensure responsible and appropriate use of technology and sources.

By obtaining all of this information, providing the required instruction, and reviewing the student answers to the questions in the mind map, I believe I will be able to successfully promote learning by personalizing instruction for each of my students.

Assessment – Recording and Sharing

One of the aspects of assessment I originally struggled with was deciding what should be recorded. In my initial practicum experience, I had a lot of time to reflect on the day, and inevitably recorded almost everything about students. As I shifted into the significantly more challenging second practicum, I had to limit my recording time and be more selective during the recording process. During my second practicum, I was able to refine my record keeping skills, and experiment with a couple different modes of recording student progress.

I decided to keep a Word Document Folder for each student during my initial practicum. I created a list of “Check-in Questions” and often held conferences with students one-on-one, and later recorded their answers.

Check in Questions

How are you feeling, in general?

How are you feeling about what you are learning in class? (Math, Science, GH)

What are you finding easy?

What are you finding difficult?

Is there anything you are currently confused about?

What can you do to enhance your understanding in those areas? OR how can you further challenge yourself to get the most out of your education?

What resources do you have/need to be successful?

What is your plan of action?

Is there anything you want to learn more about?

Do you have any questions for me?

November 27, 2014

I thoroughly documented student strengths, areas in need of improvement, interests, hobbies, and anything else that would help me develop a more holistic understanding of each student. This process took a lot of time, and I do not think it would be realistic to have these ongoing, in depth, one-on-one conferences in a regular classroom setting. I would still like to know the answers to these check-in questions and more, however I think a more efficient use of time would be to explore questions related to these in a circle, creating open dialogue with the entire class. I still believe one-on-one conferencing for formative assessment purposes is important, especially for students on the lower and higher ends of comprehension and performance, however ongoing circles may facilitate the process of developing a greater holistic view of the classroom environment, student needs, abilities, and interests.

When I began my second practicum, I decided to record student notes based on specific subjects. I created a table for each subject, which included the class list on the left, and the specific ongoing assessments on the right. For each assessment (formative or summative) I wrote comments about the specific struggles the student experienced so I could revisit needed concepts, either individually or as a class. My comments were brief, and conveyed the information I required to adjust and modify my instruction. However, when I began to experiment with FreshGrade, I realized that parents and students require more than just highlighted notes on student struggles. I realized that I needed to paint a holistic picture of the student’s growth over time, including strengths, interests, and achievements. I was aware of these aspects of each student generally, but had not recorded specific examples.

“When I was writing comments to include on FreshGrade this week, I realized that although I kept adequate descriptions of student struggles (for follow up lessons, and to adjust/amend teaching), I didn’t have much documentation of strengths. My records of assessment need to include more than just the qualitative notes on what they need to improve on, because students and their parents need to also be made aware of successes! I’m glad I started doing FreshGrade this week, so that I noticed there was a flaw in my assessment record keeping.” Week 6 of long practicum

The ongoing contact with parents through FreshGrade helped me refine my recording process so I could better communicate overall student learning with both parents, students, and administration. FreshGrade also allowed me to take pictures of the rubrics and the projects to share directly with parents, and create an ongoing portfolio of their progress and performance. I had limited time to explore and experiment with FreshGrade in my second practicum, but it is a tool I look forward to gaining more experience with in the future.

“FreshGrade..form[s] a continuous glimpse into each child’s progress that parents and students can share.” – Sir Ken Robinson

Assessment – Choice, Differentiation and Feedback

In general, I think Inquiry projects are a great way to provide students with choice in how they want to demonstrate their knowledge. During the initial stages of our inquiry project, the class brainstormed numerous ways they could demonstrate their learning using a padlet wall (Demonstrate Our Learning!). To capture the truly unique journey of the inquiry project, I asked each student to create an ongoing folder for the project, which included their detailed learner profile (indicating what they needed in order to learn best during the project’s execution), their main inquiry question, subquestions for researching purposes, and their preferred method of demonstrating the knowledge and understanding they acquired through the project.

The students were given the criteria for the folders on an ongoing basis, and I provided written feedback for each of the required components. When I reviewed the folders as a whole, it was evident that each student was at a different stage in their learning process. I decided to try the “triangle” approach, which was a strategy we acquired during our assessment course. I drew all three sides of the triangle on the folder if the students had completed all required components to the agreed upon standards and were ready to progress to the next stage. Students were given two sides of the triangle if they needed revision in one aspect of the folder, and only one side of the triangle if they needed revision in more than one area of the folder. With any level of triangle completion, students could be given an asterix (*), which meant that they needed to conference with me to clarify or elaborate an aspect of their project. With all of this information, I created a table so that students could see where they were at, what they would be doing during class time, what they would do once they finished, and when they needed to meet with me. I wrote the conferencing lists in decreasing order of urgency, and allowed students who were not on the list to sign up under the title “Anyone else.” I believe this process and the project as a whole allowed for successful differentiation of student learning.

Names have been changed

“I found this method extremely effective in terms of students working at different rates, and scheduling individual conferences. However, as I showed it to the class, I also realized that it may make some students feel uncomfortable given the chart displayed their progress to the class. So I addressed the issue by emphasizing that everyone works and learns at their own rate, that this is normal, and encouraged. The process empowered the students to work hard to get the additional parts of the triangle, and I had several students finish their part, show me what they had done, and asked for their triangle to be completed.

I held the conferences at my desk in an order based on who needed it most (ie. who could not continue without direction to who just needed a few suggestions or minor revisions). I thought this worked really well. Many students were actively on task, and many students came up to discuss their progress and their projects during the “Anyone else” conference time. They have made some great improvements on their topics, and I got a chance to talk to them one on one about the direction of their work.” Week 3 of long practicum

Another way I believe I successfully differentiated assessment and appreciated the varied journeys of student learning, was during a science assessment. After explaining that everyone’s journey was different, I told the students that I would have three separate tests available. The tests required the same knowledge, but at varying levels of depth and application. I created a test rubric based on the BC Curriculum that would be used for all three tests, showed the rubric to the students prior to the tests, and explained that the rubric would hold more weight than the numerical score (I chose to include the numerical score because it was what students requested). I gave the students a practice test which covered the same concepts to try on their own, and then we went over the answers as a class. I explained that the practice test was at the same level as the more in depth of the three available science tests, and that they could use this practice test to informally assess where they were at with relation to the expectations. In hindsight, I should have also had the students use the rubric themselves to assess their learning based on the practice test, so they could better understand how I would be assessing their level of comprehension with a rubric in lieu (or in this case, in addition to) numerical scores.

After the practice test, I asked each student individually which test they wanted to take. This acted as a form of self-assessment, and let me know where each student thought they were in the class. Once I marked the tests with the rubric, the students were given an opportunity to review my feedback and then review their course notes. Students were encouraged to book an appointment with me to explain what they now knew, and how they have improved their understanding, so I could adjust their rubric accordingly.

As evaluation was necessary for the latter portion of my extended practicum due to end of term reporting, I had used the opportunity to experiment with alternate ways of summative assessment. This process was significantly more work than a typical end of unit test, though I believe it helped the students feel more successful, and encouraged them to challenge themselves. The concept of a rubric on a test (especially as the same rubric was used for all three variations of the test) was initially confusing for the students, which is why I would opt to do more front-loading with the use of exemplars the next time I use this process. I have come to realize that rubrics can take a lot of practice to get right, and can be difficult to create so that all possible submissions can be reliably assessed. However, co-construction and student revision significantly helped the process, and along with front-loading this will be key for my future practice.

Due to time constraints, I made it optional to meet with me about the feedback to improve their evaluation, however if I were to redo this process, I would have all students demonstrate their use of feedback through either a written reflection, a project, or a conference. As stated in my philosophy, I believe that providing students with the time to read, reflect and act on feedback is one of the most important aspects of assessment. I tried to incorporate this component into several other assessments as well. After students provided comments on peer-assessments, or after I provided comments, I allotted class time to thoroughly read the comments, make notes on how they will use the comments to improve their work, and then to act on the comments. This worked particularly well during a persuasive essay unit (First Draft – Peer Assessment, Second Draft – Teacher Assessment ), and it is a practice I plan to continue.

Assessment – CFU and Transparency

Throughout my practica experiences, I had opportunities to both assess and evaluate student work. I experimented with several forms of ongoing assessment to check for student understanding, provided opportunities for students to act on written feedback, and promoted transparency of the assessment process through the co-construction and active revision of criteria.

During class time, I found it effective to use physical strategies such as the “five finger test” and “thumbs up, thumbs to the side, or thumbs down” to rapidly check the overall level of comprehension in the class. I found that this process provided me with immediate feedback about whether I needed to clarify something, or whether I could proceed to asking specific questions about the concept or task to further substantiate understanding. During this combined process, I came to realize that asking higher order questions to check for understanding were the most effective, but that I needed to prepare those questions ahead of time to best promote student thinking. I used the prepared higher order questions in a whole class setting, in smaller groups, or sometimes as exit slips in their reflection journals (Wassermann, 1992).

There are several other strategies that I would like to try in the future, such as the use of “traffic lights,” and I would like to further explore the use of gallery walks as a means of checking for understanding. I used gallery walks twice during my practica to get an overall sense of student understanding about several ideas at once. I found that the inherent anonymity of student responses was both beneficial and detrimental to my awareness of their overall understanding. Some students were more willing to write a response when their names were not attached to their comments, however the activity did not clarify if, how many, or which students were having trouble with the concept. Ultimately, I liked that the students could read their peers’ contributions so they could get a feel for their own level of understanding about the concept/topic, and perhaps learn from others’ contributions or question the validity of the contributions.

“I showed the class several examples of inquiry questions and asked them to tell me whether the question was a “good” question or a “bad” question (for the purpose of an inquiry project), and explain why. We then came up with criteria about what makes a question “good” or “bad” for an inquiry project. The class was confident identifying good and bad questions and explaining their rationale, however, when I asked them to turn a bad question into a good question, they found this much more difficult. This may be an area that I will have to work on more with them. Perhaps a gallery walk exercise where I have bad questions around the room, and they take sticky notes and put their good question underneath it.” December 4^th 2014

When the students participated in the gallery walk the next class, they fed off of each other’s ideas and came up with many suggestions to improve the posted questions. They were able to take the “bad” (closed) questions and turn them into several “good” (open-ended) questions. After the gallery walk, each table group was assigned one of the posters, and asked to discuss the contributions of their peers. They were asked to evaluate the contributions based on our co-constructed criteria, and then choose the best three questions on the board and explain their selections to the class. The activity generated a lot of discussion, and I was able to confirm that almost all of the students now not only knew the difference between the “good” and “bad” questions, but could actively generate good questions themselves.

Including the students in the criteria process was very effective, especially when the criteria was actively constructed through the examination of successful and unsuccessful exemplars. I found that the criteria the class proposed for “good” inquiry questions included not only all of the points I had wanted to include, but also valid points I hadn’t yet considered. I repeated the process of co-constructing criteria with students on two other occasions with similar results, and found the process had a positive impact on the quality of work the students submitted.

assessment

Similarly, I found that including the students in the criteria process in other ways also contributed to higher quality submissions. When I had pre-generated the criteria for a project, discussed revisions with the class, and actively highlighted the differences between an assignment that meets expectations and an assignment that exceeds expectations, the majority of the students aimed to exceed expectations (Student Work Example 1, Example 2).

Overall, the ongoing informal formative assessments helped me adapt my lessons based on student understanding, and the transparency of creating or examining criteria with the students led to much higher quality assignment submissions. I believe that both of these practices enhance overall student learning and motivation. I plan to continue with these practices and explore others in the future.