LLED 360

I thought I was lucky to be placed in the assessment presentation. Over the short practicum, the biggest criticism I received was about assessment; “How do you know?”; “How do you know that they know what you want them to know?”; these sorts of comments left me without much of an answer as every time I did try to reply, my SA would reply back with the same question. “I walked around and saw that they were doing the question correctly, with proper steps,” I say. They say, “Well how do you know that they actually understand and are not just following instructions?” It was a little irritating but I completely understood that they had me.

When my group met up to decide on how to do the presentation, the first thing we decided on was to not do a “powerpoint and regurgitate the chapter” sort of lesson with a fun little game that wasn’t too related to the material and was more meant to break up the monotonous presentation. We also wanted to have the class walk away from our presentation with something useful, something that was worth coming to class on that day.

Thinking a little outside the box, we decided on assessing the class’ assessment! Some sort of assessmentception. But the main course was to provide a structure to assessment with our worksheet, and to give time for each cohort to really think about how they’re going to assess their classes.

I found this week’s reading on the “Case Against Grades” very interesting but I don’t really agree with all the points that were made.  I found it ironic that the article suggests “replacing letter and number grades with narrative assessments or conferences.”  Isn’t this just another form of grading students without giving them a specific letter grade?  Although a letter grade wouldn’t be used, wouldn’t the narrative assessments still define a student as either strong or weak?  If entrance to university was based on narrative assessments, students will “better” assessments would still be granted entrance over students with “weaker” assessments.  I understand what the article is trying to say but I personally don’t see anything wrong with giving students grades based on a set of criteria (ie. a rubric), as long as these criteria are clearly stated and fair.  And if grades are based on fair criteria that shows proof of students’ learning, isn’t this a positive way of assessing students?  I do not agree with arbitrarily assigning students a letter or number grade for assignments, but if such a grade corresponds to a set of criteria then I don’t see a problem.  We can also incorporate written and narrative assessments to go along with the letter grade we have assigned a student as a way of justifying it.  Also, the way our education system is structured requires us to give letter grades to students, so as it stands right now we don’t have the option to assess students in a different way.  This is why I think it is important to make sure that the grades we are giving students are as accurate an assessment of their learning as possible.  If we didn’t actually HAVE to give letter grades, then it would be a whole other story.

(My Initial Reactions to “Hong Kong, Canada”)

After reading Tara Goldstein’s “Hong Kong, Canada” (twice), I have to say, I’m very intrigued by the opportunity to explore this piece as a drama based activity that deals with the complex issues ELL students face in their school communities. However, I have some concerns! While it’s clear that Goldstein has taken great care to give voice to her characters based on those that she observed as being silenced or even oppressed during her ethnographic fieldwork, I find the development of those characters that appear on the “wrong side” of this controversial issue, troubling. In this case, I am referring to the characters Joshua and Sarah.

The first time the audience meets Sarah, we watch in disapproval as she literally kisses another girl’s boyfriend in front of the poor girl – granted, on the cheek, but her intent (and disregard for Wendy’s feelings) is clear. Meanwhile, in the very next scene, we watch as Josh blatantly ignores Sam’s request to turn off the radio program even though Sam admits that it makes him uncomfortable. As the play develops we see Josh manipulate Sarah by flirting with her in order to get her to write an article for his paper, constantly interrupt others or refuse to see their point of view; we see him walk out on his girlfriend after she confronts him about refusing to introduce her to his family, and combine forces with Sarah to create a petition for an English-only policy at their school. I recognize that these are the characters that I am not meant to agree with as an audience member – but should I also dislike them outside of their controversial political/personal opinions? Why are there no scenes that offer a “softer side” to either of these characters?

In her notes following the play, Goldstein writes that Joshua should be played as “as confused and uncertain rather than confident and cocky.” She also writes that Sarah should be seen as “vulnerable so that she would not be represented as a self-interested, ‘bitchy’ Jew.” Informing the audience how she envisions these characters should be played is problematic for me, because I’m not convinced that these versions of the characters are clearly represented in the text. Of course, having an actor breathe life into any role changes the way an audience will understand the character on the stage vs. the way they appear on the page. However, it is the job of the playwright to make the intentions of the characters and their actions clear whether the reader has had the opportunity to see a live action version or not. It is not enough to ask the actor to play the characters as “vulnerable” or “confused” in a footnote. We need to see these scenes as a functional part of the story.

We do see a hint of Joshua’s “confusion” in Scene 7, but the lights fade before we get an opportunity gage Josh’s reaction to his Nana’s speech. Also, this occurs almost halfway through the play, so most of the audience has already made up their minds about him AND he almost immediately reverts to being closed-minded, (and in my opinion unlikeable)! Both Josh and Sarah are characters that function as antagonists in this story. They are presented as angry, ignorant, and unable to see viewpoints outside of their own. I realize that this version of the script is missing the ending – and I’d like to think that these two characters are given even a moment of redemption, but I somehow doubt it.

So I guess the point of this rant is – when writing/staging a political piece of theatre, should we represent those characters who the audience is meant to disagree with as horrible humans – or do these characters also deserve a range of emotional colours in order to create a more balanced representation of their point of view? Isn’t it our responsibility as teachers to offer our students fully realized versions of both sides of any issue, no matter how controversial it is? And if so, how would we apply this to a piece of writing such as “Hong Kong, Canada” where the text itself is meant to challenge one bias – but inadvertently creates a new one?

Recognizing and meeting the needs of ELL students can be difficult in a Drama Classroom – or so I discovered during my short practicum at Killarney Secondary, because there are fewer explicit indicators that these students might be struggling. I understand that is my responsibility as a teacher to get to know my students in order to make my classroom a space that is accessible to everyone, and after revisiting my school last Tuesday, I now realize that I still have a long way to go.

I witnessed an event that I’m having difficulty unpacking that involved a Grade 9 ELL student. On the day of my visit, the Grade 9’s were performing short scenes using 3 or 4 lines of dialogue while portraying different stock characters. However, after the student in question performed, my SA made a particular point of applauding his work, and exclaimed that “I’m so proud because, as the class may or may not know, English is not your first language – and you did very well. The character and the dialogue were very clear. Well done.” This comment was extremely sincere, in fact, it was apparent to me that my SA was quite emotional during this moment.

At first, I too was swept up by my SA’s enthusiasm in the heat of this moment. I felt that it was a moment of positive encouragement for this particular student, and offered recognition his accomplishments during the scene. However, when I was at home reflecting on my visit like a good little B’Ed student – I realized that I was feeling conflicted about what had happened. Even though it’s clear to me that my SA singled this student out to compliment him, by doing so he also highlighted that because “English is not [his] first language,” he is different from his classmates. The implicit message of this could be “I have different (ie. lower) expectations of you,” and by pointing this out to the class, it might actually change how this student is regarded by his peers.

So now I’m at an impasse, (and would appreciate input from my classmates). Is it better to single out our ELL students for the purpose of recognizing their progress – or does that only further separate them from the classroom community? What does the alternative look like?
Help!

The opportunity to write for pleasure is often decreased significantly after a certain age and become limited to writing solely for school assignments. At the same time, it can be difficult for secondary students to try out and experiment with new vocabularies in assignments when they count towards their marks. In example, I remember a friend back in secondary school who always had marks taken off of his assignment for using words from the thesaurus in a context that does not make sense. This in turn results with discouragement in his exploration of new words in writing activities that are forms of assessment. I believe that although they should be corrected, students should not be penalized for these attempts, as it is through these trial and errors that they learn the usage of different vocabularies.

The informal writing activities discussed in chapter eight represented activities that are low in stress where students will not be penalized for trying out new words. I also like these activities in that they can be incorporated in different subject areas. For a Home Economics class, there may be little chance for students to practice writing if the class followed a repeated cycle of demonstration – lab – demonstration – lab format. However, activities like “try these terms” can easily be implemented during the end of a lesson. I especially like the “perspective papers” activity as well as I can ask students to write in the perspective of various types of nutrients and allow them to practice narrative writing as well. Food culture and history of different cuisines can also be incorporated with this activity by having students write in the perspective of the historical person, or specific dish in relation to cultural significance.

When looking at assessments in school, students are constantly worried about their percentages and grades and how they are being marked. This is no exception in physical education as students are constantly asking what they are getting and how they can be improved. In the new curriculum coming out for physical education, one of the changes might be to change the grades in physical education so that there is still letter grades but no percentages attached to the grades.This is a little confusing because teachers will still have percentages of the students when calculating their letter grades. So basically students will receive only letter grades on their report card, but if they care about their marks and want to know where they stand in the spectrum of that letter grade they can just go and ask their teacher. It does not make sense to do this in one subject only and I do not believe that students will be very happy about it. I understand the fact of trying to make school less about grades to make students more intrinsically motivated to do well instead of being extrinsically motivated to get a better percentage. This being said the world we live in you students and young adults is all about grades, therefore students will be extrinsically motivated. To be able to get into a university students need to have extremely high grades to be competitive to get into the programs that they want and the scholarships that they might need. I do not believe that removing percentages in physical education will change anything with the grading because as noted before teachers are still going to have their percentages.

Coming from the subject area of home economics, I definitely do not see how certain types of assessment such as utilizing standardized testing would fit into my subject area. However, thinking about other subjects I feel that it is difficult to completely turn away from standardized testing. Subjects such as Math, Chemistry, Biology, etc. that are subject to provincial examination really puts teacher under pressure of following the same format of assessment during the school year. A teacher that uses other types of assessment, which may be beneficial for certain number of students, can create discrepancy between class marks and provincial exam marks. A student that performs well in oral assessments may not perform well under pressure when answering multiple-choice questions.

A discrepancy that is greater than 40 percent requires that the provincial mark be used entirely to represent the student’s final mark, whereas in regular cases a 40% provincial and 60% class mark is used.  Therefore, if a student really does not respond well to standardized tests however participates and performs well during classes, the classroom mark is still ignored and the standardized test is recognized. Furthermore, standardized testing also makes it difficult for teachers to adopt different teaching styles when they are concerned with covering all materials for students to be able to write the provincial exam. As much as the push for less standardized testing be used in the classroom and more emphasis on depth rather than amount of topics covered in class, the education system seem to still favour the traditional teaching styles and make it difficult for teachers to adopt otherwise.

The class on assessments really got me thinking about what it will be like during my long term practicum and how on earth am I going to assess the kids!!!

During class the group gave students and activity for the students to do. One was to write a ridiculously hard test and the other was discussion based with others at our table and unknown to us the group leaders would walk around and “assess” how we were performing in class. The test turned out to be fun since we understood there was no pressure behind it. I think it was evident from Kathy’s drawing of a cat to answer the last question. It was the second activity that sparked my interest. During the activity a group member walked by and assessed a fellow classmate while I had just finished contributing what I had believed to be valuable insight to the discussion. However, another table member began with, “I believe,” and then was assessed with a contributes well to the group! To be honest I felt slighted after I had just said my piece. Others felt this way too. Ren had been assessed with something along the lines of “not talking about the topic”, which to her seemed like a very unfair assessment. The group explained that this was just one method and it is easy for a teacher to assess incorrectly if they happen to just walk by at the one moment of fault by the student.

Because of this activity it got me thinking about how do I assess kids in drama. I have been a firm believer that, especially in lower grades in high school, it is more important about the process rather than the final product. Some teenagers can work brilliantly when other are working around them and the focus isn’t directed on one person. When a student has to do their final performance they may develop a little bit of stage fright. With that said I believe that it is very important to observe closely how students work on their performances before they present. But how do I do this and not assess incorrectly? Hypothetically with 30 students in a class and working on 2 people scenes how do I make sure that I have assessed these kids correctly and not judge them possibly by one incident? There are the obvious examples if students aren’t focussed if they are talking with other groups or trying to sneak a look at their phones but what if I walk by and a student is telling a story that actually helps to relate back to their scene? A drama class can be like organized chaos and sometimes I just have to accept it!

This class has taught me to properly assess I can’t just walk around the class monitoring and dropping my ear in to groups every so often but really engage with the groups as they work and constantly ask questions to see if they are progressing and them let them continue.

I have several reasons for being wary of giving out grades in school. The effects of grades on the reason for students to learn and the type of learning they engage in is one of the reasons and was brought up by Kohn in his article, “The Case Against Grades.” Another reason that I’m not fond of giving out grades is because the current system of grading evaluates all students on the same scale and assumes that they are all capable of achieving the same success. Marks are given out of 100% but I question whose version of 100% that is. Not all students are able to achieve to the same level so I believe it would make more sense to grade students on how well they are learning compared to their individual potential. Of course, this opens a whole different can of worms about how to determine what a student’s potential is and the dangers of saying that some students have less potential than others.

I believe that the suggestion that Kohn gives is a solution to these issues. Rather than giving grades, give students qualitative feedback. I think this could be great for all subject areas. In many of the classes I have been in, which tend to be math classes, I have often heard the teachers talk about how students should reflect on their grades to determine their level of understanding. While grades may be an indication that students need to continue working on developing their understanding of the concepts, they are typically not very good at telling students exactly what it is they need to focus on. I think that giving qualitative feedback can help give students explicit feedback on specific areas they need to work on which has the potential to be more effective than having students attempt to interpret what their number or letter grade is trying to tell them. I think it is an interesting idea and would love to see if anyone has done research to test the effectiveness of this type of evaluation at the high school level.

Chapter 8

I like the idea that teachers need to teach grammar in context. As a former ELL student, I felt the disconnection between the grammar I was supposed to learn from the grammar worksheets and the essays I was writing in the English and Social Studies classes. One of my former students whom I tutored expressed her concern that while she was able to get correct answers on the grammar practice worksheets, she lacked the skills (ironically) to write grammatically correct sentences for her essays. Furthermore, I like the point that ELLs need to draw linguistic knowledge from good essay models. Teachers need to spend time with the students to point out the qualities that make a good essay for ELLs to model after. Since ELLs do not have the linguistic capital that mainstream speakers have due to their lack of exposure to a wide range of texts, teachers need to provide them the products that they are asked to create. Finally, teachers need to explicitly tell the students the difference between oral communication (which uses basic interpersonal communication skills or BICS) and writing in academic language (which requires cognitive academic language proficiency or CALP). Teachers need to tell the students that while the teacher may repeat key points during the lesson, such repetition is discouraged in formal essays. It is important that teachers do not assume ELLs to naturally pick up on the differences in the rules between the different genres (personal writing vs. formal essay) and modes of communication (writing vs. speaking).