After s brief presentation from Jenna on FoE Grad Photos by Artona, we got down to the business of LLED.
Group Presentation Organization
We developed the following schedule for the 20-minute presentations:
and here’s the task handout and the rubric for easy reference:
Writing Assessment Task, Part 2
As an intro, I mentioned that some goals for this task were to:
- Introduce you to the Performance Standards
- Encourage you to engage in professional conversations about assessment
- Increase the reliability (repeatability of your measurement) and validity (were you right?) of your writing assessment
- Examine how to determine weaknesses in writing and consider strategies to address these areas of need
Next, we did a Carousel Brainstorming / Graffiti activity aimed at listing strategies to address weaknesses in student writing. Here’s how I structured the activity:
- Each TC received a bullet point from the Not Yet Meeting column of the Grade 8 Writing Personal Essays and Opinions Quick Scale Here’s the list of all 10 bullet points: Gr 8 Writing PE & O QS NYM Bullet Points
- Find others with your bullet point and get a piece of chart paper and a pen
- Write your bullet point as the title on your paper
- Brainstorm a list of ideas you could use in classroom instruction to address bullet point – the weakness in the student’s writing – for 2 minutes.
- Move to a different paper when given the signal.
- Add your ideas to the paper you’ve arrived at.
- Repeat the “move and add” process.
- When asked to stop moving, highlight the 2 or 3 best ideas on the page you have in front of you.
- Report those ideas out to the class.
Asessing Your Writing Samples
At last, we got down to the assessment of the writing samples you’d brought to class. Here’s the process we followed:
Your In-Class Writing Sample Assessment Task is due on Thursday, 3 February 2011. You may choose to hand me a hard copy of the task in class or you may mail it to me (You’ll need to scan the writing samples into PDFs, I suppose). Here’s the task handout for your reference:
Here are the parts that you must include when submitting the task:
- The Task Write Up
- Part 1: Analysis:
- Part 2: Reflection
- The Generic Rubric Sheet that shows your marking of the highest and lowest rated pieces. Here’s a .doc file of that sheet: Writing Quick Scale Generic Rubric
- The actual Quick Scale Rubric from the Performance Standard that you used to assessed the pieces
- The writing samples themselves
Here’s an example of a task that you can look at to see a exactly what each piece of the puzzle should look like and how it should be put together.
I’ll set aside some time in class on Thursday, 27 Jan for assessment task-related questions, if you have them.
Assessment and Reporting Resources
While the assessment process is a complex one, there are many resources available to help you out. One excellent source of information is the BC Ministry of Education website’s page on Classroom Assessment and Student Reporting. On this page, you will find the following info:
Key Links and Resources
- BC Performance Standards
- Integrated Resource Packages (IRPs)
- Principles for Fair Student Assessment Practices (PDF, 177KB)
- Rethinking Classroom Assessment with Purpose in Mind
- Student Reporting
Other Related Resources
- Addressing Student Differences: Next Steps (PDF, 166KB)
- Assessing Speaking Skills in Core French – Grades 8, 9 & 10 (PDF, 140KB)
- Assessing Speaking Skills in Core French – Grades 11 and 12 (PDF, 143KB)
- Assessment Handbook Series
- Reference Sets
- Starting Points: A Research Summary for Schools Planning Intervention Programs (PDF, 111KB)
- Permanent Student Record Instructions
- Adaptations and Modifications Guide (PDF, 139KB)
I reckon that’s enough for today.
Cheers,
– Lawrence