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Self- and Peer-Assessment in BC: Reflection as Learning

Austin’s Butterfly reminds us of the transformational power of descriptive feedback and how even young learners can provide effective peer-feedback.

In the BC Curriculum, assessment helps students understand where they are, where they are going, and what they might try next. This aligns closely with the Know–Do–Understand model, where assessment is connected to Big Ideas, Curricular Competencies, and Core Competencies rather than treated as an isolated end-point task focused mainly on content.

Self- and peer-assessment invite students to notice, name, and nurture their learning. BC’s K–12 Student Reporting Policy requires student self-reflection on Core Competencies and student goal setting as part of reporting; it also emphasizes descriptive feedback that identifies strengths and areas for growth. In practice, this means reflection should not be a one-time report-card activity. It should be embedded throughout inquiry, play, discussion, design, writing, problem-solving, and performance tasks.

Research supports this formative approach. Dr. Andrade’s review of student self-assessment argues that self-assessment is most useful when it generates feedback students can use to improve work and deepen learning. A 2022 meta-analysis also found that self-assessment and peer-assessment interventions had meaningful positive effects on academic performance across studies. This suggests that students need clear criteria, accessible language, examples of quality work, time to revise, and opportunities to review and select evidence of growth. Performance Assessment and Portfolio Assessment (digital or analogue) are two approaches that align well in BC contexts.

Below are some resources to support an exploration or self- and peer-assessment including links to some videos and examples from teachers.

View

Dr. Heidi Andrade reflects on self- and peer-assessment. Dr. Andrade shares some of the key components of self- and peer assessment and recognizes the need to teach students how to assess themselves and their peers in order to cultivate a culture of critique:

or listen to Dylan Wiliam review the benefits of self assessment and peer assessment as key components of effective learning, and hear about some of the associated strategies.

Peer assessment from the perspective of students and teachers:

Read

Connecting with Core Competencies: The BC Core Competencies are central to K–12 learning, and students are expected to grow in Communication, Thinking, and Personal and Social competencies through meaningful “doing” across subject areas. Self-assessment is a key component of core competency development. See the BC Ministry resource, Developing and Supporting Student Reflection and Self-assessment and the example shared on TeachBC, the BCTF open resource repository: Core Competencies Self-Assessment K-1

The responsiveclassroom.org offers some suggestions for how we might teach students to self-assess (PDF) effectively as well as some detailed prompts and approaches to engaging students in reflection. See their PDF, Self-assessment and Goal Setting go hand-in-hand.

Examples

Classroom examples (generated with assistance from ChatGPT)

  • Primary classrooms (see POPEY for primary related assessment resources)
    • Picture-based Core Competency reflection: “I listened,” “I tried a new idea,” “I helped someone.”
    • Partner share using sentence frames: “I noticed…” and “Next time you could…”
    • Learning story portfolio entry with a photo, teacher scribing, and student voice.
    • Play-based self-assessment after centres: “What did I build, solve, share, or wonder?”
  • Intermediate classrooms
    • Co-created “I can” criteria for an inquiry, writing, or ADST design task.
    • Two stars and a wish peer feedback before final submission.
    • Gallery walk with sticky-note feedback linked to Communication or Thinking competencies.
    • Portfolio reflection: “My evidence shows growth because…”
  • Middle years classrooms
    • Peer feedback protocol for drafts: clarify, value, question, suggest.
    • Group collaboration reflection using roles, evidence, and next-step goals.
    • Student-led conference artifact selection: one strength, one challenge, one goal.
    • Proficiency-scale reflection connected to a curricular competency and a Core Competency.
  • High school classrooms
    • Peer review of essays, labs, performances, or design projects using discipline-specific criteria.
    • Seminar self-assessment on listening, evidence use, questioning, and respectful disagreement.
    • Capstone or portfolio reflection connecting course evidence to student growth and Core Competencies.
    • Post-assessment goal setting: “What feedback will I act on before the next task?”

The key is to make assessment dialogic rather than merely evaluative. Students should not simply rate themselves; they should learn how to interpret criteria, compare evidence, give respectful feedback, revise work, and set purposeful goals. Engaging students in ongoing dialogues about learning offers important modeling in support of creating a classroom culture that is safe and welcomes constructive feedback. Digital portfolios, student-led conferences, performance tasks, and reflective prompts are all strong BC-aligned ways to make learning visible for students, teachers, and families.

References

Andrade HL (2019) A Critical Review of Research on Student Self-Assessment. Front. Educ. 4:87. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2019.00087 https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/education/articles/10.3389/feduc.2019.00087/full

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by | May 15, 2026 · 12:13 pm
by | September 8, 2024 · 10:55 am

Performance Assessment: connecting teaching, learning, and assessment to support student

Performance Assessment is a way to integrate not only students’ knowledge and competencies but also the teaching and assessment process. By engaging in a more ‘real-world’ and authentic approach, students will learn in a more contextualized and deep way!

What is a performance assessment?

This type of assessment evaluates students’ knowledge in a more complex way because students need to show what they know and are able to do through a practical and contextualized activity (Darling-Hammond & Adamson, 2010). In this sense, students produce something, such as an experiment, a performance, a report, research, etc that materialize what they have learned.

Moreover, performance assessment gives teachers the space to think about assessment beyond a way of measuring student learning. This type of assessment is also an opportunity for student learning since they may understand better a concept or develop a new skill during a performance assessment (Darling-Hammond & Adamson, 2014).

Differences between performance task and performance assessment

The biggest difference between performance tasks and performance assessments is that the latter is designed for students to demonstrate a group of skills and knowledge acquired during a couple of performance tasks.

Teachers might design a series of three or four performance tasks (for example, one for each week of class). Each one of these performance tasks has the purpose of developing different skills and knowledge. Consequently, the final performance assessment of this course should give the opportunity to students to demonstrate all skills and knowledge developed during the four performance tasks.

One common way in which performance tasks  might be designed is through project-based learning where students are invited to develop a topic connecting classroom knowledge with some real world, community or contemporary topic (Lenz, Wells & Kingston, 2015).

Performance assessment has the purpose of helping teachers (and students) understand what students have (or have not) learned over a period by getting them to apply and practice in a contextualized situations.

How to design a performance assessment?

The National Science Teacher Association (NSTA) has an interesting article with steps to help you design a performance assessment. Below, we summarize these five steps:

Step 1: Unpack the performance expectation: Teachers should understand their expectations or in other words what they expect students to achieve at the end of the lesson/ classroom. Thus, teachers need to evaluate if the performance assessment is really accessing what they want. In this step, teachers can use curriculum standards to better align their expectations with the performance assessment.

Step 2: Identify a rich and authentic phenomenon: the richness of performance assessment is exactly its characteristic of being contextualized. Therefore, teachers should pay attention to choosing a phenomenon that allows students to apply their knowledge and skills in an authentic way.

Step 3: Develop prompts: teachers should develop prompts and questions that guide students throughout the process without taking them the opportunity to discover and test their hypotheses and assumption because these experiences are essential to produce deep learning.

Step 4: Create scoring guides: teachers should create rubrics or order types of scoring guides for students during the process. These guides help students to understand the different kinds of activities and levels of expectations teachers expect them to complete.

Step 5: Pilot, score, and revise: before putting performance assessments in practice, it would be important to test them to analyze if they attend what you want and identify possible problems.

Performance Assessment Tools and Resources

The Performance Assessment Bank, an open educational repository, includes resources for interdisciplinary studies and in several discrete subject areas including history/social studies, english language arts, science and math. In BC, a set of performance standards was developed to support teachers in designing assessments. Below are some additional resources:

References

Darling-Hammond, L., & Adamson, F. (2014). Beyond the bubble test: How performance assessments support 21st-century learning. John Wiley & Sons.

Darling-Hammond, L. & Adamson, F. (2010). Beyond basic skills: The role of performance assessment in achieving
21st century standards of learning. Stanford, CA: Stanford University.

Lenz, B., Wells, J., & Kingston, S. (2015). Transforming schools using project-based learning, performance assessment, and common core standards. John Wiley & Sons.

 

Guest post by Peer Tutor Ariane Faria dos Santos (Ph.D. EDCP), Dec. 2021

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Filed under Active Learning, Assessment, Blog Posts, Curriculum, Language & Lit Learning, Lesson & Unit Planning, Math, Open Educational Resources, Planning, Resources, Science, Social Studies, STEAM

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by | September 4, 2024 · 10:33 am

Developing, interpreting, and accessing student thinking

According to Teaching Works Team (2022, May 9), eliciting students’ thinking involves classroom practices that develop, interpret, and access student thinking, such as questioning, discussions, and assessments with the purpose of identifying students’ prior knowledge, understanding, and misconceptions. It is a pedagogical approach where…

“Teachers pose questions that create space for students to share their thinking about specific academic content. They seek to understand student thinking, including novel points of view, new ideas, ways of thinking, or alternative conceptions. Teachers draw out student thinking through carefully chosen questions and tasks and attend closely to what students do and say. They consider and check alternative interpretations of student ideas and methods. Teachers are attentive to how students might hear their questions and to how students communicate their own thinking. Teachers use what they learn about students to guide instructional decisions and to surface ideas that will benefit other students. By eliciting and interpreting student thinking, the teacher positions students as sense-makers and centers their thinking as valuable” (Teaching Works Team, 2022, May 9).

Why is eliciting student thinking essential?

There are many reasons to teachers invest classroom time to elicit students’ thinking:

  • Value students’ ideas, competencies, and ways of seeing the world, changing the focus from the teacher to the students;
  • Understand students’ connections to previous knowledge, making learning meaningful;
  • support students’ deepen understanding of essential concepts in each subject matter, generating the development of high-level skills;

How can teachers elicit student thinking?

The Teaching Works Team (2022, May 9) suggests some steps teachers can take to develop, interpret, elicit, or assess students’ thinking:

  1. “Formulating and posing questions designed to elicit and probe student thinking, with sensitivity to how students might hear or respond to the questions
  2. Listening to and interpreting student responses
  3. Developing additional questions, prompts, and tasks to probe and unpack what students say”

To help you understand the specific features in each one of the steps of this cycle, you can check in the Teaching Works Team document.

Circular Model with Children at the Center where Teachers formulate questions design to elicit and probe student thinking, pose the questions, listen and interpret responses, develop additional questions and make sense of what students know and can do.

Source: Visual representation of eliciting and interpreting student thinking (Teaching Works Team, 2022, May 9).

Designing effective questions

Making questions to students is one of the most common and powerful pedagogical strategies used by teachers during the process of teaching and learning. Read the blog post “Asking Questions that promote deep learning” to learn more about asking effective questions.

Probing as a formative assessment

Another way that teachers can interpret students’ understanding is through formative assessment probes. Tobey and Arline’s books (2014) give many examples of how teachers can build formative assessment probes to identify misconceptions or prior knowledge that conducted students to develop their current way of thinking about specific contents or concepts in a subject area.

The difference between using assessment probes to evaluate learning and to understand students’ thoughts, is that the latter wants to reveal parts of the learning process and not its final results.  In this sense, the goal is to uncover the connections students have made during their learning. Another feature is that these types of formative assessment probes are designed to show students’ understanding of specific (and in general essential) knowledge of a subject. For example, Tobey and Arline (2014c, p. 5-7) claim that teachers should design assessments that allow uncovering students’ misconceptions about “area” and “volume”.

As a consequence of better understanding students’ thinking, teachers may be able to design new learning experiences to deepen or correct students’ conception at this point. Therefore, teachers may be able to improve the process of teaching and learning and deepen students’ understanding.

What does eliciting students’ thinking look like in different content areas?

The Teaching Works Team (2022, May 9) from the teacher education program of the University of Michigan shares some specific tips and classroom resources for different subjects:

More resources:

The course, Eliciting and interpreting, offered by the University of Michigan as part of their Teaching Works Collection of free and openly accessible resources, shares many classroom videos as examples of how to elicit students’ thinking. The videos discuss classroom situations and show how teachers can use these moments to better understand students’ thinking:

References:

Keeley, P., Eberle, F., & Farrin, L. (2005). Formative Assessment Probes: Uncovering Students’ Ideas in Science. Science Scope, 28(4), 18-21. http://pal.lternet.edu/docs/outreach/educators/education_pedagogy_research/assessment_probes_uncovering_student_ideas.pdf

NSTA (2022, May 9).Using Formative Assessment Probes With Real or Virtual Field Trips. https://www.nsta.org/science-and-children/science-and-children-septemberoctober-2020/using-formative-assessment-probes.

Ok Math Teachers (2022, May 9). Formative Assessment Probes. http://okmathteachers.com/formative-assessment-probes/

Teaching Works (2022, May 9). Eliciting and interpreting. The University of Michigan. https://library.teachingworks.org/curriculum-resources/teaching-practices/eliciting-and-interpreting/

Tobey, C., & Arline, C. (2014a). Uncovering student thinking about mathematics in the common core, grades k-2. SAGE Publications, Inc.

Tobey, C., & Arline, C. (2014b). Uncovering student thinking about mathematics in the common core, grades 3-8. SAGE Publications, Inc.

Tobey, C., & Arline, C. (2014c). Uncovering student thinking about mathematics in the common core, grades 6-8. SAGE Publications, Inc.

Tobey, C., & Arline, C. (2014d). Uncovering student thinking about mathematics in the common core, high school. SAGE Publications, Ltd.

Guest post by Peer Tutor Ariane Faria dos Santos (Ph.D. EDCP), Aug. 2022.

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by | July 4, 2024 · 10:57 am

BC Curriculum: Core Competencies

Understanding the Core Competencies

Core competencies of Thinking, Personal and Social, Communication

from: https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/competencies

According to the Ministry of Education, there are some essential understandings related to the Core Competencies and how they are connected with the other parts of the BC Curriculum:

  1. “The Core Competencies are sets of intellectual, personal, and social and emotional proficiencies that all students need in order to engage in deep, lifelong learning”
  2. “Along with literacy and numeracy foundations, they are central to British Columbia’s K-12 curriculum and assessment system and directly support students in their growth as educated citizens”
  3. “Students develop Core Competencies when they are engaged in the ‘doing’ – the Curricular Competencies – within a learning area” and, therefore, are an integral part of the curriculum.
  4. Even though the Core Competencies manifest in different ways, they are interconnected and are foundational to all learning.
  5. Core competencies are developed throughout the whole students’ life (before, during, and after school graduation, both inside and outside school settings). For these reasons, schools should not only value and integrate students’ knowledge acquired outside school but also give opportunities to students to learn and/or improve these competencies.

The BC Curriculum has three Core Competencies:

Communication

These are the competencies that students should develop to establish healthier relationships with others. In this sense, students should develop two groups of communication competencies:

    1. Communicating: BC curriculum identifies three facets (skills) that students should develop to active a good communication:
      • Connecting and engaging with others
      • Focusing on intent and purpose
      • Acquiring and presenting information.
    2.  Collaborating: BC curriculum identifies three facets (skills) that students should develop to be able to collaborate with others:
      • Working collectively
      • Supporting group interactions
      • Determining common purposes

Thinking

These are the competencies that students should develop to improve their intellectual development and produce new understandings:

    1. Creative Thinking: BC curriculum identifies three facets (skills) that students should develop:
      1. Creating and innovating
      2. Generating and incubating
      3. Evaluating and developing
    2. Critical Thinking and Reflective Thinking: BC curriculum identifies four facets (skills) that students should develop:
      • Analyzing and critiquing
      • Questioning and investigating
      • Designing and developing
      • Reflecting and assessing

Personal and Social

These are the competencies that students should develop to help them understand their own identity in the world. There are three facets within personal and social:

    1. Personal Awareness and Responsibility
    2. Positive Personal and Cultural Identity
    3. Social Awareness and Responsibility

The BC Curriculum recognizes that Core Competencies are developed inside and outside of school. Consequently, students, teachers, and parents/ guardians have different responsibilities and roles in the process of developing Core Competencies.

To guide students, teachers, and parents/ guardians in understanding how students develop proficiency in the Core Competency, the Ministry of Education has articulated profiles, or levels in the progression of development of each one of the Core Competencies. See an example on the BC government website

How to assess Core Competencies?

Assessment is another big challenge related to the Core Competencies but essential to guarantee that each student is developing them. BC Curriculum suggests that students should self-assess their own Core Competencies, but teachers have an essential role in developing strategies and tools to support students in this task.

Several school districts have published resources to help teachers engage in articulating and helping students self-assess the core competencies:

The Provincial Outreach Program for the Early Years (Popey) has some resources including PPTs with assessment examples  to support teachers implementation in  primary and pre-primary contexts.

Teacher Kerri Hutchinson from Surrey Schools explains and gives many examples of how she has developed and supported her students to self-assess Core Competencies:

Additional resources:

If you are looking for suggestions of how to develop the Core Competencies in your classroom, the UBC Education Library has a Core Competency booklist to support teachers in this work.

References:

Ministry of Education (2022, February 25). BC Curriculum Core Competencies. https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/competencies

Guest post by Peer Tutor Ariane Faria dos Santos (Ph.D. EDCP), Feb. 2022.

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by | June 30, 2024 · 7:02 pm

Know Do Understand (KDU): a starting point in planning

section header - what is it?

The BC curriculum’s more concept and competency based curriculum, expects that teachers combine Big Ideas, Contents, and Competencies as they plan learning experiences for their students. The purpose is to create clear goals which will guide teachers to design assessments and activities to develop concepts and skills in their students.

section header - why is it relevant

The “Know-Do-Understand” Model (KDU) can provide a simple initial planning structure can can support planning with the end in mind (backwards planning). It allows you to consider the connection with and between areas of the curriculum. Think of it as a cycle – The big idea is what you want the students to ultimately understand as a result of their learning; The Know section is the curricular content… they need to know this in order to develop their understanding of the Big Idea; The DO section is what you want the students to be able to Do by the end of the unit (the skills they will practice throughout the Unit that help them learn the content and develop their understanding of the Big Idea(s)!) Wrapped around all of this are the Core Competencies (more about those in the video below and later posts)

 

The BC Ministry provides background on the KDU model in this “Starting Points in Planning” PDF. The video below, titled: KDU Model, was created by Lexie, UBC Teacher Ed Peer Mentor 2020-21, and provides a very brief overview of how to consider Know-Do-Understand as you plan for teaching and learning in your context.

Here is a blog post from Ariane, peer mentor Winter 2021-22, sharing her approach to planning as she learns more about our BC curriculum.

Planning Templates as starting points:

Below we offer a few templates that align with the KDU approach. Please remember, there is no ONE approach or specific template that is required when planning for your learners. Please feel free to use, modify, adapt & share. Additional samples can be found on the Teacher Education ‘Designing Learning’ blog.

The BC Ministry of Education provides some instructional samples including this overview or lesson brief of a primary Math Unit “Patterns and Circles” and this more elaborated lesson plan example “Collapse of a Society” for Middle Years learners.

 

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by | April 11, 2023 · 4:02 pm

Digital Tools for Assessment

WHAT IS IT?

Digital assessment refers to the practice of having students demonstrate their understanding of objectives using technology and/or digital platforms and tools. Using digital technologies for formative assessment enables the teacher to hear from all students, rather than just the loudest, most eager ones. Digital tools can provide teachers with real-time results in terms of students’ understanding enabling them to modify/ adjust their lesson to better meet their students’ needs. Embedding digital technology makes assessment easier thanks to automation; it can ease the burden on staff while simultaneously improving student learning.

WHY IS IT RELEVANT?

Using educational technologies for students’ assessment saves time, offers immediate feedback, and is highly motivating for students. Using technology also enables teachers to better accommodate students of varying abilities and levels through built-in accessibility features (such as speech to text and text to speech).

HOW TO GET STARTED

Begin by diving into one or two different digital assessment platforms at a time and trying them out with your students- there is a lot out there and you don’t want to overwhelm yourself. The features available vary from tool to tool. Below are some examples and descriptions of digital assessment platforms available:

These digital quiz platforms are a great way to reinforce concepts and can be used as formative assessments.

Interactive learning games that engage students by immersing them in a live gaming environment. Students play the game while answering trivia/ review questions along the way.

Tools that transform lessons into active, collaborative learning experiences, by allowing the teacher to assess student understanding on the fly. Students are given a code to log into the lesson and participate live in polls, quizzes, and activities. Transforms lessons into interactive

Create online forms and surveys with multiple question types  in minutes, send to anyone, and see results in real time.

Boost students’ collaboration and engagement with these digital platforms. Students can add content to the shared sites (including images, audio, and video files).

A safe space for student expression and creativity, where students can express their ideas asynchronously in short video, text, and audio messages.

Students can demonstrate their understanding using Slides and use Docs to organize their learning through learning journals.

Slideshow Resource

August Workshops_Assessment_2023.pptx

References

Guest post by Peer Tutor Tamara Jabboour and Ariane Faria dos Santos, October 2023.

 

 

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by | October 6, 2021 · 3:38 pm

All Class Response – engage & assess

Educators and researchers have long considered the benefits of students actively engaging in the classroom and how this can lead to gains in student learning. One way to achieve such engagement is by effectively incorporating all-class response or a student response system (SRS) as a part of your classroom assessment (and teaching) approaches.

Be sure to keep in mind that the efficacy of any student response system depends on the quality of the questions and how you use the system. You will learn, as part of your course work, how to develop effective questions (including multiple choice). This work will be helpful in selecting an SRS and constructing a poll or quiz for formative or summative assessment. Using an effective discussion strategy will increase the value of an SRS.

All class response (vs. hands up/volunteers), including the use of a digital student response system (SRS) can lead to greater student engagement.  Martyn’s 2007 article in Educause describes how the efficacy of assessments and increases in student learning are achieved when an SRS is coupled with socio-constructivist methods. The use of these systems along with student discussion, peer teaching and pair share can also lead to greater student satisfaction and engagement. All class response is in keeping with a large body of research supporting more inclusive approaches to assessment (Nagro et al, 2016)

Providing time for your students to share their questions and understandings is key to ensuring that learning is happening in your classroom. All-Class Response is one ‘type’ of strategy that can support engaging more, or hopefully all, learners and inviting (or even requiring) participation. Some of these strategies and tools can even support anonymity which may encourage students who are more reluctant to share orally. In some cases, responses of the group can be projected so that students are able to access the responses of others as they formulate their own thoughts.

All-Class Response and Student Response Systems (SRS)

High Tech

  • Mentimeter – polling software that allows for various types of response and graphical representations (plot graphs, bar graph, word cloud, tiled short answer response)
  • Poll Everywhere – students answer poll questions using browser, mobile app or text response
  • Socrative – create a class account to track responses, students answer using browser or mobile app
  • Answer Garden – instantly generates a word cloud of responses, no account needed
  • Kahoot – gameify learning in your classroom with ‘Kahoots’
  • Flip Grid – creating and sharing videos in a Microsoft learning tools environment (NB: many coast metro school districts use FlipGrid and other MSoft tools because of their Canadian data housing). It can also be used free as a stand alone tool.

Here’s a Student Response System Comparison Chart for an at a glance view of each of the above systems.

Low Tech

    • Plickers – all you need are free printable scan cards, a teacher account and one mobile device to record and track responses.
    • iClickers – a set of iclickers for Mac and PC are available on loan in the UBC Neville Scarfe Education Library.

No Tech – a small selection of strategies

  • Thumbs up, down, sideways
  • Red card/Green card – I had a laminated set so students could flip the cards (cards can mean yes/no, stop/go, or A/B or…?
  • Letter or number cards (each student has a set)
  • Mini Individual White Boards – to record and show responses
  • Sticky Notes – have students share their idea, question, word, wonder and place on the board, around the room, on charts. Sort and classify and organize to work with the ideas.
  • Placemat Activities: Large format paper on a desk (can be separated into grids or more free form depending on your purpose) allows a group of 3 or 4 students to share ideas at the same time. These could also be concept maps/Mind maps for even more critical thinking!
  • Write around the room: students pick a spot on the whiteboard and record responses. This could be combined with a small group discussion and one or two students then go to the board to record… space dependent though I know teachers who also use their windows and put chart paper up…

It is important to note that while these no tech approaches do not provide the anonymity that digital tools can afford, they can provide authentic opportunities for formative assessment and student voice. To leverage the ‘visibility’ of responses, a teacher might have students turn and look at the responses of others, have discussion about varied responses and even change their response.

Content co-creation and brainstorming:

Allow your students to co-create their understandings, share their ideas and questions can lead to deep learning. Here are just a few suggestions:

  • Padlet – this multi-modal response digital wall is great for brainstorming, checks for understanding and formative assessment (and now includes ability to add audio and drawing in addition to text, hyperlinks, video, images)
  • Concept mapping is a powerful tool for illustrating complex links between ideas (be they images or text). Many softwares allow for hyperlinking and embedding images and video. Mindmup is a browser based application that allows co-creation of a concept map across time and space (NB: co-creation seems to now be a paid level of access – I’m trying to find another option… Schools/Districts using Google Classroom will have co-creation access).

Some Considerations when employing Digital Tech:

  • BYOD and Access – bring your own device – Are there policies in place in my jurisdiction, school, district or are there rules in my classroom to consider? What about students who do not have access to a device? When pairing or grouping students and expecting one device in a group, do you know if the student who owns that device is willing to share it OR are there devices in the school you can borrow? What impact does it have on students when they do not have the same access as others?
  • FIPPA – Freedom of Information and Privacy Protection act – Students data should not be shared on non-Canadian housed servers… Am I protecting students data privacy? Do I have necessary permissions or consent? Am I engaging my students in critical digital literacy discussion around privacy & safety in a broader sense? School Districts will have policies in place that meet the informed consent requirements of FIPPA. Be aware of local policies. (See this helpful guide from BCTF to support teachers and parents)

Additional Resources & Strategies:

Chapter 4 of Leahy and Williams’, Embedding Formative Assessment, makes a case for ‘all student response’ and limiting teacher questions to only those that propel learning. This book is a valuable addition to any teacher’s library and clearly links theory with practical strategies and relevant advice. (UBC Library has a copy)

BackChannel Chat:

By allowing students to voice their ideas or ask questions during a lecture or class work period using electronic tools such as those built into most learning management systems and widely available free online, you are providing opportunities for students to ask just-in time questions, share thoughts and connect with one another; potentially increasing student engagement and learning. These potential benefits come with ‘management’ needs and requires the development of a set of expectations in the classroom that student can follow. This can take time, usually involves some trial and error but is a risk that may be worth taking when one considers the increase in student agency that can result from the moderate risk. The notion that engaging the ‘backchannel’ during lectures and classes can add a more active component to what are sometimes more passive forms of teaching is taking hold with the growth in BYOD (bring your own device) in secondary and post-secondary classrooms.

High Tech

  • Mentimeter is one ‘tool’ example. Many other SRS’s can be used in the same way.
  • Teams and Google Classroom have their own backchannels and response systems either built in or that can be integrated depending on District permissions and access.

Low/No Tech

  • Question box – allow students to note questions on a slip of paper and pop into a question box. I’ve also had students flag a page in their notebook prior to handing in with a sticky note.

Random Selection

This isn’t strictly speaking an all-class response strategy but may encourage participation. In some instances, it may be acceptable to have an understanding in the class or in a particular lesson that you may randomly call on students to respond to questions, to share ideas or their wonders. When using this strategy, it is important to ensure you are equitable and that you are considerate of your learners… if the questions is very high level and/or will likely NOT return an appropriate or correct response, then probably best to avoid this approach. If the question is accessible and you give prior warning and you are confident all learners will have the ability to at least make good attempts, then these approaches might be employed:

High Tech:

  • Random Name Generator – there are several available online including some developed for interactive whiteboards/Smartboards. Ensure you do not include full names or other identifying info and always check out privacy policies. I’ve played with this one (developed by a Principal in the UK) https://www.transum.org/software/RandomStudents/

Low/No Tech:

  • Popsicle Stick names, Playing Cards, Bingo card, etc – Teacher draws a name at random and student responds
  • The teacher might encourage more responses by providing students with tokens and asking that they try to ‘use’ a token during each class discussion… this can also help limit the ‘over-responders’ who sometimes don’t leave space for others (i.e. they can only ‘spend’ up to X tokens each discussion…)

The value of anonymous responses…

We know that adolescent learners appreciate, or some would even say require, the opportunity to participate anonymously. Due to their sometimes heavy reliance on peer approval, students at this age can be reluctant to share their views orally. For this reason, employing an SRS can give voice to quieter learners and generate more honest responses. Of course, anonymity comes with risks so be sure to consider the following:

  • How are responses published, shared or viewed?
  • Can I moderate responses? (i.e. can I see them and approve them before they are ‘live’ to the students)
  • Can students change their responses or provide multiple responses?
  • Can I archive or track student responses in some way? (do I need to?)
  • How will I respond if a student posts an inappropriate response?
  • How can I create a class climate the promotes risk taking and accountability?
  • consider small group response vs. individual response – students discuss their ideas and, using one device for the group, record their response… this can lessen the potential for inappropriate responses especially where the teacher is actively engaged in/with the class by circulating and checking in.

Closing Notes:

Remember that creating a positive classroom climate and cultivating a place of respect and value takes intention, time and patience on the part of the teacher.
Any tool or strategy may take practice. Give yourself (and your students) the benefit of trying something more than once. If it’s a tool, try allowing time to ‘play’ with it in a low stakes way so that students can learn the affordances.

References

Low-tech classroom response systems(Clickers). (n.d.). New York Tech. Retrieved October 26, 2023, from https://www.nyit.edu/ctl/blog/low-tech_classroom_response_systems

Nagro, S. A., Hooks, S. D., Fraser, D. W., & Cornelius, K. E. (2016). Whole-group response strategies to promote student engagement in inclusive classrooms. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 48(5), 243–249. https://doi.org/10.1177/0040059916640749

 

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