Involving the learner

NOTE:  This post is the fourth in a miniseries on Assessment and Evaluation in the classroom, aimed at providing support both to my teacher colleagues and to parents of school children. 

Part of good assessment involves making it clear to the student what the goals or expectations are for their learning, and then also involving them in thinking about their learning, reflecting on how they are doing, and encouraging them to identify what they do well and where they have room for improvement or further practice.



In this photo, we see a student-friendly visual rubric outlining the different achievement levels.

And here is an example of a rubric that can be used with students to assess their learning about a unit of study in math:

	I need some more teaching about this.	I need some help to practice this.	I can practice this on my own.	I am ready to help others with this.
Name each Canadian Coin and its value	I need a lot of reminders to help me with the names and values of the coins.	I need some reminders about the names and values of the coins.	I know the names and values of the coins, but I sometimes make a mistake	I know the names and values of the coins.  I am confident and I rarely make a mistake.
Find the value of a group of coins	With help, I can sometimes find the value of simple groupings of coins.	With help, I can usually find the correct value of some different groupings of coins.	On my own, I can usually find the correct value of some different groupings of coins.	On my own, I can almost always find the correct value of many different groupings of coins.
Given a group of coins, tell the value of the whole group	With help, I can sometimes tell the value with some accuracy.	With help, I can usually tell the value with good accuracy.	On my own, I can usually tell the value with good accuracy	On my own, I can almost always tell the value with great accuracy.
Given a value in cents, choose coins to represent that value	With help, I can show the value.  I can show it in one way.	I can sometimes show the value. I can show it in one or two ways.	I can usually show the value.  I can show the value in a few ways.	I can always show the value.  I can show the value in a few ways.

 

New Ways to Assess

NOTE:  This post is the third in a miniseries on Assessment and Evaluation in the classroom, aimed at providing support both to my teacher colleagues and to parents of school children. 

Whether you’re a parent or a teacher reading this blog, chances are high you spent over a decade in a traditional public education setting and you’re likely very familiar with your teachers using quizzes, tests, and pencil and paper assignments to assess your learning.  But good teaching practice today extends to using a much wider range of ways to assess student learning.  Today I’ll be offering some examples as a way to help parents recognize assessment activities that might be happening in their child’s classroom and as a way to offer inspiration to teaching colleagues looking for fresh ideas.

 

·         Observing students and making notes on a chart or post-it notes

·         Conferencing with students

·         Having students do hands-on tasks

·         Using a checklist

·         Asking students to self-assess their learning

·         Asking a student to quiz the teacher by creating a question for the teacher, and then verifying if the teacher has the correct answer

·         Looking through a portfolio of work

·         Asking students to give a presentation

·         Students teach a skill or concept to their peers

·         Asking students to show their answer in more than one way

·         Asking students to write a journal or blog about their learning

What does Assessment look like?

NOTE:  This post is the second in a miniseries on Assessment and Evaluation in the classroom, aimed at providing support both to my teacher colleagues and to parents of school children. 

What does Assessment look like?

Assessment takes place before, during and after every kind of learning.  It can be either formal or informal.  It can include traditional tests, quizzes and pencil and paper assignments.  But it also includes observation, presentations, performance tasks, interviews, checklists, and ongoing oral and written student work.  Because a lot of today’s assessment is informal and ongoing it may not appear visible to parents and sometimes not even to the students themselves.  But the effective classroom teacher is keeping checklists, observation notes, anecdotal records, and maybe even photographs of student work to help him/her make decisions about the student learning that happens in their class every day.

Here assessment looks like a student using what she knows about floating and sinking to design a “boat” that will hold 10 marbles. She explains her design to the teacher and the class, and the teacher takes  a photo to include in the student’s folder for easy reference when it is time to complete the end of unit evaluation.

Assessment might also look like a standard diagnostic tool.
Here, a running record offers good diagnostic information as well as indications of progression in student reading and comprehension. 

What are Assessment and Evaluation?

NOTE:  This post is the first in a miniseries on Assessment and Evaluation in the classroom, aimed at providing support both to my teacher colleagues and to parents of school children.  

 

I think probably every parent of a school-aged child has wondered at one time or another just how teachers take a whole lot of class work and assignments and projects and stuff and somehow know how and what kids are learning, and then take the next step of turning it all into a grade and a comment on a report card.  I think it’s equally probable that every teacher or teacher candidate has wondered that too at some point in their career.  Teachers often talk about “assessing” and “evaluating” but sometimes it all sounds like a secret language.

This series on “Teachable Moments” aims to demystify current assessment and evaluation practices  for parents and for teachers who are either beginning their teacher practice or who want an opportunity to review and reflect on their teaching practice and perhaps get some new tips and ideas to implement in their classrooms.

Let’s start with what is the difference between assessment and evaluation.

What is Assessment? 
Assessment is the ongoing activity of collecting information and evidence about what a student knows and how they are learning, as well as how they are able to apply that information to other situations.  It includes looking at how a child learns. The teacher uses assessment to determine what a student has learned, needs to work on, and the best way to help them learn based on their learning style.

What is Evaluation?

Evaluation takes place at the end of a segment of learning.  It involves a judging of a student’s skills and demonstration of understanding in a particular area based on an established set of criteria.  In the public school system, the established criteria are the provincial curriculum guidelines for your child’s grade.  (You can see the Ontario curriculum documents and student exemplars on the Ministry of Education website here.)  The evaluation will most often be communicated by a grade on a report card summarizing  student’s achievement in an area of study, accompanied by a written comment on their progress in that area.

Candy from a Baby

Whoever said taking candy from a baby is a piece of cake ... has never tried to pry a half-eaten jolly rancher out of a toddler's hair.

Reading Buddies

One of the most common sights around here these days is my two girls reading books together.  Chloe loves to drag a book over to Maya and ask her to read it.  Maya happily obliges, "reading" the story from memory.  I love eavesdropping on them having conversations about the pictures and the stories.

Maya starts the day off by reading a book to Chloe

Debt Free Christmas Challenge

Check out my latest initiative: the Debt Free Christmas Challenge. 

You know I'm frugal and completely debt-adverse. Now I'm helping others navigate the challenge of overspending during the holidays. 

Just a test post

Just testing to see if I can post.  We've upgraded our PC to Windows 8 and some things aren't working well with it yet.

Me Time

Yesterday morning, as I drove myself to the local mall with the music turned up loud I began singing along loudly (and shamelessly off-key) to a pop song with less-than-child-friendly lyrics. That's when the sense of giddiness really hit me.  You see, I was on my way to the mall ALONE, no children in tow.  To shop for stuff for ME.  No groceries, no home decor, no children's birthday gifts, just new clothes for ME. 

It felt strange to just park and walk into the mall.  No stroller to unfold, no child carrier to strap on, no children to herd.  Amazing.  I had a spring in my step.

Then my day got even better.  The clearance sale rack of my favourite clothing store was heavily populated with items in my size.  The regular racks also contained many markdowns.  The sales staff were friendly, but let me do my own thing.  For once, my dilemma lay not in finding something that fit, but in the fact that my "yes" pile grew so quickly that I began to become concerned my credit card might go into shock if I brought all of them home.  In all, after weeding down my selections a bit, I still came home with 13 new items.  THIRTEEN.  How will my friends recognize me if I'm not wearing the same rotation of 2 pairs of capris, 2 skorts, and 6 t-shirts that have become my mommy uniform?

And then, just to top off my morning, I made a quick side trip to Food Basics to pick up some milk and 18 bags of frozen berries (on sale this week for $2.49).  I drove home contentedly, once again singing off-key.

I probably need to get out more.