New Year–New Approach for Assessment

Many educators feel under pressure to provide daily grades for students, but is that kind of pressure conducive to evaluation? I don’t think so…not for teachers and not for students. I don’t want to be measured or evaluated everyday, and neither do students; moreover, daily grades are, by the nature of their chronology, scores acquired prior to the achievement of learning. Too often, daily grades are formative assessments misused to inform final grades rather than inform ongoing instruction.

So what’s the answer? One very practical approach that I used was “Notebook Scoring Day.” Students keep all of their graphic organizers, quizzes, notes and journals in a well-organized learning source (notebook).  Each two weeks or ten days, we would score the learning source (notebook)as a peer activity led by me, the teacher. I provide overheads exemplifying graphic organizer completion; I provide guidance as to the evauluation of journal entries; I point out essential aspects of adequate note-taking and students evaluate one another’s learning source based on quick read scoring. Some of the pieces included in learning source evaluation have already been scored by me, the teacher, but students are offered a “second chance” by making suggested corrections or edits noted in their feedback. This sort of scoring validate revision and correction while reinforcingthe learning process as recursive rather than linear in nature. On the chart below, notebook scoring would be placed just before portfolio–it is a compilation of self-assessment, informal feedback and rubric scoring.  Moreover, the nature of the assessment validates every learner with responsibility while allowing them views into how others complete like assignments and demonstrate proficiency. 

 In edtech literature, the process is assisted with technonogy and labelled assessment management. Although the process is reminiscnet of the portfolio, assessment management is more about formative assessment of learning than expressions of self. Through this less threatening and scaffolded assessment process, confidence is built and learning is made more effective.

Formative assessment enables students to improve on their levels of achievement prior to summative evaluation or grading.

 

Assessment management is a combination of self-assessment and teacher facilitation. The process focuses on student identificatoin of strengths and learning needs. As units progress, artifacts of practice and assessments are kept ”on file” in the student’s source book as a baseline measure of individual achievement which illustrates intellectual and skill growth.

The point is…instead of putting a score in a grade book everyday as work is completed, credit for work comes later as that work evolves from information into knowledge through feedback and intellectual / emotional change. Assessment management, somewhat like portfolios, values the process of learning by retaining pieces illustrating that learning; however, unlike portfolios, assessment management assesses artifacts primarily selected by teachers based on unit and learning objectives as the element of value.

An initial list of differences between portfolios and assessment systems:
	Portfolio	Assessment Management System
Purpose	Multiple purposes: Learning, Assessment, Employment	Single purpose: Formative and Summative Assessment
Audience	Potential for employers, future classrooms and teachers, etc.	Current classroom peers and teacher
Type of Data	Primary type of data: qualitative	Primary type of data: qualitative and quantitative
Locus of control	Student-centered	Institution-centered
Selection of Contents	Artifacts selected by portfolio developer	Artifacts prescribed by institution
Skills required	More advanced skills required, including varietal examples of content mastery	State and district standards measured; skills demonstrating all levels of accomplishment
Competency demonstrated	Medium to high, depending on tools used to create portfolio	Minimal skills rewarded; aims at sophistication

Technology and Understanding

After developing a conceptual argument through a Foucauldean lens, I sorted the language through Wordle for motifs and themes.

 

Checkout Wordle! This website is an easy way to create a visual representation of words through “clouds.” I tripped over this website while reading Jan Hart’s blog, E-Learning Pick of the Day (check this blog out!). Once I had seen and used Wordle, I couldn’t stop thinking about where its place was in the reality of our classrooms and it seems to me that we can use it to engage students in applying reading comprehension stratagies.

How to do that? The Wordle cloud is concept map of recurring words within a text; recurring words are signals for main ideas. After reading, have students identify main ideas and then sort the text words through Wordle to monitor conclusions. The word cloud can be used before reading, too, as a tool to activate prior knowledge and establish connections. The cloud can even inflence how kids visualize connections as they develop inferences.

The image above is the result of Wordle’s sifting of the words from a recent paper I wrote. The process is simple–you just insert text and Wordle does the rest. I copied and pasted my entire paper into the Wordle service space and Wordle did the rest, sifting through my langauge to arrive at a cloud representation of the ideas. Look at the Wordle and draw some conclusions about my paper and then read through my blog to see if the message I send in paragraph form has any semblance of the graphic you see above.

The Wordle graphic above is a conceptual representation of a theoretical argument regarding the efficacy of RtI: Response to Intervention.  I have spent much time this fall researching Response to Intervention as part of a doctoral class: Moral and Political Foundations of Educational Policy. The goal of the course was to examine the role of social and cultural theory in contemporary education. As a result, I spent hours reading and analyzing how educational theory affects practical application of policy and eventually classroom methodology, especially in how such theory plays out in meeting today’s challenge of the growing achievement gap.

One of the scariest acronyms in public education today is RtI: Response to Intervention. Really, as with anything else, it’s not the acronym that frightens, but the simplicity of nominalizing a complex, permeating educational approach. Cloaked in terminology like “individualized” and “achievement,” RtI aims at conformity and mediocrity in its quest to bring learners into the mainstream of educational thought and expectations.

Although RtI is not new, the method is new to many classroom teachers who have been teaching whole class style for years. The method is theoretically positive but practically, requires retraining and practice for teachers. The positive part of RtI is the benefit it potentially offers for all learners: find a learner’s specific need/s and learning styles and then use that information to build the bridge of understanding and excellence.

 

However, if used merely to meet mandated levels of AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress), RtI becomes just another “and this too shall pass” bandage on a chronically diseased system. To be effective, RtI requires professional development for teachers as they learn to approach whole class instruction with an eye for the particular and individualized. It also demands support for these teachers in terms of time and encouragement as they reshape habituated methods into new “best practices.” In an absence of time and money, i.e. support, the concept of RtI intimidates classroom teachers, building administrators, and educational theorists.

High School Challenge: Challenging Schools to Challenge their Own Thinking!

Attended a two-day seminar in Bloomington, Illinois this week–the High School Challenge. The event was sponsored by Coalition for Illinois High Schools, a medley of twenty+ educational groups, among them the Illinois Principals Association. The keynote speakers were top-notch: Debra Pickering from Marzano’s think tank in Colorado and Dr. Douglas Reeves, founder of The Leadership and Learning Center. They were an interesting mix….Pickering provided practical examples and Dr. Reeves quoted research complete with citations. More than that, the topics they addressed are real concerns for teacher and administrators in Illinois and around the country.

The focus seemed to be on grading, though topics like vocabulary and gender gaps were part of the discussion. Both speakers addressed some of the minutie that teachers continue to preach and test, and both speakers addressed the challenge of meeting the needs of diverse audiences. Pickering and Reeves both drew on personal stories of their children and how different siblings can be and learn. Part of that discussion comes from Reeves research on 90/90/90 and the myths that low SES and minority kids are destined to perform at levels significanly lower than white middle class kids.

Both speakers offered workable solutions to the current A, B, C, Dilemma. Grades, as they are used today, demoralize some students while giving a false sense of intellectual security to others. Students who both 1) know how and 2) are willing to play the game of school can probably earn grades that will get them a diploma and maybe even garner them college entrance. But the fact of the matter is that most kids today are taking remedial classes in their freshman year either in English, math or both! What does that say about high school math and English?

Part of the discussion over the two day sessions dealt with methods classroom teachers can and should take to not only to more effectively evaluate, but to teach through engagement! Assessment should be a tool for engagement, not the dreaded testing situation that it has been made to be, not just because of NCLB, but through the epochs of testing as we knew it ourselves. Tell me, honestly, who ever looked forward to a test. The greatest concern I usually had was whether the teacher would test over the material that I had studied or would h/se pick some obscure fact or perhaps something not so obscure, but equally out of my reach because the information didn’t resonate with me. Twenty years later, that is my own children’s nightmare before testing. We just don’t learn. (kinda funny, isn’t it…we want our kids to learn what we think is important, but we don’t learn what research and past practice shows us is detrimental to achievement!)

In my last few years of teaching, I worked with a team of teachers on an “integrated curriculum.” We worked as a team incorporating literature, social studies, and science. Amidst that, we ensured that essential vocabulary was taught and that various ways of knowing were actively addressed. And get this…we had NO tests. All grades were based on projects and those projects offered choice both in their composition and in the lengths students chose to go in proving their mastery of content and skill. They were motivated…most of the time. And that, I must say was the finest hour of my teaching, partly due to the results but mostly due to the comradery of teachers and students. We were all learning and we were doing it together.

Back to the “High School Challenge…” One of the ideas I took to in grading was not to list grades in the book by test or quiz and the date, but by what the assessment measured…and that made me wonder why we couldn’t change our grading so that instead of having a composite score for an assessment, why couldn’t we write better assessments that truly measured what we had taught and break our grade books down into those goals rather than dates. Then, in any given assessment, we may be able to measure the students’ level of proficiency that way….once they were proficient in the skill or the knowledge, then move on…or at least they could. One way we lose kids is through repetition. They get tired of making the diorama or learning about the Battle of Gettysburg or defining a simile. Every content area is guilty of redundant malignancy.

Just a few thoughts….

 

 

On-line Databases of Student Performance

Attended a great meeting today that offered an overview of several student achievement databases. Illinois Interactive Report Card once held the spotlight in online tools for comparing academic performance, but there are a growing number of intriguing and user friendly sites giving that NIU site a run for the money! Let me offer you an introduction to some ”up and comers…”

School Data 4 All was one of the impressive sites we explored. Our presenter, Jennifer Ross, President of School Data 4 All and Director of Education Policy and Initiatives with the Illinois Business Roundtable, did a great job. She knows all of these sites inside out!! What makes this site different is that rather than just looking at schools and districts, this service tracks your students. There is a fee for access, but with the access fee you are also provided with data input and programmers who will also track student data on nearly all of the standardized tests offered: Explore, Plan, ACT, PSAE, ISAT, ITBS, and on and on. Moreover, it will track this data for as many years as you have the numbers, backwards and forwards. Taking all of this into consideration, the fee is not only reasonable fee, it is a downright steal! I’m not going to quote prices because I don’t want to get them wrong, but we’re talking in the hundreds of dollars and the fee is based not on enrollment, but on physical buildings and/or the configuration of your district based on the state report card. Currently, the only views available to the public are those for WorkKeys, but this makes some sense since the site is developed to help you track individual students as well as compare districts with similar and varied demographics.

I’ll sound like Randy on American Idol, but “Check it out!”

NCEA has a national resource that allows you to compare your school and/or your district’s performance against other districts–the difference between your district’s performance and top districts’ performances they label as the “opportunity gap.” Interesting euphemism. This site also offers Best Practices organized five themes. Within each of these themes, the district, the school and the classroom are addressed. Beyond that, you can search for schools with similar demographics of your own school and find out what they are doing to meet the needs of students and AYP.  It does more than that. You can also set your school up for a survey or Best Practice Audit that I understand is free or nearly free. If you go to the audit page, you’ll see Self-Audits and note that those are closed to public viewing. I understand these audits are brief.

Brief being a relative term…the NCEA audit can be completed in a matter of minutes…that compared to the lengthy process of conducting a Survey of Enacted Curriculum. This link goes to a great PDF file that give an overview and visual representation of the survey results. I really like thhis tool–at least what it provides! The cost is low; charged per teacher for completion of the survey, so you can make decisions regarding what you want to focus on and choose your teacher respondents accordingly. It is graphically appealing; it conveys much information with map like graphics. However, I understand that it is a bit time consuming, but then, the information is both deep and broad concerning what really gets taught in a classroom compared to what the district expects to be taught and on top of that, overlays student achievement. Lots of information. More on that in another blog.

 

 

 

 

 

Notions about Assessment. 538 Final Post

I really enjoy posting to this blog and though the class that required I begin this writing ends next week, I vow to continue posting to this blog site. I have decided (Oh, reminds of me of a choir song….”to follow…” join in….) that in blogging I can assess my own stance and thinking about a myriad of questions that dance around in my mind. Sometimes, words fly out of my fingers that I never would have spoken…and I surprise myself.

We’ve been looking at assessment in 538–focusing on rubics. I like rubrics as assessments; I’ve been using them in teaching for twenty years. But sometimes, they become too staid and fail to reflect changes that occur over time or with interests. Sometimes, rubrics ignore cognitive awareness and create benchmarks that fall too short or aim too high. Point being–rubrics are useful, but they need keep step with the learner.

Having used rubrics for twenty years, I find that holistic grading is sometimes as efficient. Now, perhaps that is the product of having created and applied a plethora of rubrics. Or it may go back to my nature as an English teacher. There are some creations (writing, PowerPoints, wikis, music, etc.) that are just at the top of the line and you know that in your gut and in your heart and really, in your mind. Sometimes, these creations break rules rather than follow them. And so, a proponent of rubrics, I believe both the evaluator and the creator need guidelines, but also need flexibility to recognize greatness that may fall somewhere beneath the “meets” category in puctutation or spelling or the incoroporation of four different media…because some other aspect of the scored work is beyond the rubric’s ability to credit excellence. Rubrics, though a guide for both the evaluator and the evaluated, can sometimes be limiting. But then, isn’t that their function, to limit the bounds of the evaluator and provide a perimeter for the creator to work within? I love it when considerations of reality evoke questions rather than answers.

For me, that is one of the great powers of blogging…to be able to share reflections of my thoughts through a print medium that can be viewed in the light of day by others who may or may not agree.

Notions and Assessment.538 #3

Wow! What a week! Technogized by the FOE virtual conference…postings and presentations, acquainting myself with educators who are totally immersed in educational technology….drawing on their energy and knowledge to boost my own.

Through FOE, I became part of an active dialogue regarding the learning that goes on in a wiki…or whether learning occurs in a wiki! How serendipitous for me since wikis are the focus of my summer energy. I am developing a hybrid professional development workshop that incorporates f2f, a course management system and a wiki for the purpose of bringing middle and high school teachers into the Web 2.0 fold. When I get my wiki all done, I’ll post and link it through this blog and get some feedback.

And, I’ve been reading…Assessing Online Learning. Got to chapter 4, “Online Collaborative Assessment: Unpacking Process and Product”and was reminded of a series of workshop trainings I received as a high school teacher based on the Richard Stiggins model. I really bought into his stance regarding process and product, formative and summative assessments, and the difference between assessments for learning and assessments of learning. During our training and the subsequent development of an informal study I conducted with my 11th grade students, we “unpacked” the Illinois Learning Standards as they applied to reading in developing a standards based curriculum focused on the end product. The whole process is much like like Wiggins’ Backward by Design and frankly, very amenable to development on wikis. Are you hearing the theme?

But the week wasn’t over and I was far from finished in connecting wikis with what I read. My teaching background you picked up from the previous paragraph is English–which to me is all about communication…and so I am focused on reading and writing and listening and speaking. That’s why I am so confident the wiki can help teachers help kids to be come better readers, which is really all about thinking. And now I’m back to Assessing Online Learning again, chapter five: Using Virtual Learning Models to Enhance and Assess Students’ Critical Thinking and Writing Skills. Wikis are all about communication: reading and talking with others in order to make meaning and then communicating that meaning with others to refine, define, extend, create more meaning that again gets communicated and sifted through the thought processes of another to go the gamut again.

These texts I’ve referenced: written, spoken, virtual, all come full circle to what is going on as I write…I am reconstructing, if very briefly, the texts that have engaged me this week; I am constructing meaning as I connect one to the other through reflective and cognitive thought, questioning their origins and relationships, and now, I am communicating those thoughts to you, looking for someone to challenge and extend my thoughts in an intellectual and fun exchange.

Has anyone ever actually had a learning experience in a wiki? Has anyone ever had a learning experience in a blog? Is it possible to have an experience and not learn? I pose those as rhetorical questions, but you can chew on them if you like and if you are further moved, let me know what your notions are about such theoretical meanderings.