we ought to illicit student input when constructing rubrics
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ollie-afe-2018: Building a Better Mousetrap - 3 views
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Student input when creating rubrics would assist them in fully understanding the expectations set forth. It would be interesting to see examples of rubrics constructed with student input.
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Having students illicit input in making of the rubric gives the students ownership and feel like they have a say in what should be assessed.
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This would be tough for me to do in an ALgebra class as a majority of what i am teaching is brand new to them.
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I love this idea! I think there would be the initial learning curve of how to design a rubric, but a teacher could explain some of the main features/expectations of the projects and then let the students have some say in what excellent would look like etc.
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Building autonomy in our students and promoting learner agency! What a novel idea.
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Great idea but realistically when would any teacher have time to gather input? Could it be through exit tickets? I could see Google Forms be used as a way to collect input. It still would mean dedicated time to review input.
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I have had mixed feelings with this. For those that have done it do students really help design to further learning? I have had conversations with educators that say in some cases students create simple rubrics to make the expectations easy to attain. Just wondering what experiences were.
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As far as the time committment, I don't think it would have to be student created all day every day. I think allowing them to contribute when possible AND pulling out previous rubrics which students contributed on in the past shows the students that the teacher listens to student voice on a regular basis. Not necessarily 24/7. :)
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At the beginning of the process, you could ask a student to select to select which aspect she values the most in her writing and weight that aspect when you assess her paper.
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The idea of asking a student to choose which aspect "she values most" to determine the piece that will be weighted more heavily is an interesting one. I think it lends itself to creating personalized goals with students. Similar to when we ask teachers if there is a specific area they would like to focus on to receive a rating and feedback during an AIW scoring, it could create opportunities for growth and discussion between the teacher and the student.
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rubrics can help the student with self-assessment; what is most important here is not the final product the students produce, but the habits of mind practiced in the act of self-assessment.
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Though the end product is important, I agree that it is important for the student to think about what or how they are going to go about constructing the end product.
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True. If students could accurately self-assess, their end-products ultimately become stronger.
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This is when the true spirit of education come through when there is self reflection and self assessment occurs.
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The best way to get students to use self-reflection and self assessment is for teachers to also model this same practice.
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I often forget about the benefit of students being able to self assess. It would not be as useful in probably a math class since it's usually a yes or a no. However in a writing assignment it could help the students see how much work they need to do to get to the next level.
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I agree that it is important to encourage self-assessment. I also like to show students things I have written so they can grade me on the rubric. They enjoy critiquing their teacher. :)
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produced less interesting essays when they followed the rules [as outlined in a rubric]
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I can see where students would be too concerned with following the rubric in writing, instead of just writing for the fun of it or pleasure of adding things to their writing that they might not when using a rubric.
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I love when they write for fun but they still need to know the basics of grammar and sentence structure etc. and even writing and then going back and doing a self evaluation would be helpful to see if they got all the required items.
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My biggest fear in creating a rubric is just this. How do I write it to encourage going the extra mile and encourage not squash creativity?
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The second step is deciding who your audience is going to be. If the rubric is primarily used for instruction and will be shared with your students, then it should be non-judgemental, free of educational jargon, and reflect the critical vocabulary that you use in your classroom
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Purpose and audience are two important considerations when developing a rubric. The point of including "critical vocabulary that you use in your classroom" and ensuring that it is "non-judgemental" are pieces that can be overlooked by educators.
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I really like that this emphasizes that the rubric be free from educational jargon.
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Student friendly language is key if we want the student self reflection to happen.
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I think it's helpful to consider / reflect on the notion of the students as our audience in terms of assessment and feedback. Remaining non-judgemental is important to remember in the assessment mode.
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an analytical rubric, however, will yield more detailed information about student performance and, therefore, will provide the student with more specific feedback.
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I like the idea of having two or more separate scales (analytical rubric). Some parts of an assignment or test might have the student do more and so it should have a different scale. Specific feedback for students is always important so they can understand how they did and what they might need to improve on.
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Can different scorers consistently apply the rubric?
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I hadn't considered this being an issue until our small group assignment this week. I've only used rubrics in isolation. Interesting thought for teachers in department (i.e. Social Studies) using same rubric.
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Inter-rater reliability is essential. The goal is promoting creativity and creating clear expectations. However, by including too many details, we run the risk of formulaic writing. It is important to ensure students understand the expectations, but also stretch themselves and do not do the minimum required to reach proficiency. On the other hand, when enough detail is not included, then we can run the risk of a rubric that becomes too subjective and then two scorers can review the same piece of writing and score it differently based on their own expectations.
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stultifying and others see as empowering.
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First of all, I had not seen the word stultifying before! In order for a rubric or other type of assessments to be empowering, students must understand how to use them and have examples that help guide the conversation. Students need to know the expectations and what is considered and exceeds and just beginning. We must put more ownership on the kids' ends to self-assess well before the final due date. We want kids to improve it. I have come to love checklists to help guide this.
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I just commented about how students need to see the rubric before hand so they know what is expected of them. I love the idea of using checklists more to help guide the learning.
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Agreed. What good is a rubric if we don't let the students see it ahead of time? Are we setting students up for failure?
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Sadly, it is so easy to get wrapped up in all that we have to do in the short amount of time and not show the students the rubric, even when we know that it is more meaningful to show the rubric ahead of time.
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I feel both ways about rubrics. Rubrics certainly help the students and teachers know what is expected out of an assignment, but they can sometimes restrict a student's creativity. I feel like we saw that when we applied our rubric to some of the assignments this week.
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I think this is a major problem for a lot of PLCs I work with. Some don't even want students to see exemplars for fear of limiting creativity.
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post-secondary educators in all disciplines
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I have had quite a bit of training on assessment and rubrics and still feel it is almost impossible to write a good one. Are our post-secondary educators, many of whom don't necessarily have a teaching background, feel comfortable developing rubrics? Who is in charge of this huge task that can be career ending or career beginning for some?
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I couldn't agree more with your thoughts here! And depending on who is assessing your rubric the feedback, grows and glows you receive will also be different. OR what one person is taught as never to include in a rubric another person is taught to always do that.
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Heather, I am with you. Right now I am torn because I am supposed to be assessing my Algebra classes by standards with rubrics created for me at the district level, but everything I read indicates that these should be teacher created. i'm not sure who is more (or less) qualified to be doing this type of work, the individual teachers or the district level decision makers?
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current goals of solving real problems and using statistical reasoning.
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This perplexes me...As Mike pointed out the need to focus more on the process, do we focus too much on the final product? Can't we have separate rubrics that assess along the way to help with this? It would improve learning but and help teachers truly give a grade with multiple indicators that assess work ethic, collaboration, final product, and the process. I am glad to hear that our focus isn't always on the right answer but creating students who can reason and problem solve.
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That idea resonates with me. Rubrics to help students with the process makes sense. Maybe the learning progressions would be helpful for teachers to create rubrics for "along the way."
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The issue of weighting may be another area in which you can enlist the help of students
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This perplexes me...As Mike pointed out the need to focus more on the process, do we focus too much on the final product? Can't we have separate rubrics that assess along the way to help with this? It would improve learning but and help teachers truly give a grade with multiple indicators that assess work ethic, collaboration, final product, and the process. I am glad to hear that our focus isn't always on the right answer but creating students who can reason and problem solve.
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“Meaningfully” here means both consistently and accurately—accurately measuring the specific entity the instructor intends to measure consistently student after student.
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As a psychology major, this was a big deal in making sure you had sound products you were using. I'm wondering how much we are testing ours today. I know some PLC's that practice scoring examples with rubrics, then discuss, to ensure they are on the same page.
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I see how beneficial rubrics can be in "meaningful" assessment. It provides clear expectations for both teachers and students, keeps the student focused, and hopefully created to meet standards or other meaningful benchmark.
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I think sometimes the rubric is a tool for the teacher to score and not as much a tool for feedback and encouraging learning (from earlier in the article). When teachers common score, are they using that discussion to shape their instruction and feedback to students? I don't mean to imply they aren't, I don't currently work with a PLC willing to common score. They simply use the same rubric.
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(whether they are rubrics or more nebulous modes of evaluation) from students is not only unfair and makes self-assessment more difficult, it maintains the traditional gap between what the teacher knows and what the student knows
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We are running into this right now with our LMS... the new assessment piece doesn't allow us to upload the rubric. So, kids will have to do tasks without seeing the rubric. This is not okay with teachers, so hoping the tech people will build the rubric options in....
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Agreed that withholding assessment tools does a disservice to the education for the students and is can give some teachers a power trip. I am glad to hear the tech at your school are working on this piece and that the LMS has a feature to upload rubric into the system.
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one rubric can be used to assess all of the different papers assigned in a freshman composition course.
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We use a common rubric when assessing special education students with writing goals (although some students have modified or specific rubrics addressing the specifics of their goal).
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I love the idea of common rubrics so that the goals are spelled out. especiallywhen one teacher likes it this way and another likes it this way can be so confusing.
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I agree, it is nice to have the common rubric that makes all expectations the same.
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Does the rubric relate to the outcome(s) being measured?
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non-judgmental:
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system designed to measure the key qualities
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The system of a rubric can be very abstract and not concrete if being teacher made. This has pros and cons, one pro if the teacher lets the students see it ahead of time, is that the students know what is expected of their performance.
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Agree! This can be challenging for a new teacher or one that is new to teaching that unit/class. The rubric also allows for standards to be measured in multiple assessments.
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actually learned rather than what they have been taught
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This reiterates to me the difference we are learning between assessing and grading. It is our job as teachers to make sure all students our learning and we aren't just going through the motions of going from chapter to chapter in a textbook.
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Teaching is a personal profession and when a student doesn't perform well on an exam it can be a shot to the teachers ego. If we can get teachers to think of rubrics as a way to see if the students have learned it yet instead of just a summative yes or not they got it, it might become less personal and we can start focusing on how to get the students to actually learn in.
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help instructors in all disciplines
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traditional gap between what the teacher knows and what the student knows
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This makes me emotional and the emotion I feel is anger. That there are teachers that are still out there that try to one up the student and have a power trip. As an educator and mother of three students myself I see this and have to play the politically nice card and try to listen instead of get mad during conversations with teachers. This class is giving me knowledge on the importance of assessments and different types.
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Well-designed rubrics
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But she did it without saying anything coherent
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Agreed. The rubric apparently wasn't written so that it focused on an outcome the required something coherent.
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Leave it to kids to take your words literally in order to drive you figuratively insane. This just goes to show that a rubric shouldn't be driving students to one right answer but rather guiding them towards quality and learning.
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Absolutely. Kids will pick out one or two words and take them out of context. Is that what the intent of the rubric was? most likely no, but we need to teach the students that the rubric is a guide for expanding their learning with a few checks throughout the process.
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mitagate both teacher bias and the perception of teacher bias
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Anything to mitigate teacher bias is an improvement for many teacher assessments and evaluations of student learning.
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So true, removing teacher bias is difficult, and when we can do it, it is a good thing.
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I love the term real-life learning. Most professions don't have a good and bad type of employee. There are different levels of employees, and there's usually room for improvement.
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In this respect, rubrics protect both the student and teacher. This document removes any possible bias perceived by students and/or parents.
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The problem, which I don't know that it is really a problem, is that grading writing is biased. What I find creative or thoughtful might not be what another teacher thinks. The rubric can assess the prescriptive things like thesis, intro., conclusion, etc.
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achiev[ing a] new vision of statistics education.
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This is also true for the review systems for many companies. As I talk more and more with my friends outside of education, they talk of the rubrics that are used for their evaluation processes. I think that it is important as we teach students that they are able to relate their learning to rubrics as someday they will have to transfer that knowledge and understanding to their someday job/career.
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a clear understanding of how rubrics operate
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I really feel like many times when teachers are lost building rubrics they really need to zero in on the criteria needed to meet each indicator level. That said, they also need to model and communicate these items with their students.
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I agree with both of your points here. The indicator level makes the rubric clear and effective or not so much. Also, it is key for students to know what is expected of them. We, as adults, want to know what is expected of us, but we often think that students don't...which doesn't make sense.
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wrote poorly when writing, as we might say, to the rubric
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Do the students find the rubric helpful?
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I always find it helpful that in designing my rubrics (especially now when our school is building learning targets, assessment plans and more rubrics) that I test them out in my classrooms. They not only provide me feedback to student learning but I also have students provide me feedback as to how they are written, what I can change or add to make them work better for them. It also gives them even further buy-in to what you are doing in the class, as well and shows that you respect that there may be changes in learning but you are there for the student.
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shared with students prior to the completion of any given assignment
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I think rubrics should always shared with students when they start the assignment. so for me it is not an "IF:
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I agree Noel! Mine are posted along side my standards and learning targets in my room, and constantly referred to.
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I agree completely. I think the kids should know ahead of time what the expectation is.
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reports that extensive use of rubrics can help minimize students’ educational disparities and bring fairness into assessment on numerous levels:
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students to simply make sure their essays have those features
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Many students will just complete the assessment to meet the requirements in the rubric, but students are then meeting the expectations you wrote in the rubric. If you want them to do more change the rubric. What would happen if you did not share the rubric some might do more than expected and many would not because they have no idea what is expected.
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Look at some actual examples of student work to see if you have omitted any important dimensions.
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Looking at actual examples of student work ahead of time is a good idea. When we created the rubric for the Assess This assignment, we only had one example of student work. Then when we were given more pieces to assess, we quickly learned that the rubric would not work for all of the types of pieces that needed assessed.
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Sometimes after using a new assessment an rubric, I reflect and notice the mistakes I made when creating the rubric and revise it. When you have students examples it makes it easier to evaluate your own rubric.
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given their association with standardized assessment
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Last I checked, the iowa Assessments were not scored by a rubric. This is something I continuously struggle with. if students, teachers, buildings, and districts are measured by standardized test scores, why do we push for standards based assessments and rubrics? This will be the first year I have never taught specific focus lessons geared to higher achievement on the iowa Assessments. My district wanted me to pilot standards based assessment so I am going all out! Can't wait to compare and contrast previous years' scores to this year. Stay tuned!
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formulaic writing
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“checksheets.”
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There's my checklist comment! Should have kept reading :-) When I think of this in math though, I must admit it's a struggle to NOT say these skills are level 1, these are level 2, and so on.
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I do see the checklists especially in math as a benefit when collaborative teacher teams are discussing what exactly the foundational skills of a priority standard look like and what dots to connect if a student is far away from achieving proficiency. I don't think that kind of learning progression would translate for a student who would see it as a checklist.
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I think the checklist and deep learning piece are not necessarily mutually exclusive. The checklist may require certain content (based on the unit of study or course topic) but the rest of the rubric can be skill focused and framed in a growth model.
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there has been “notable increases in the use of open-response questions, creative/critical thinking questions, problem-solving activities, […] writing assignments, and inquiry/investigation.”
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Focus, Support, Organization, Conventions.
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Weighting
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Modify accordingly
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that rubrics provide students with clear and specific qualities to strive for in those assignments that “are open-ended, aligned more closely to real-life learning situations and the nature of learning”
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I agree that it helps the students know what they need to strive for instead of just open ended questions and then you get back your grade and you did not do well because it wasn't what the teacher wanted. I struggled with this in my undergrad classes.
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I agree with this too that it provides students with the clear and specific qualities of the academic piece of material they are working on to be assessed. I have never thought about it being related closely to real-life learning situations though which is an imperative connection that should be made.
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‘some rubrics are dumb.’” He recounts,
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Usually a numerical value is assigned to each point on a scale
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vital to the process and/or product of a given assignment,
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When I see the word vital in this statement, it reminds me that we should only be assessing the qualities that are truly important. We need to be so careful when we are creating and assessing student work to not over assess or under assess our students.
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I think this is true. Sometimes as teachers we feel the need to give a grade to everything. And while we are constantly assessing, we need to focus on the the things that are vital for the student to know.
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I agree with both of your statements. The word "vital" does remind the teacher to assess only what is truly important. It is very easy for teachers to loose focus on the important skills being taught and turn their attention to mundane details that are easier to define like writing mechanics or content presentation.
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rubrics to both assess and encourage student learning.
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This statement stands out to me because we should use rubrics for many purposes. Many times teachers just want to use the rubric to grade. We need to think about the feedback that we give students on a rubric as a way to encourage them to continue to push themselves in their learning and set goals for themselves.
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I really like the word encourage here. I do not really show the kids the rubric I am grading them on (although I should). I don't know if my students are mentally there to "want" to move to the next progression. Currently I am doing a lot of forcing to learn. I think that encourage puts the wanting to learn on the students shoulders.
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I like this concept - assess and encourage, not just evaluate and move on to the next assignment. In my opinion, this is where the learning on assessment and feedback is so important for teachers and students.
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When instructors plan on grading student thinking and not just student knowledge, they should articulate the vital features that they are looking for and make these features known to the student.
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rubrics should be used in conjunction with other strategies
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some educators see
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I think it's important to understand both sides of why teachers may or may not be in favor of rubic. In a math class it seemed unresonable and unnecessary to use a rubric until we started talking about standard based grading. It still a hard concept I am wrapping my head around but I am getting there. I have had WAY more instruction than other math teachers in building and district so I know it will be a huge struggle for them to see the value.
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become wooden
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With your colleagues
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different levels of that “deep learning”
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A rubric that tells students, as a typical example, that they will get an A for writing a 1000 word essay that “cites x number of sources and supports its thesis with at least three arguments” will lead students to perceive writing as a kind of “paint-by-number” endeavor (Mathews).
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When I see a rubric performance descriptions include a certain number of something, I can't help but think about this.
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In this case, a teacher could use a checklist instead of a rubric. Trying to reach a specific number seems like it would cut down on the quality of some student work and only produce quantity.
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I understand this type of rubric but have also wondered what # of words/ correct words/spelling etc. constitutes an A/B/C...grade. What an A means to mean might not be the same to another person.
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I once gave extra credit to a student who realized that without providing a shred of meaningful content she could meet all the requirements of a state writing rubric he posted in his classroom. As required she used the word “persuade” and two synonyms, composed a clear topic sentence and closing sentence, and made no spelling or grammatical errors.
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Similarly, Heidi Andrade, in her study, “The Effects of Rubrics on Learning to Write,” has found that, while rubrics increased her students’ knowledge of the grading criteria and helped most of her students (especially the young male students) do well on the state writing test, many of the young female students, who had been more expressive in previous writing assignments
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I find this interesting. The formal, structured writing is favored and the in this particular task, the expressive abilities of a writer are not assessed and reported on and/or flexibility to consider creative structures is not in place. We should look at a student's overall writing abilities in a variety of settings.
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problem-solving, inquiry-based, student-centered pedagogy replacing the traditional lecture-based, teacher-centered approach in tertiary education
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This to me is important. I try to use rubrics to assess the more inquiry/student centered work I do. There is still a place for teacher centered as there are skills that must be conveyed to all students for foundational learning. Finding that balance between teacher and student based is what can be challenging.
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I agree that there needs to be a balance and that balance can be challenging. I believe this is important as it helps to reach all learning styles.
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weight dimensions differently
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increases the likelihood of a quality product
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It can be challenging and time consuming to create a quality product. In my opinion, teachers that can work in teams to develop rubrics have a bonus. Several minds working together may help to produce a better rubric. A quality rubric is important so students do not have to guess what teachers want as they work on a project.
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Also, I think the teachers having that discussion is powerful - it can help develop their ideas or challenge misconceptions. I know some teachers fear students looking at an exemplar or rubric and all students creating basically the same thing. I think that is an error of instruction/feedback/design and not a student error. I think teachers having that discussion can prevent that type of problem.
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description of the work rather than judgments about the work.
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However, for the student to successfully use a rubric this way, the criteria must be made clear to them and the jargon used must not only be understandable to the student but also be linked specifically to classroom instruction.
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This is a powerful statement because it doesn't do any good to share rubrics with students if they don't understand the expectations or the way the teacher is using the rubric. Older students should have a better understanding of rubrics because they should have more experience with them. I think that younger students would benefit from initial exposures to rubrics especially since more and more teachers and employers are using them.
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“Perhaps the greatest potential value of classroom assessment is realized when we open the assessment process up and welcome students into that process as full partners”
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explicit performance criteria, along with supporting models of work, make it possible for students to use the attributes of exemplary work to monitor their own performance
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The result is many students struggle blindly, especially non-traditional, unsuccessful, or under-prepared students, who tend to miss many of the implied expectations of a college instructor, expectations that better prepared, traditional students readily internaliz
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I think that having students of all ages know the expectations or knowledge of what is required for grades is crucial. As an adult it is important that we are clear with what we are assessing. Time is valuable at any age but certainly as an adult learner I don't want to spend hours working on a project only to find out that what I present or do was not relevant.
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Can students and parents understand the rubric?
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to assess our rubric
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“red” or “reddish,
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to a hit or miss endeavor
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static
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How Online Education Is Changing the Way We Learn [INFOGRAPHIC] - 1 views
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This info graphic really shows how online learning is changing and challenging our traditional mode of educating.
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Our school offered a blended class through APEX learning. I was in charge of the Algebra II class and the students loved working at their own pace and when they wanted to work. There were time lines for assignments and test, but students could work ahead. If they had questions I was available for them. I don't think that they could do the course completely by themselves. I think that this was a great learning opportunity for the students, to see what is ahead of them in the learning system.
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Check out this infographic from OnlineEducation.net about how the world of online learning has changed and grown over the years.
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Art of Problem Solving Foundation - 0 views
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This website is a great math contest practice location. Our students are so over committed, they don't have time to practice as a group for a math team...I'm not sure they'll do this. I did have an extra advanced 8th grader working on it when he was finished with his homework. It lets you try a problem twice, shows a solution, and builds in difficulty. I have lots to learn from these problems -- many of which are beyond Core Curriculum.
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ollie-afe-2019: Educational Leadership: The Quest for Quality--article - 6 views
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I thought this quote was interesting. I always believe that having more than one data point helps a teacher see more of a rounded picture of that student. Relying on just one assessment isn't fair to the student. I believe we should look at multiple assessments, formative assessments, check points to help our students grow. JN
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assessor needs to have a clear picture of what achievement he or she intends to measure. I
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Students learn best when they monitor and take responsibility for their own learning
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I really like this idea of having students take responsibility for their own learning, and putting the learning target in language they can understand would definitely help!
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I agree that students do learn best when they take on the responsibility but I also think this is the ideal situation and often does not happen. How do we motivate more students to do this?
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I agree with this, but it seems so foreign to students. I think we need to plan on a lot of modeling to shift the responsibility to them.
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f we don't begin with clear statements of the intended learning—clear and understandable to everyone, including students—we won't end up with sound assessments.
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While this seems like a straightforward idea, in reality, making a learning purpose clear and understandable to everyone - students included - can be difficult. Especially in English, the skill were teaching is not clear cut. CCSS Reading Literature 11-12.6 asks students to "Analyze a case in which grasping a point of view requires distinguishing what is directly stated in a text from what is really meant." However, there's no "right" answer to this skill. Student analysis of "what is really meant" could encompass a huge range of ideas. Crafting an assessment and teaching/learning opportunities that clearly delineate "proficient" analysis from "poor" analysis can't always be put into clear and understandable language. How can you quantify the qualitative?
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There is truth in the challenge. But I know I have been guilty of knowing what I was looking for but not clearly communicating it to students. Then they are left to guess...which means they are likely to guess in at least some ways incorrectly. I think the more modeling we do, the more "anchor papers" we provide, the better students achieve our expectations. Putting those expectations into words and examples is its own challenge, but a worthy one.
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It is nice to hear from other high school English teachers about the difficulty of measuring such subjective skills. I always struggled. One strategy I did find helpful was assigning paragraph writing as an assessment and scoring them 1-5, with a 3 being adequate and a 5 outstanding Then we would do several together and discuss what constituted a 3 and the differences between 3-4-5. That did seem to help, and students personalized the challenge of getting at least a 3 to show competency and reaching for outstanding.
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t also helps them assign the appropriate balance of points in relation to the importance of each target as well as the number of items for each assessed target.
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minimizing any bias that might distort estimates of student learning.
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This is where I know as an English teacher, I can get bogged down in the details. All of my writing assignments have an assessment category for "M.U.G.S." as we call them (mechanics, usage, grammar, spelling), but those aren't actively taught and retaught every unit. We just expect students to have a certain level of proficiency at this point. However, that isn't always the case. There are MANY students who have not internalized the "rules" of writing. Their mechanics (punctuation) seems haphazard, grammar atrocious, usage nonexistent, and spelling like they fell asleep on their keyboard. However, a complete lack of those skills might not prevent them from being able to distinguish "what is directly stated in a text from what is really meant." I have to be careful to not allow my internal bias against poor writing ability to distort an accurate estimate of a student's learning and demonstration of the skill.
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When I read through this about minimizing bias it made me think of the old ITBS/ITED tests and a student we had that was new to this country. The student was very bright but he did not perform well on the test because of bias. One example I recall was he had no idea what a fir tree was as where he was from there was no such thing.
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Will the users of the results understand them and see the connection to learning?
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This is also where I struggle. Our department uses the online program Turnitin.com to give students feedback on written assessments and grade almost all work. This is partially to alleviate issues with plagiarism, but mostly because it gives students and teachers a one access point to communicate feedback. The program allows users to submit rubrics that students can see. We've started assessing rough draft using the final rubric so students can see where their work is in the rough draft stage so they know which paper criteria need work. They also can view my feedback on the paper that tells them how to fix what they need to fix. My frustration is when students aren't willing to go back and look at the feedback on the paper or rubric so they know what learning skills they still need to work on. How can we motivate them to look at the results, see the connections, and make the progress in learning?
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That is a great point! How do we motivate kids to go back and look at the feedback and make changes. Many of our kids just want to know what do I need to know to pass the test or assignment and once they pass that's all that matters.
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You have mentioned before that kids always want to know what they have to do in order to get an A or pass...but that's what I want to know when I take a course. I want/need to know what the expected outcomes are. I feel that kids have so many classes, tests, and assignments that if they don't ask those questions or think in that kind of a structured fashion that they will crash and burn. I get that we want them to LEARN and be passionate, but especially in required courses, the passion just isn't always there and the class literally is a box to check off.
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From a formative point of view, decision makers at the classroom assessment level need evidence of where students are on the learning continuum toward each standard
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This is another area where I personally struggle. The time and flexibility needed to be truly responsive is astronomical. I currently teach 4 of the 10 sections of English 10 at Indianola High School. As a class cohort, we try to be within a day or two of each other in content delivery. However, if my students don't get a concept, it's difficult to take a day to reteach since that throws off my alignment with the other teachers. It also means that I would have would have different periods at different places. I'm hoping the flipped and blended learning opportunities will help with the time and organization issues I currently have. If I can break groups up into smaller cohorts based on skill, then use flipped/blended methods for each group, I can (hopefully) accomplish more within the time frame. It makes organization more complicated, but allows more flexibility.
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This is why common formative assessments can be so helpful. If some of your students aren't getting something, it's likely that others aren't either. If you look at the whole team's formative data, it could be that everyone needs to adjust rather than just you.
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And if your class is doing more poorly than another class, you can have conversations about the different instructional practices being used. We all do our best but it's ok to not be the best. Together we can do what is best for our students.
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Do the results provide clear direction for what to do next?
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A grade of D+, on the other hand, may be sufficient to inform a decision about a student's athletic eligibility, but it is not capable of informing the student about the next steps in learning.
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SBL and transitioning from all letter grades is a lengthy process but very beneficial for feedback purposes. MG
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I agree with you about the SBL and how it shows a student exactly what they know or what they need to improve on. A letter grade just give them a percentage of the time they have a correct answer. Doesn't give them any information at what they know or don't know.
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aim for the lowest possible reading level,
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I think this is also interesting because I know there are some tests that do this purposefully to "increase the rigor" of the test. For instance, AP exams notoriously use vocabulary to make the questions harder. This is saying it could be not just separating those who know less about the content, but also those who have different background, cultural knowledge, or just English as a first language. I, too, wonder how the ISASP will do with this.
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Are we challenging our top students and preparing them for their futures when we use low reading levels? Seems to contradict what we are trying to accomplish.
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This is so very important as we are seeing a dramatic increase in student populations that are not fluent in English.
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I have developed a system where I always read math tests out loud. That way students are not missing information due to not understanding the vocabulary.
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Jenn that's an interesting concept of reading the tests outloud....have never thought of doing that in a HS classroom but might help!
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The classroom is also a practical location to give students multiple opportunities to demonstrate what they know and can do, adding to the accuracy of the information available from that level of assessment.
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Most assessments developed beyond the classroom rely largely on selected-response or short-answer formats and are not designed to meet the daily, ongoing information needs of teachers and students.
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Five keys to assessment quality
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To summarize, the 5 keys to assessment quality are: 1. clear purpose 2. clear learning targets 3. sound assessment design 4. effective communication of results 5. student involvement in the assessment process
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Great idea on how to use an annotation tool. I can see this being very beneficial to high school students
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thats a really cool usage! Could see teaching my kids to do this when doing technical reading
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grouping the assessments
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Grouping assessments into levels: ongoing classroom assessment (daily work/observation), periodic interim/benchmark assessment (weekly quizzes/ group work), and annual state/district standardized assessments. I would add summative unit assessments (tests/projects) here also.
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Grouping assessments should give us a better picture of where students are at and help to identify where they need help.
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cannot measure more complex learning targets at the heart of instruction
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Our school district is doing the ISASP this year for the first time. This is a computer based test based on the Iowa Core. I worry how these results will be used to evaluate student mastery of content specific standards. How much effort will students put into the test and are there too many distractors that will bias the results?
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Those are legitimate concerns. On the other hand, what this quote makes me think of regarding the ISASP is that at least the types of questions are not only selected response. So many of the standards in the Core can not be measured by the only multi-choice questions in the previous test.
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Bias can also creep into assessments and erode accurate results.
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descriptive feedback
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We do need to make sure that our feedback is helpful. Telling students "fix this" or "revise this paragraph" doesn't help them learn, the feedback needs to be more specific and point to the learning target.
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I totally agree with giving feedback about why they missed a question or problem. If you just count it wrong the student might now have any idea why they got the question wrong.
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The assessor must begin with a clear picture of why he or she is conducting the assessment.
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I think a lot of times we default to "for a grade" but there are lots of other reasons to consider.
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I think this is very important sentence. I know I don't do the greatest job of outlining learning goals everyday and explaining value in each. It's same thing for test. Are testing because its end of chapter or because you want to assess learning goals from the chapter that were the most important from the chapter and meet the standards for your class.
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I agree Tom, I am not the best at covering learning targets with students. And maybe standards based learning will help focus my lesson designing and improve student learning.
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I think it is very important that we focus on the learning that is taking place within our classrooms and not on grading. Our assessments should be an avenue to strengthen learning and to inform the teacher what they need to do for learning to continue to occur.
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This reminds me of UBD, or working backwards. The teacher knows the outcome first, and then builds the learning and assessments.
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Selecting an assessment method that is incapable of reflecting the intended learning will compromise the accuracy of the results.
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I thought the assessment brainstorming we did at the end of last week with ways to assess face-to-face vs. online was an interesting way to think of all the ways we can assess. I think as teachers we often default to a couple content-specific norms and it would be good to open up to other alternatives on occasion.
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Many years ago I remember assessing my math students at the end of the year with a multiple choice test. None of my tests during the year were multiple choice, but finals were required and it was the most efficient way to get my grades done :( I'm sure it did compromise the accuracy of the results.
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This means that teachers need to write learning targets in terms that students will understand.
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common assessments.
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Teachers have choices in the assessment methods they use
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inform what decisions?
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This has been a large debate that we have been having at our district. We need some sort of feedback roll out that will say how we have managed the data and what the data is and will be used for.
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I think is important part for a teacher after each assessment to use results to maybe modify teaching topics that students performed poorly on. Maybe need an extra day to cover certain topics more in depth if students struggled with it on test or maybe we have a poorly written question on the test causing students to miss points.
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communicated
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This has been another large debate that we have had. We want to make sure that our assessments are given back in a timely manner but we also want to make sure that they have correct and accurate feedback as well as to help the student know what they did well and where to improve and all of that takes time.
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TIME! It's a four-letter word in teaching! The feedback we give students is WAY more important than the grade, and way more time consuming. How do we effectively give the feedback necessary for student growth in a timely manner? I'd love to hear strategies from others here.
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Summative applications
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Periodic interim/benchmark assessments can also serve program evaluation purposes, as well as inform instructional improvement and identify struggling students and the areas in which they struggle.
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Our math department has been looking at the AAIMS tests for Algebra students which could be used as data to support the learning taking place.
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This makes me think of the concept of scaffolding. Which I have used in my classroom when lesson designing. Now I need to do the same thing with assessing. Assess students periodically both formative and summative.
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minimizing any bias that might distort estimates of student learning.
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As teachers we do have to be careful of bias and making assumptions. When I read through this about minimizing bias it made me think of the old ITBS/ITED tests and a student we had that was new to this country. The student was very bright but he did not perform well on the test because of bias. One example I recall was he had no idea what a fir tree was as where he was from there was no such thing.
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I completely understand this. Teaching writing and reading at the secondary level is so very difficult.
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Creating a plan like this for each assessment helps assessors sync what they taught with what they're assessing
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Knowledge targets, which are the facts and concepts we want students to know.
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As our district moves toward standards based grading, understanding our knowledge targets is naturally happening during this process.
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We are working on Power Standards in our buildings. I think this would fit with those too.
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It all goes back to 1) what do we want them to know and 2) how will we know when they know it. We are working hard on choosing power standards. It is a long and exhausting process but a necessary one. Even after power standards are chosen, we need to break them down into learning targets our students can understand.
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students to track their own progress on learning targets
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I have seen this done throughout a unit of student with a Red Light, Yellow Light, Green Light rating for students to self assess their percieved understading of a learning target. This self assessment was revisited frequently and used to drive student to specific learning activities that they needed to work on.
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I think allowing the students to self-assess and set goals is really beneficial. I like the idea of using red light, green light, and yellow light for students to show the teacher their understanding.
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performance assessment or personal communication may be less effective and too time-consuming
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One dilema that teacher face is the factor of time which we all know. I have worked with teacher who have over 200 students in their classes and often default to a selected response assessment item even when a performance based would be more appropriate. It is challenging to assess and provide feedback in timely manner with this many students. This is not an excuse, but a barrier that needs to be explored.
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or making the correct answer obvious
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dependable data generated at every level of assessment.
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I wonder how much professional develoment or preservice teacher training is spent on looking at data to make decisions. There is most likely a range of understanding of what data should be used to design instruction. This is why is it good to have a strong PLC for teachers to work through data and assessment creation (which is really challenging in itself).
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It is amazing to me that data acquisition/analysis and student feedback/scores are largely two separate endeavors. In this day and age, these should be the same step. Without some automation, I don't think this can actually be done. At least not in a meaningful manner.
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track their own progress on learning targets
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I have seen this done throughout a unit of student with a Red Light, Yellow Light, Green Light rating for students to self-assess their perceived understanding of a learning target. This self-assessment was revisited frequently and used to drive student to specific learning activities that they needed to work on.
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if students will be the users of the results because the assessment is formative
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n the past, few educators, policymakers, or parents would have considered questioning the accuracy of these tests.
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Assessment literacy is the foundation for a system that can take advantage of a wider use of multiple measures.
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inform students about their own progress
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clear curriculum maps for each standard, accurate assessment results, effective feedback, and results that point student and teacher clearly to next step
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I believe that this is important because highlights the role feedback plays in the assessment process. I think we often forget feedback.
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I agree, feedback is really important. It also needs to be provided as quickly as possible.
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Feedback is most certainly key for something that can be so subjective like writing, but I also think providing feedback on LOT can also improve students understanding. I know that is something I struggle with - leaving the necessary feedback. There's always a time crunch, and sometime students that assessed well receive little feedback even though they could use it too.
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students can use the results to self-assess and set goals.
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learning targets represented in the assessment into a written test plan that matches the learning targets represented in the curriculum.
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Making decisions that affect individuals and groups of students on the basis of a single measure
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We're betting that the instructional hours sacrificed to testing will return dividends in the form of better instructional decisions and improved high-stakes test scores
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The goal of a balanced assessment system is to ensure that all assessment users have access to the data they want when they need it, which in turn directly serves the effective use of multiple measures.
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From a summative point of view, users at the classroom and periodic assessment levels want evidence of mastery of particular standards; at the annual testing level, decision makers want the percentage of students meeting each standard.
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assessment formatively
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I feel like we could do a better job of formatively assessing students. When students hear the word assessment, they think quiz or test and they get apprehensive. We need to change their mindset and show them how they can use formative assessments (exit tickets, class polls, one-minute papers, etc) to help them take control of their own learning.
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the use of multiple measures does not, by itself, translate into high-quality evidence
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At the level of annual state/district standardized assessments, they involve where and how teachers can improve instruction—next year.
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Who is the decision maker?This will vary. The decision makers might be students and teachers at the classroom level; instructional leaders, learning teams, and teachers at the periodic level; or curriculum and instructional leaders and school and community leaders at the annual testing level.
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or summatively—to feed results into the grade book.
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Effectively planning for the use of multiple measures means providing assessment balance throughout these three levels, meeting student, teacher, and district information needs.
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Reasoning targets, which require students to use their knowledge to reason and problem solve. A reasoning target in math might be to use statistical methods to describe, analyze, and evaluate data. Performance skill targets, which ask students to use knowledge to perform or demonstrate a specific skill, such as reading aloud with fluency. Product targets, which specify that students will create something, such as a personal health-related fitness plan.
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balanced system
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overflow of testing
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Yes. There is a lot of testing these days One of my friends mentioned that between testing and snow days she hadn't "taught" from MLK day to almost President's day. Needless to say she was anxious about how well students wee going to demonstrate learning when they hadn't had much instruction for over a month.
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schools now make decisions about individual students, groups of students, instructional programs, resource allocation, and more.
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We're betting that the instructional hours sacrificed to testing will return dividends in the form of better instructional decisions and improved high-stakes test scores
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about the overall level of students' performance.
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"Personalized" vs. "Personal" Learning - 5 views
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When that happens, the structures around the classroom leave little room for the kind of authentic, whole-child personalization many teachers dream of offering.
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This is a challenge for me. How do we personalize learning while ensuring that teachers are teaching and students are learning what is expected? I do not want online learning to become just something else they do in order to check a box on Yes! I have personalized learning for my students!
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Agreed. We have a lot of boxes to tick already. Where does the accountability lie when students don't achieve their goals/what is expected of them?
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It’s as if engaging them in learning without technology has become this impossible task.
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Whoa! Having kids engaged in school and in their learning is something teachers have been doing long before technology became an imperative part of education. (I realize he agrees with me. That anyone could feel this statement strongly is what I reacted to.)
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I thought this was interesting as well. It seems like an easy out for anyone that needs an excuse. Oh it's not the content we just can't compete with their video games.
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the best thing we can do for kids is empower them to make regular, important, thoughtful decisions about their own learning, what they learn and how they learn it
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How do we make this happen? I do not think that one teacher in a building can pull this off. I see this as being a monumental shift in an entire district to truly make personalized learning personal to each student.
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I think this is also one of my main questions, and something I hope to explore in this course. Does personalized/personal learning work in small doses? In the confines of a single classroom or a single unit?
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That is a total shift in thought, and I agree, how do we do it? Give me the manual!
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personalization is “not about giving students what they want, it’s about a recommended learning path just for them.”[
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This really sums up, for me, the difference between personalized learning and having personal learning. I think it is the learning path that educators get caught up on. The Oh! This program scales up the difficulty if the student answers the question right and scales it down if they miss it!, type of thing. That isn't personal to the student at all.
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This kind of learning allows students to work at their own pace and level, meets the individual needs of students, and perhaps most importantly, is not a one-size fits all model.
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What do you do with students that work at a slow pace and can't meet deadlines? That may lead to more of a teacher directed approach to speed things up.
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I think this would be a hard sell in the high school where the smarted kids would complain about having to do more than the other students. They would say that its not fair.
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I think you both bring up really good points. How can you even grade something like this when one student does twice the work of another?
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We can truly individualize the classroom by using data-driven platforms to continually assess and track progress through any given curriculum and provide the most relevant content or resources to any given learner based on specific needs or learning styles
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But I marvel how that, in many schools I work with, the prevailing narrative seems to be that we can’t engage kids without technology, without a smartphone, tablet computer or some other multimedia device or tool.
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There is a lot of truth to this. The problem is not only is this the truth in schools but households as well.
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We can't stop the technology train, nor should we. Tech, when used responsibly and effectively, is an invaluable tool in our society and schools. The key here is 'effectively.' Too many educators put kids on computers to look cool,"Hey, I'm using technology!" However, in reality, it's busy work and low-level thinking. What we ask students to do with technology is key to creating a truly PL classroom.
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Give them opportunities to learn personally, to create their own texts and courses of study, and to pursue that learning with others in and out of the classroom who share a passion.
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How would this work? The 3 most important things in my son's life are Fortnite, socializing with friends, and sports. Where would the balance be if they were in charge of designing their own courses?
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Depends on the topic, of course, and hard to motivate either way- but there is reading/writing/communicating in social media, Fortnite, and sports. There is history in sports. Math in sports. I'm sure your son uses our fundamental skills and builds new knowledge using the things he loves.
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I think to ensure that learning happens outside of the classroom, we need to shift education to a trade school model, where students are shadowing professionals, choosing apprenticeships/internships, etc. during normal school hours. These experiences would replace some of the traditional classes during the school day.
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2. Education is about the transmission of bits of information, not the construction of meaning.
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I disagree with how this statement is written. Education isn't entirely about the transmission of information, but information is still important and shouldn't be dismissed. Education can't be an 'either/or,' it must be a 'both.' Students need information in order to apply it, design, and create. Without information, there is a huge gap left in their learning called 'ignorance.'
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I agree with your statement- I had to re-read this section a few times to understand exactly what they were getting at. I think the idea here is that students should be choosing/finding their information, though, not having that information 'delivered' to them.
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same knowledge
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Every person/child is unique. I agree that skills, and to a point knowledge, should vary. However, there is a certain well-rounded nature we want children to possess to be successful in society. Hence why we created a common set of standards, like Iowa Core. There should always be certain skills and information we set forth for children to learn. Then, there should be an element to learning that opens up new experiences and opportunities for exploring interests. Balance is important, I think.
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Very true. I teach History and Government. There is some information that must be had by all. The method, delivery, way can be different but none the less some items must be covered.
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I unfortunately don't remember the source, though I'm sure it's something I could look up- but I was once taught/read that a lot of the things we do is just to train our brain to do more complex tasks. We may not necessarily use all the algebra and trig we learn, for example, but it builds new connections in our brains and helps us learn and think in new ways. That's sometimes difficult to explain to students.
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it implies moving away from the industrialized form of education that pumps out cookie-cutter students with the
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commitment to individualism yet experience a “relentless pressure to conform
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learning tends to nourish kids’ curiosity and deepen their enthusiasm
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it involves collaboration and takes place in a communit
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“Follow the money” is apt advice in many sectors of education
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‘We often say we want creativity and innovation – personalization – but every mechanism we use to measure it is through control and compliance.’
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The longer I teach (22 years) the more I find that the continued focus on test scores hampers a lot of learning. Teaching to the test, focusing on the test, etc. , etc. are sometimes a large waste of everyone's time. In this current era do we actually need to have state testing to decide if a school is functioning? When teachers are evaluated there is not a test.
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As a teacher its hard to give up some control of the classroom and give students the freedom to learn in whatever style fits them the best.
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I agree, it is hard to give up control of the classroom, sometimes it feels like giving up control the whole class will go crazy.
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First, ask just about any vendor of personalization technology what the intended outcome is and, with a little prodding, you’ll get to this: better test scores.
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The longer I teach (22 years) the more I find that the continued focus on test scores hampers a lot of learning. Teaching to the test, focusing on the test, etc. , etc. are sometimes a large waste of everyone's time. In this current era do we actually need to have state testing to decide if a school is functioning? When teachers are evaluated there is not a test.
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but meaningful (and truly personal) learning never requires technology.
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Very true. I have polled my students and at times they feel that there is an unnatural push towards using technology. They feel that some teachers/administrators push technology just for the sake of it. This did answer my question about In The Day Of The Life entry as my student will show the example that learning does not have to require technology.
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Agreed. I teach band. I sometimes have kids write on worksheets, counting rhythms, or reflecting on something they played or heard. Their handwriting is terrible! They don't spend any time writing anymore, it is all done on computers. This, I believe is a true shame. Technology is great for a lot of things, but when we are losing skills because of its use, that is frightening.
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authentic choice
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This is tough to implement. Students don't know intuitively how to do this on their own. There has to be coaching a feedback provided. I know that I have not implemented this to any degree of fidelity, but I am amazed at what students come up with on their own. They need to know they have that freedom, and that comes with the knowledge of how to use it.
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It is important for students to have the freedom to choose things that are meaningful to them. When that happens they buy into learning.
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I agree that this is tough to implement but I think it is a critical component. The freedom of students getting to play a key role in their own learning is so fun to watch. I am amazed when I see even a small taste of this, the difference in the students' attitudes and motivations.
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When students are given an actual choice, it does seem to make a world of difference in their efforts. It also seems like they are more excited for class, and sometimes even upset when the period ends.
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“Personalized” learning is something that we do to kids; “personal” learning is something they do for themselves.
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I love this line! We have to help students do things for themselves. I don't know about you, but implementing this for the vast majority of students takes so much time in getting them comfortable with the desire to learn. I know, I know, I'm just trying to pass the buck onto someone that "should have taught them that". How do I do it? I need to only consider reality, it doesn't matter if they don't know how. They need to learn how, and that is where I need to focus my attention.
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This is a powerful distinction. Teaching kids how to do things for themselves is something that I believe is important. The kids in my school lack the intrinsic motivation to do anything, except play Minecraft. As in many initiatives in education, I think that it is not necessarily that we should make a shift from one thing to another, but how can we blend the good from all? That is, how can we blend personalization and personal learning, not just follow one or the other.
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Wow! This really jumped out at me. I don't think many people would acknowledge the difference between personalized and personal learning. When described like this... it really makes me think of the key distinctions that must be made. The important part is not just that we are altering our instruction to what our students like but encouraging the development of personal learning experiences and helping set our students up for successful experiences when this is done.
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who knows each child well
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Who has the time for this? I say it sarcastically, but this is really a numbers game. 25 kids, 45 minutes, 90 class periods in a semester. That is 2.7 hours per student. That includes getting to know students, helping with personalization choices, decision making, monitoring learning, providing feedback, monitoring new learning, providing more feedback on dozens of standards. Our system isn't designed to foster personalized learning. We are trying to fit a square key in a round hole.
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It's true, this is definetely a system-problem. It's one of the questions I'm hoping to answer through this course. Can these concepts be used in smaller ways and have a significant impact? They do ask a lot of us as educators.
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Certain forms of technology can be used to support progressive education
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I think of this as adaptive learning. it can be a valuable resource in personalization. Going back millenia, personalization began with the socratic method from Socrates himself. He was able to adapt learning through questioning, but he didn't rely on technology. He also had groups of 10 students for extended periods of time. So maybe technology allows teachers to have a larger effective reach than without it. In today's world, do you think technology aided learning is essential?
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She cautions educators who may be excited about the progressive educational implications for “personalized learning” to make sure everyone they work with is on the same page about what that phrase means.
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My school is always looking to be on the cutting edge, looking for the new shiny thing that will catch people's eyes. "Personalized Learning" is the flavor of the year this year. It is frustrating as an educator in this situation because we feel we are doing something new ALL THE TIME. Our administration has not been clear as to what it will look like for us and our kids yet. While, in theory, I think that personalized learning will have many benefits for kids, I worry about what else it is going to pile on to us teachers.
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system of accountability in the U.S. educational system
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Standardized tests seem counterintuitive to innovative learning. How do we balance the two?
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If the standardized tests are on concepts/objectives that we think all students show know/understand as they progress through school, they should be general enough that students can approach them from different ways/their own ways and still achieve the objectives.
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Admin is always worried about test scores and rankings but if we want to give students the freedom to learn what they want the admin may be concerned about scores.
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Big questions, passion, personal interest are what should drive our use of technology, not the other way around.
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best student-centered, project-based education, kids spend much of their time learning with and from one another
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it implies moving away from the industrialized form of education that pumps out cookie-cutter students with the
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This made me think of our last forum post when we discussed the difference between "personalized and differentiation". This is what I was referring to when I said using them interchangeably doesn't necessarily work. It might... but often time personalized means student choice based and out of the ordinary.
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For many educators that’s not the true meaning of “personalized learning.”
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After decades of this approach, it is clear that all children don’t learn the same way and personalization seems to honor those differences
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“We often say we want creativity and innovation – personalization – but every mechanism we use to measure it is through control and compliance,”
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Our kids (and we ourselves) are suddenly walking around with access to the sum of human knowledge in our pockets and connections to literally millions of potential teachers
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content knowledge that, as we know from experience, never gets applied in real life.
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ollie-afe-2019: Article: Attributes from Effective Formative Assessment (CCSSO) - 0 views
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Because the formative assessment process helps students achieve intended learning outcomes based on explicit learning progressions, teachers must first identify and then communicate the instructional goal to students.
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Articulating goals in student friendly language is important so students know what the target is.
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As our district moves forward to standards-based learning/grading, we need to change our mindset. Students need to see learning as more important that "getting a good grade'. We can help this process by sharing the learning targets with them.
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In order for the students to see that the learning is more important than the grade, educators also need to make that shift in thinking. As my son starts applying to colleges, it seems to be ALL about his grades. I know many of my sons' teachers also feel that getting a good grade is the end result. I think students as a whole would be more receptive to how much they have learned if their teachers modeled that as well.
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This is where the rubric comes into play. Students need to know or see what they will be evaluated on for the final product. I really like the idea of having students create their own rubric.
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Effective formative assessment involves collecting evidence about how student learning is progressing during the course of instruction so that necessary instructional adjustments can be made to close the gap between students’ current understanding and the desired goals. Formative assessment is not an adjunct to teaching but, rather, integrated into instruction and learning with teachers and students receiving frequent feedback.
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People think this can be "scripted" but it really can't. Formative assessment CHANGES the teaching and learning processes to meet the needs of the learners. It is fluid.
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and I think it is difficult to say that formative assessment can close the gap. Imagine if classrooms waited for everyone to get something before moving on. Formative assessment is more beneficial, in my opinion, in small groups. If 90% of kids get an exit ticket correct, the class will likely move on. Even though we know that 10% don't get it.
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In an ideal situation you would move on, but the 10% would receive additional instruction in order to learn and understand what they didn't before. The trick is to find the time to do that. Every time we find time in order to make this happen it seems to get snatched up by something else that we need to do.
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This is something we can been discussing a great deal and whether we should include it in our grade books...with or without points and we do not give credit for formative assessments.
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In self-assessment, students reflect on and monitor their learning using clearly explicated criteria for success.
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I agree but if we did it more and across the curriculum we could help them all become better at it.
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I find that kids are often more critical of themselves than I would be. Maybe it's false modesty, but when I've had students do a post-writing reflection or log, most of the time they think their writing is crap and they struggled more than I say in class. That is often eye opening since we think we know what happens in our classrooms, but it shouldn't be a surprise that students - like teachers - are experts at hiding their struggles.
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Creating such a culture requires teachers to model these behaviors during interactions with students, to actively teach the classroom norms, and to build the students’ skills in constructive self- and peer-assessment. In this type of classroom culture, students will more likely feel they are collaborators with their teacher and peers in the learning process.
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This reminds me of the routines you have to build with elementary students each fall for things like centers, bell ringers, daily 5, etc. Even blended and flipped learning needs routines visited and revisited at the beginning.
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This is why I love the math curriculum I am using. The main focus is collaboration. Everyday students are expected to come up and share their work on how they solved the problem. Students enjoy learning from their classmates.
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It's interesting to me that in elementary we spend the time to create a culture, but many teachers ignore this in the secondary classroom.
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Increasing numbers of educators regard formative assessment as a way not only to improve student learning, but also to increase student scores on significant achievement examinations.
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It is worrisome to me that the focus seems to be more on increasing student standardized test scores than increasing student learning/understanding. Which is better for the student in the long run?
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an agreed concern.....so much focus on standardized scores has changed focus to results instead of learning
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Do standardized tests provide value to our students, really? Cant say they do. Formative assessment is for guiding the teacher and student to learn, not take a test.
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From a learning progression teachers have the big picture of what students need to learn, as well as sufficient detail for planning instruction to meet short-term goals.
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This is why it is important to begin each assignment with the end in mind. What do we want students to learn, how will we measure that learning, and how to we get there?
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Agreed. From a person interested in the content and the learning of their students this makes sense. From a practical perspective, I think a large portion of students would not find any value in this. I would guess over 50% would not read it and would not use it. Now, as a teacher, I can say you should have read this to know how to improve, that isn't a practical solution though. I think that has to come from application and purposeful relevancy.
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This is a great idea. I would love to get some of these set up. A great tool to use with students.
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Descriptive feedback should be about the particular qualities of student learning with discussion or suggestions about what the student can do to improve. It should avoid comparisons with other pupils. Specific, timely feedback should be based on the learning goal and criteria for success. It should help the student answer three basic questions: Where am I going? Where am I now? How can I close the gap?
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It is of the utmost importance to make sure that students are only comparing their work to their prior efforts, as opposed to comparing their work to that of other students.
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I like the last 3 questions of the paragraph. Great questions for me to ask. It would be a nice way to have the students reflect after a test as well.
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I agree Matt, these questions can help students reflect on their learning, and it would be great to have all teachers use them so it becomes second nature to students.
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I notice the word "timely". This is SO important but also so hard to do with teachers' workloads. Does anyone have something that works for both the teacher and student?
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I love this idea from Caitlin Tucker: https://catlintucker.com/2019/02/ask-yourself-why-am-i-grading-this/ So much of what we grade does not require a grade. Maybe if we make this adjustment, our work load would decrease.
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Alternatively, feedback could be given using a format such as “two stars and a wish,” which provides a structure for a student to identify two aspects of the work that are particularly strong (stars) and one aspect the peer might improve (a wish).
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I really like this idea, as it focuses on what students are doing well. It is much easier to take constructive criticism when it is couched with praise.
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I really like this idea as well! Phrasing it as "a wish" will be easier for the creator of the project to hear, but will also be easier for the evaluator to give. I know I have students who constantly say,"You don't need to change anything," not because they think that is true, but because they do not want to bruise anyone's feelings.
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Formative assessment is a process used by teachers and students during instruction that provides feedback to adjust ongoing teaching and learning to improve students’ achievement of intended instructional outcomes.
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Notice the definition does not say that formative assessments can't be graded. I am a proponent of grading formative assessments, but I have heard others say it should not be.
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I think Evan mentioned this in one of his video chats. He talked about the value of not grading the formative assessment but using it to enhance classroom discussion. Would this work in a math classroom?
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This is an excellent point. My first reaction was No! Don't grade it! But then I thought about the chapter reading quizzes I would give. In some ways these were formative because I wanted to see if students understood the chapter in the novel. In others, it was summative in that I wanted to hold students accountable for the reading. I did grade them. Hmmm...Interesting
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I think it is so interesting to consider not grading formative assessments. I feel like every time I give an assignment to students the first question they ask is "Will this go on my grade?"
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I think many times we ask students during a lesson, to give a number of fingers as to whether you understand what we just shared. And I had done that for many years, but never knew it was called formative assessment until a few years ago.
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I really enjoy that formative assessment can be done in so many different ways (verbally, a quiz, practice problems, exit tickets, review games, etc.....) I do get where Trevor is coming from though......very much a grade centric focus instead of a learning focus
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Exactly we need to get away from grading everything as we may not have taught the content in way that ll can learn. Use FA to guide instruction and improve student learning.
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five attributes
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Descriptive Feedback:
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This is by far the most important part of formative assessment for students. Teachers need to provide timely, informative feedback, so that students can learn from their mistakes.
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Agreed! The feedback piece is the most important by far, and you mentioned how important it is to have it in a timely manner!
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Self- and Peer-Assessment
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Peer assessment is the most difficult for all parties involved. It is difficult for students to critique each other's work appropriately and it is difficult for students to receive feedback from peers. It is also difficult for teachers to model appropriate behaviors for peer assessment.
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I agree. It is always hard to get students to do this the right way. The idea behind it is awesome though, if you could somehow get students to appropriately evaluate their classmates work.
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The students must be actively involved in the systematic process intended to improve their learning. The process requires the teacher to share learning goals with students and provide opportunities for students to monitor their ongoing progress.
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I like this idea about students having an active process. This would be very valuable for both the student and teacher. If the student has more of an active process by setting goals and monitoring them I feel they would have sense of ownership in the process. Very powerful when they feel this way.
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I agree. I think it would increase student ownership of the learning process.
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Totally agree! Student choice and voice is an important piece that I think we miss out on frequently in education
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To support both self- and peer-assessment, the teacher must provide structure and support so students learn to be reflective of their own work and that of their peers, allowing them to provide meaningful and constructive feedback.
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This is something that I need to do a better job of. I've thought about using math journals where students could reflect on on their own work and that of their peers when peer evaluating. The lack of time is the excuse.
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It's not an excuse; it's a reality. When you have over 100 students, it's impossible to give them as much attention as you would like.
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This will provide students with a reasonably clear idea of the analytic skills they are to develop and also provide them with the tools required to assess their own written analyses.
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This involves moving from the early stages of reasoning based on simple observation to the more complex stages based on indirect observation and the synthesis of multiple sources of information.
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Which happens at different times for different students. Some may have already accomplished it while others need more scaffolding to achieve it.
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True! I think these kinds of complex skills are exactly the ones that might be worth the time for formal formative feedback so students and teachers see who has it and who doesn't.
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A classroom culture in which teachers and students are partners in learning should be established.
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Honestly, I forget this part the most of the 5 categories. I am not the CEO, but more a manager.
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I agree! However that quote goes "Students don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care."
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I think this might be most important attribute of all. Culture and climate are so important. Kids will work hard for you even if they don't want to do the project if you have a good relationship with them.
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without dissent:
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Amazing to me that no one disagreed. Worries me about groupthink occurring at that meeting. I'm not saying I disagree with the definition, but that really amazes me there was no dissent.
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I imagine if people were at a meeting about formative assessment, they would all be on the same page to begin with. I imagine this was merely a wordsmithing session and less of deliberate one.
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is to provide evidence that is used by teachers
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depending on what I'm looking for, formative assessment can sometimes be more effective for just me. Often my students don't really know (or care) where they are in the grand scheme of things, but I need to know so I can determine our course.
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I did have students use their comprehension quizzes as a formative assessment. If they did not get 8/10, I had them write a note on the quiz as to why. Did they just not do the reading? Did the read it while multi-tasking? Did they read it but just not get it? I was hoping to make them aware of their learning and why it was not where it should be when considering reading comprehension of a novel. But then, maybe I should not have graded it??
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a process rather than a particular kind of assessment.
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This is where it gets difficult for me sometimes. The recursive aspect is difficult when dealing with a common course that is supposed to stay on track with other sections led by other teachers. Having the ability to be flexible with instruction is essential, but when "aligned" with other teachers, that flexibility can be constrained.
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informal observations and conversations to purposefully planned instructionally embedded techniques designed to elicit evidence of student learning
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Many teachers do a lot of formative assessment in the way of observation, listening, even questioning. In an online setting, this is the part that harder. But as standards move more to skills and concepts rather than just knowledge, those "embedded techniques" might be a piece that's missing. Many times when students "miss the mark" on the test, it's because there was a disconnect in what they thought they were supposed to know or lack of feedback on what they were supposed to do.
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offers enough substantive information to allow the student an opportunity to identify ways to move learning forward.
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The use of models here is the key though. Sometimes this info isn't enough if they have seen or heard many speeches that do this (and most kids haven't).
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As a former writing teacher, I never doubted the power of the feedback. The problem was finding the time. I could not read 100+ papers twice: once formative and second summative. It was a struggle to provide the feedback they needed and survive the job.
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I teach Math so I can't imagine what it is like trying to provide timely feedback for writing assignments. I think it's hard enough to do it with math homework when the student is missing a piece of the equation or something.
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they can take an active role in planning, monitoring, and evaluating their own progress.
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I've always felt that one of the biggest benefits of peer-assessment has nothing to do with the feedback--it has to do with perspective. When a student sees how another student approached a writing prompt or a problem or a process, it allows them to look differently at their own work. If the only thing students ever see is the the teacher's thinking and their own, it can limit their understanding.
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supporting students as they monitor and take responsibility for their own learning
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a formative tes
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I always wonder about this when I hear teachers saying that they are using plc time to develop "common formative assessments".
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You have a valid point Deborah. Should we have common formative assessments or not? According to this article it's an ongoing process throughout a lesson and should be adaptive to each teacher.
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I think it is one more item in education we do not have time to create...common formative assessments.
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teachers and students
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Shouldn't all teaching and learning involve educators and students? lol.
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I feel that all too often teachers think of weekly quizzes as formative assessment. Unfortunately, those weekly quizzes are often not used to adjust teaching. This definition says it is a PROCESS. I don't think many teachers think of it that way.
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meta-cognitively
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Learning Goals and Criteria for Success: Learning goals and criteria for success should be clearly identified and communicated to students.
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While I am not in classrooms very often, almost all of them do this. I feel like this is something that teachers have made a real effort to do.
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Agreed. However, in my experience, most students don't care. It is kind of like showing them standards. Even in kid friendly language, they largely don't care. I think this article brings up lots of good information, but the reality of practice is much different than the reality of the folks coming up with these things.
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and show the trajectory of learning along which students are expected to progress
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evidence-based feedback
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ha ha ha...again a reality of practice. You can't reliably do this for 150 kids and every formative assessment. What about the informal formative assessments? Technology can help with this, but again it has to be setup to do so.
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I think you bring up a valid point. We really need to spend the time giving feedback, but I am wondering what is the difference between informal vs formal feedback. I have seen teachers use an "autopsy" after certain assignments so major issues are address large group. Often students tend to make similar mistakes.
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Giving feed back to every student is all most impossible to do in a timely matter if you 100+ students. I like the idea of addressing major mistakes as a large group because like Megan said most times multiple students make the same mistake or have the same problem.
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involving students in decisions about how to move learning forward are illustrations of students and teachers working together in the teaching and learning process.
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teachers and students
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In addition to communicating the nature of the instructional goal, teachers must provide the criteria by which learning will be assessed so that students will know whether they are successfully progressing toward the goal. This information should be communicated using language readily understood by students, and may be accompanied by realistic examples of those that meet and do not meet the criteria.
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How is this best accomplished? Does using an "I can" statement at the start of a math lesson accomplish this goal? I tend to think my students are not really interested in these statements. This also seems to feel like a time consuming requirement for a teacher. I feel a time crunch with just getting the lesson taught and giving kids a little work time in class.
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We are going down this road in more detail in our district now with SBG and rubrics are essential to learning and the communication to students.
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Helping students think meta-cognitively about their own learning fosters the idea that learning is their responsibility
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I need to include more opportunities for this as I think it is really important for students to take ownership of their learning.
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I've always tried to do this as I teach high school math. I love that math has a right answer but there are multiple ways to get it. I always tell students that we are filling their "toolbox" as we learn strategies to solving problems. Ultimately, though, it is up to them to make sense of what "tool" works best for them.
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However, for students to be actively and successfully involved in their own learning, they must feel that they are bona fide partners in the learning process.
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I think this sounds right but is it attainable with all students? Or more importantly how is it attainable. Several of my students come to mind that really don't express a desire to learn Algebra or Geometry and I have not been successful in changing that attitude!
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This is very doable, I think, when working with adult learners in a PD environment.
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I feel that is is doable, but I also feel it will be an uphill battle all the way with some students. It is very hard to overcome, in one week or month or year, the baggage some kids bring with them. However, this isn't a new struggle to us or to them. Anything and everything that helps them to succeed is what we will do!
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Jen, YES! It takes time for our students to trust us to build a partnership. We need to realize that trust is built one small moment at a time.
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short-term goals to keep track of how well their students’ learning is moving forward.
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Learning progressions are a great way to scaffold and have those checkpoints to see where students are at and help identify where students need assistance.
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I agree that checkpoints or formative assessments during a learning progression are extremely important. Without, a student could easily go through the motions and when it came to the summative assessment they would completely fail.
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inform instruction and learning
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I think there are constant examples of assessment informing instruction in classrooms. I find it interesting the formal formative assessment argument seems to hold water but informal or on the fly decisions in a classroom are not typically seen as quality modifications due to formative assessment since they are not done with hard data, but rather subjective data.
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A teacher needs to have modeled good feedback with students and talked about what acceptable and unacceptable comments look like in order to have created a safe learning environment.
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Sharing learning goals and criteria for success with students
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The teacher might first offer students a paraphrased version of that goal such as, “You will be able to judge the strengths and weaknesses of arguments in the editorials you find in our daily newspapers.” The teacher would discuss the criteria for evaluating arguments and then provide several examples of critiques of political essays
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Both self- and peer-assessment are important
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I think both self and peer assessment are a great idea. It's always good for student to self reflect on their work but its also good for them to hear feedback from classmates instead of just the teacher all the time.
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Peer reflection and peer learning to me is almost as valuable as teacher reflection. I think students learn better from peers than teachers in lots of situations because students can explain in their own language
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inform and adjust instruction
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I see a disconnect in utilization of formative assessment data to adjust instruction in elementary compared to secondary classrooms. K-5 teachers seem to be more knowledgable and willing to change instruction where secondary teachers struggle. Perhaps it's the number of students or race against the curriculum map, but I have observed that formative assessment data may come back showing poor understanding, but teachers keep moving forward.
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The success criterion that the teacher gives them is, “Include any properties or rules that may apply in your explanation.”
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Students then need time to reflect on the feedback they have received to make changes or improvements.
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I think this is a missed opportunity in classes. It is important to build in time to reflect, becuase students may not review this on their own. I thinking it's equally important to model what self reflection looks like and how it can be used to improve outcomes. It's just another layer of scaffolding.
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investigate the past from a range of sources of information,
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in increasingly sophisticated ways
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provide an explanation
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self-reflective b
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Self-reflection is huge! Now that we are moving towards SBG, I have tried working in more and more self-reflection into my rubrics. I want them thinking about what they did. On all my essays, they go through the rubric first and determine their score and add comments as to why they think they should get that score and then I go in after and grade and we can sort of compare.
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Implementation in a Secondary Classroom (Articles) - 0 views
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give students choice
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Giving students choices significantly changes the dynamics. The interview with these Finish educators was done in 2010, so eight year ago. I believe most of what they mentioned has been introduced to us in these AEA courses or through district pd. I'm glad to see our knowledge of how to implement has been nurtured even if we haven't had the opportunity to put it in action yet.
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they are getting away with less work and effort
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nto math class? It does fit
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Such a true opinion of Math not allowing students to easily make learning choices. I appreciate their examples of how it can work. I'd like to see more and in my age range.
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I am also glad the article showed an example of how to use in math. Reading some of the articles in this course, I have always been wondering how I could use PL in my math classes. I am glad this article gave and example. I too would also like to see more examples for how to use it with my students in Algebra 2.
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This would be the content area with the biggest frequency of teachers asking how they could embed technology into their specific content area. Glad to see examples!
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it makes for a less traditional- looking classroom
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purposeful design of instruction to combine face-to-face teaching, technology-assisted instruction and collaboration to leverage each student’s learning style and interests for deeper learning.
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It is a messier way to teach, though it takes more organization on the teacher’s part, not less.
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I can understand how it would take a teacher to be more organized when students are choosing their own way to present material. The teacher in a traditional setting would have all of the students use the same method or material for learning, where now each student can have a different way to learn the material and present it. The teacher would have to have some knowledge of the different types of ways students could use to learn and present.
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Agreed, I think that teachers would have to look for more characteristics of presentations rather than a specific set of measurable criteria. You could try to set up a rubric based on criteria, but I still think teachers would need to be open should a student show up and do something that meets learning standards yet defies the confines of a rubric.
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I think this is where teaches shut down. Teachers think that Flipped learning or Personalized learning is less work, in reality it is a lot more work. It'd be easier to keep track of 20-30 kids on exactly the same path.
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I use all of this data to inform adjustments
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Coming from an early childhood/elementary teaching background the idea of continual assessment makes sense. Checking for understanding during informal situations can lead to students getting help sooner. It might be just tweaking a thought or more in-depth reteach, but the student will have the opportunity to "get it" and move on compared to a final grade at the end of the unit and never understanding a portion or whole concept. That isn't providing our students the best learning environment.
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choices that promote feelings of control, purpose, and competence are likely to be more motivating than choices that do not.
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When students have a choice, it does make them feel like they are a part of their learning and not just having someone else tell them what they are to learn and how they are going to go about learning the material. It gives them a reason to do the lesson and feel powerful in doing it.
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Yes. Not just for kids. When I'm not micromanaged and feel that my support system supports my learning and interests, I am much more inclined to be engaged, productive, satisfied, etc.
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We experienced that in our Personalized Professional Development this year. We were able to select an area of interest, learn about it, then present what we learned. We had very positive feedback and pretty motivated on PD days!
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My next goal is to let them “test out”
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I think this is such a good idea. It would take an organized, dedicated teacher to be willing to take this step. How many behavior issues arise because students are bored because they already know the concept? Give these students the chance to be challenged with deeper level of the topic. The difficulty is it may take professional development, teacher willing to collaborate with global colleagues, and time. Baby steps are still better than no step at all.
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I mean it is easy for me to learn because I can pick assignments that let me do my best work
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people who believe that they have control tend to be more motivated
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A sense of purposefulness or meaningfulness is also heightened if the activity strengthens relationships with others.
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I think this sentiment is true for all of us. I am more motivated and engaged in assignments for these courses when I know the completed project has practical use with my students or staff. Not many of us appreciate busywork to my knowledge. We just don't have time for it.
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I am the same way.Time is precious and I want to spend time in things that are meaningful and that I can actually put to use in my classroom.
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It is less stressful to her and focuses the students on what they need to do to regain control.
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When I have students talking too much during class or "goofing around", I have had them choose who is going to move. Like the article says, it is less stressful for me and the students usually end up apologizing and gaining control of their situation. Again, they feel they are a part of it and are taking ownership instead of someone telling them exactly what to do.
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to use the students’ questions rather than her own to frame discussions,
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I do a middle school battle of the books requiring students to submit 2 questions from each book they read. They are expected to read a certain number of books to participate. It was a game-changer when I started using their own questions instead of mine. They were more engaged, listened for their questions, and teams were more excited about participating. It really works!
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Choices like this honor divergent ways of thinking a
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schools must provide appropriate professional development opportunities, both from within and beyond the school setting
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vision must pervade the organization, top to bottom
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this preparatory process
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This is not a method, but an art and a talent
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While choice can be a powerful motivator, on some occasions it can also have an adverse effect. In other words, not all choices have a positive effect on motivation and achievement. Therefore, it is helpful to consider a few factors that can help teachers design choices that have the potential to positively influence motivation and achievement.
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I think this is what concerns educators and the general public when considering the implementation of personalized learning practices. Left to their own devices, students may not select the most appropriate or rigorous activities/topics. The success of personalized learning will include the teacher's ability to challenge that process when necessary.
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Therefore, personalized teaching is not an isolated, or isolating, phenomenon. Instead, it combats the deadening effects on learning that result from teachers’ isolation and anonymity in large school settings.
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Completion rules also give me the freedom to have small-group or individual conferences to assess learning and make choices about future instruction.
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Not every program lends itself to choice, of course, but even then there are opportunities.
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I think it's important to remember that flexibility and adaptability are important during implementation of personalized learning. Not everything will fit neatly and work flawlessly. If viewed as an opportunity or a challenge rather than a problem, the chances for success greatly improve. It always comes back to finding that right mix and balance of instructional practice and processes.
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If you have the opportunity to test this out in a face to face classroom I think it is important to not force this idea just because it's the new thing you learned about. If you want it to be successful it needs to make sense within the classroom and it needs to be authentic.
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You really have to be on top of things to allow the students choice since now there is more than one “right” way of doing something in the classroom
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I agree that you have to be more on top of things, but I really think that it helps to ensure good communication with students. Those quiet students are less likely to fall through the cracks. Plus, if we weren't checking in on the students and their choices, we would be nagging them to get what they have not interest in doing done.
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I decided to “release” one piece of the assignment at a time in an effort to control students’ pathway through the materia
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I really like the idea of starting small. It's the best way to do any transformation, but we often think we have to change all things at once. It's a nice reminder that we don't have to. A little at a time. :)
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I like the term they used a release because for this to be successful it is what the teacher has to do. They have to release control of the learning.
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creating a website, or writing a script for a video that they then record.
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students receive a digital review of the research proce
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Okay. Here’s a list of choices. Choose one. As long as you follow the steps in my rubric, you’re fine.’”
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“One of the things I had to learn recently was to let go and allow the kids to experience the consequences of their choices.
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What happens if a student does not work on the project? If the project takes a long period of time and they wasted too much time then They may not have time to finish it. I understand how student's might fail and that is part of learning. Middle School students need some time management help when keeping on track. It would be difficult to totally let go.
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I think this is where my hold up would be on a project. It's hard for me to see my students fail. Especially when the student is actively trying to succeed. Failure is a part of real life but I think I'd try to do too much of the work for the student so ensure success.
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I'm with you guys here. Real life has deadlines ... and consequences for not meeting those deadlines. Personal(ized) learning requires a total growth mindset from both the student and the teacher. I'm not sure I'm there yet. Can't relinquish that control totally. I've tried blending my instruction and that's not going the best. Turning them loose completely scares me.
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they liked it because it was what they picked.
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One of you needs to move. You decide.
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Interesting idea, I would love to see a video of this in action. The teacher must have taught conflict resolution skills. Many students do not have the skills to complete this task. Maybe with the help of a peer mentor, on their own would be difficult depending on the age of the students.
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This is a cool idea. I would also like to know more about how this works in class. I think putting the uncomfortableness on the students might help improve the behavior more quickly.
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Learn from others. I won’t lie. The journey from old school to new learning paradigm was bumpy at first. I tried blended lessons that took less time than planned, had technology failures, chose the wrong method of delivery for various types of content or skills, and generally made every mistake you can imagine. But I didn’t give up, and eventually I had more successes than failures. My students’ input and further pedagogical study helped me refine my lesson planning until I got it right.
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Let students make choices. When I first embarked on this mission, I decided to “release” one piece of the assignment at a time in an effort to control students’ pathway through the material. Since then, I have learned that a more personalized approach to assignments — which is also aligned to the ISTE Standard for Teachers addressing digital age learning experiences and assessments
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One strategy that many teachers use to foster higher levels of interest and engagement is choice. However, research in the past decade has revealed that choice is not necessarily a cure-all for lack luster motivation. While choice can be a powerful motivator, on some occasions it can also have an adverse effect. In other words, not all choices have a positive effect on motivation and achievement. Therefore, it is helpful to consider a few factors that can help teachers design choices that have the potential to positively influence motivation and achievement.
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This is something I struggle with. I might have an amazing class setup, but if the student is not motivated by what I have setup how do I reach them? The struggle is real!
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Lately I've been studying some of the culturally responsive pedagogy discussion protocols that we'll learn more about next year, and the biggest factor that I see repeating is not only should the content be engaging, but some students need support in getting started. Some students need discussion protocols in order to feel like they have a valid voice. I think engagement and inclusion go hand in hand.
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When you want to give students choice, it is often optimal to give them a limited number of options, but be as flexible as possible. Since motivation depends upon an individual’s perceptions of control, purpose, and competence, students may perceive the same set of options differently. For example, when a teacher assigns a research project, some students will prefer to have a broad range of topics, others will prefer a small list of options, and yet others will prefer to be told what to do. Giving students a short list of topics with an option to create their own topic, with the teacher’s approval, often works well.
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math had a purpose in relation to something they cared about.
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collecting data
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This flipped learning setup frees up my students to use classtime to practice their skills.
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I have tried this two years in a row now and just can't get the kids and parents to buy in. In today's day and (digital) age one would think kids would rather watch videos on their favorite device as 'homework' and do their 'homework' at school where there are under lock down anyway. Why can't I get my kids to buy into this concept?
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lack of motivation among students
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Units of study in each learning community are planned around the “big ideas” in each subject area and often have interdisciplinary ramifications.
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For those of you non-elementary folk (of which I am now a part of) this reminds me of the dreaded end of program thematic unit from the late 90's early 2000's. In order to graduate I had to produce a multi week, multi subject area unit covering math science social studies and language arts. Now I think that's easier to pull off when you are the sole teacher. Trying to incorporate something like this in a middle, or god forbid a high school, would be extremely challenging. But I have an idea that centers around baseball if anyone wants to join forces :-) An idea like this has lifelong learning implications.
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believe they will succeed during challenging activities tend to be more motivated
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who, what, when, where, and how questions.
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Implementation in Advocacy/Guidanace/Post-Secondary Preparation (Articles) - 0 views
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we found that offering options to students also bears risk for the educators.
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They also reached beyond the immediate Graham community to forge partnerships, potentially risking their original plan to unforeseen compromises and adaptations, leaving them-selves open to new opportunities.
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As a parent, community member, and educator, I love this type of authentic learning. But how does this fit into the standards, required curriculum, high-stakes testing education system we have today? Do these partnerships with the community bring more support to schools or do they open up schools to even more criticism if test results aren't a piece of the puzzle?
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Providing choice risks failure because when we, as teachers, make all the decisions for our students, lessons will proceed predictably in productive directions; however, when we remove the possibility of students choosing, and choosing wrongly, we fail to aid the students in becoming competent, thoughtful risk takers.
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An environment without risk fails to prepare students for life outside the classroom, a world of risk taking. Allowing students to experience measured risks, in a supportive community, models the real-world paradigm where choices naturally entail risk.
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Over 60% of students who eventually dropped out of high school failed at least25% of their credits in the ninth grade, while only 8% of their peers who eventually graduated had similar difficulty.”
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The Silent Epidemic estimates that the government would reap $45 billion in extra tax revenues and reduced costs in public health, crime, and welfare payments if the number of high school dropouts among 20-year olds in the U.S. today were cut in half.
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It also suggests that educators have not yet found a single approach that comprehensively addresses the needs of all at risk students.
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Instead of challenging students to raise their performance to the level they must reach to be successful, too often credit recovery “solutions” have lowered the bar for passing.
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It was not that I didn’t want to go to the school; it was that there was nothing for me to go to.
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The sum of all these experiences was a prelude to his senior year, when he began the process of selecting colleges.
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These experiences all sound amazing. But how do they fit into what is required of schools? Is all of this in addition to the learning of "traditional classes"? How does this impact algebra or government class or writing skills? I think it sounds great and would allow students to become well-rounded individuals, but it's hard to understand how a school uses their human and fiscal resources to make this kind of learning available to all students.
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"Personalized" vs. "Personal" Learning - 1 views
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student moving through a prescribed set of activities at his own pace. The only choice a student gets is what box to check on the screen and how quickly to move through the exercises
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I do not think of this as personal learning. I would qualify this as individual learning. HOWEVER, I do think there's value in this. I have students who would rather work at their own pace via checklists. That said, this isn't personalized...all of the students do the same thing, just at different speeds.
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I agree with you, Ben. I appreciated this clarification between personalized and individual learning. I know that my 5th grade son would really appreciate this style of learning as he gets very frustrated when he has to wait for other classmates to finish tasks before going on to the next thing. I think there is room in education for individualization and personalization. in fact, maybe individualized learning is a good stepping stone toward personalized learning.
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Ben and Erin - I agree with both of your thoughts. To me it seems that personalization has to include more than just student choice in pace of learning. Students have to have some choice in how they learn and what they learn and what they can do to demonstrate mastery. I almost wonder if those elements of personalization that I mentioned above would be difficult for some students who are box checkers like my son who is really good at checking his canvas to-do list, finishing his work, etc. He stays on top of checking the boxes, but sometimes I wonder how deeply he is learning the content that is assigned to him. I don't know if that makes a whole lot of sense.
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personalized learning experience requires student choice, is individualized, meaningful and resource rich
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I think this becomes much easier with appropriate technology (1:1 devices), but I keep coming back to how much time must be devoted to finding resources for kids. I would think that personalized learning takes a significantly larger volume of "stuff" to accomplish vs. traditional learning....and I can't think of many ways to do this without enough technology.
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As the students progress through this process, why wouldn't they be able to find their own resources?
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If we can’t engage our kids in ideas and explorations that require no technology, then we have surely lost our way
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From a PhysEd teacher's standpoint, I agree completely. Since we've moved to a 1:1 school (well before the pandemic), we made the philosophy of our PhysEd program to be a chance for the kids to unplug for 45 min. daily. Obviously, that's easy to do in our world. However, we have access to great Heart Rate-based technology. So, it's now about finding the correct balance of play, skill, and time in the THRZ. I would go so far as to say, 1:1 might be doing as much damage wit kids as it is good for them.
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You want to really engage kids? Give them opportunities to learn personally
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Virtual instruction during this pandemic has been eye-opening for me with this. With our kids who are 100% virtual learning, we are trying to give them more options for PE-at-Home. Engagement has been an issue, but for the kids that have embraced it, they've done an excellent job. I believe in functional movement in PE, so I try really hard to give the kids the freedom to do things relevant and functional for them.
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I am glad to hear that you have had success with virtual engagement. I have had so many conversations this year about how to engage kids in virtual settings, how to get beyond teaching to the black squares in Zoom or Meet. I admit, as a PD provider, the black boxes rattle me. It has been an interesting experience trying to find the best ways to engage online professional learning participants.
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personalization only comes when students have authentic choice over how to tackle a problem
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I'm not sure if anyone else (specifically math teachers) have heard of Open Middle problems before, but personalized learning kind of reminds me of those. Students all start at the same place and end at the same place (which would be learning/understanding the content and meeting standards) but how students get to the end goal is up to them.
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Erin - this is how I try to teach my math classes. If I know of multiple ways to solve a problem, I will show my students all of them and then tell them they have to pick whichever method(s) fit their brains. My brain works differently than others - I am a pattern person, not a formula person. So when I am teaching the formula stuff, I always try to show my kids how my brain sees things - just in case there are other pattern people out there.
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Students learn all different ways and I agree with showing students all ways a problem can be done and have them choose what way works best for them and their learning style!
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When that happens, the structures around the classroom leave little room for the kind of authentic, whole-child personalization many teachers dream of offering
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The idea of personalized learning is seductive
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Seven words into the article and I'm already saying, "YES!" As I was talking to my kids about their ideal school and imagining a day in the life of a personalized learner, I kept thinking, "Why can't we create these types of schools? I would LOVE for my kids to go to a school like this!" The idea of creating environments in which students can create their day to match their learning needs and they can pursue topics that they are most interested in is very "seductive." I want that for my students, my own kids, and even for myself. How amazing would it be to teach in a school like we've imagined?
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This is how 'school' used to be. Kids went for the basics, and then as soon as they had mastered those, they found someone to apprentice to in order to learn the craft/trade that they wanted to do. Or, if they went on to a college, they simply found instructors that were talking about things they were interested in and sat in on those conversations. With the industrialization of America, we had to shift to more standardized learning because manufacturers needed those skills in their factories. So, we actually need to shift back to the old ways (in my opinion).
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like many new "initiatives"- it's important to look past the shiny newness and see what is worth keeping
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The Web has changed or is changing just about everything when it comes to how we think about the ways in which we communicate, collaborate and create
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I feel like we've been hearing this for awhile now - we are preparing students for jobs that don't even exist yet. The skills and dispositions they will need to be successful in the workforce are more about problem solving, creative thinking, and communication versus an abundance of knowledge of facts and formulas. So how are we (can we) changing how schools function to match how the "real world" has changed in the last decade?
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it’s crucially more important to have the dispositions and the skills to create our own educational opportunities, not be trained to wait for opportunities that someone else has selected for delivery.
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I had the opportunity a few years ago to talk to upper elementary students about the concept of learning. It was amazing to me that many of these said that learning looks like sitting quietly and listening to the teacher or getting all the questions correct on a test. These definitions made me sad. How is it that in just a few years of schooling we have given students such a passive view of learning? Learning is done to them not something that they are in charge of. Personal learning is a shift in the right directions. We have to TEACH students how to be learners. We have to put them in the "driver's seat" and allow them to make the decisions that will help them learn.
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Erin, your comment really resonates with me. I think sometimes we inadvertently communicate this message about what learning is to our students. We focus a lot on compliance but struggle at teaching students how to learn, how to monitor their own understanding, how to determine where their are gaps in their understanding and where to go next. I think this focus on compliance creates a lot of hoop jumpers or box checkers that know how to play the "game" of school.
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Big questions, passion, personal interest are what should drive our use of technology, not the other way around.
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Yes, yes, yes! This is what I've been striving to get across to my technology director this year as we are working toward a 1:1 digital learning environment in our elementary schools. I want PD to be focused on best practices of instruction not simply the latest and greatest tech features. The way to engage students hasn't changed because we have more access to technology - if we want to truly engage students in the content we have to get them passionate about it and interested in learning more for the sake of learning not just scoring points on an assignment.
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moving ownership of learning away from the teacher and more toward the student.
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Is anyone in an AIW district? We use AIW to some extent within our district and one of the key pieces of learning I took away from my AIW training was asking "Who is carrying the cognitive load?" We need to ensure that the teacher is not the one doing all of the heavy lifting in the learning. We need to design learning experiences in which the students are the ones actively doing the learning. We don't want "sit and get" lessons in which students simply listen to the information. We want students to be asking questions and seeking their own answers.
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“Personalized” learning is something that we do to kids; “personal” learning is something they do for themselves
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This statement really stuck out to me - the difference between personalized and personal learning. I think I struggle with "personal" learning because I have the traditional mindset that students need to be able to do and understand a certain amount of math, social studies, science and English to be a well rounded individual and have a hard time comprehending that students learning something for themselves is always going to equal having educational value.
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many school district leaders require public school educators to teach a specific curriculum
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This is the part of the whole personal learning experience that has me baffled. This may be the traditionalist in me, but what happens to the viable and guaranteed curriculum that we have spent so many PD hours developing.
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I agree with this thought. I keep thinking aren't there some foundational skills that all student must know? Maybe this is the shift to a more standards based grading that would allow more flexibility?
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In a world where we can explore almost every interest or passion in depth on our own or with others
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What becomes the role of the teaching with a personal learning environment, especially at the high school level where many of us have chosen the profession because we have our own passion for that area of expertise? I didn't necessarily get into this profession to help students learn anything, I kind of specifically came into this job because I have a passion for mathematics and want to specifically teach that passion.
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What becomes the role of the teaching with a personal learning environment, especially at the high school level where many of us have chosen the profession because we have our own passion for that area of expertise? I didn't necessarily get into this profession to help students learn anything, I kind of specifically came into this job because I have a passion for mathematics and want to specifically teach that passion.
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more effective delivery method than any one teacher with 25 or 30 student
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So reading this statement, in my mind instantly pops in 25 or 30 individualized lesson plans for personal learning. It may be a more effective delivery method, but is it necessarily efficient. There has to be some sort of structural changes to the current system of education to allow for personalization of learning.
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but every mechanism we use to measure it is through control and compliance
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Until the state changes the way they evaluate the success of schools and colleges change the way they look at admissions, especially 4 year liberal and public colleges, how do we let students do personal learning, but assure we are going to reach those requirements from the state and make sure students reach the requirements to attend the post-secondary education they want to receive. Based off of legislative decisions made so far this year, I feel like we have even less control and need to show more compliance in the near future than ever before. :(
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I feel you, Travis. I have often thought about this in terms of teacher licensure renewal, too, and how we would love to offer a more personalized approach to PD that are modularized that teachers can pick and choose from to put together a recertification credit. But the focus right now is on seat hours and that is incredibly frustrating when trying to come up with some more innovative PD models for recertification.
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mass customized learning,” meanwhile, may sound Orwellian but it’s not really an oxymoron because what’s customized is mass-produced – which is to say, standardized. Authentic personal learning isn’t.[6]
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I love this passage so much - the mass customized learning and reference to Orwellian doublespeak are fantastic. I do think that personal learning does become somewhat bastardized when you focus so heavily on the platform, or the program, or the technology that is going to make thee learning happen. That is not personalized learning, that is algorithmized learning or learning that measures me against some predetermined set of criteria but doesn't take into account what I am interested in, what dispositions I have, etc. It is kind of a double edged sword though becuase in order to efficiently make learning personal (given our current human resources constraints in our current models of education - 1 teacher, 31 - 150 kids, prepping for multiple classes/subjects) you need to have some kind of technology to help support.
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free to expand as a standardized individual.
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Personal learning (as Kohn prefers it to be called) seems very good in theory. However, when it comes down to the nitty gritty - planning how it would actually function within a school / classroom, it gets messy. That is the point when many teachers I work with go back to standardization. it's easier when everyone does the same thing. How can we get over this hurdle?
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I so agree. Personalized sounds idea but how does that work with 20 - 30 students and 1 teacher? I see where an online program works for this but believe when you put them on a program that a teacher didn't make the connection gets lost.
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Personal learning entails working with each child to create projects of intellectual discovery that reflect his or her unique needs and interests.
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Personalized learning entails adjusting the difficulty level of prefabricated skills-based exercises based on students’ test scores.
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Personalized’ learning is something that we do to kids; ‘personal’ learning is something they do for themselves.”[4]
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From our debate in the class forums, this quote reminds me of differentiation/individualization versus personalization. In my mind, personalized learning is personalized for each student and giving them control over the what, how, and when of the learning process while still keeping them accountable to the standards and expectations of their grade level.
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transmission of bits of information
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This reminded me of a blog post I read recently about thinking versus remembering. (https://www.byrdseed.com/thinking-or-remembering/) It also connects to the AIW (Authentic Intellectual Work) principles of construction of knowledge and conceptual understanding.
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Personal learning tends to nourish kids’ curiosity and deepen their enthusiasm.
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And if we are creating thinkers who are enthusiastic about learning and curious about the world around them, won't they learn more? Won't they be more employable and successful in the future? And in turn, won't they also probably do better on the state assessments? If students really have to think and understand content at a deeper level, they are more likely to remember what they've learned.
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It’s as if engaging them in learning without technology has become this impossible task.
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This does tend to be the thought process however I feel that students are actually more engaged when we take away the technology. Without the technology they are more inclined to discuss, collaborate, and think about their work without just assuming what their "google search" search found is the only answer or for that matter the only correct answer.
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flipping doesn’t do much for helping kids become better learners in the sense of being able to drive their own education.
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requires us to think deeply about our goals and practices as educators,
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This kind of learning allows students to work at their own pace and level, meets the individual needs of students, and perhaps most importantly, is not a one-size fits all model.
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“That has nothing to do with the person sitting in front of you
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deep learning
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Deep learning. I feel like some times when we thinking of online learning we think of videos/lectures, assignments, and etc. the same as a traditional classroom. This is when we need to do some personalization and flipping of our prior knowledge. How do we allow students to still learn the things that the standards say, but in a way that they can show their depth of knowledge by not just answering questions but by us really understanding their understanding of a certain topic. More of the deep learning takes place when they have to create or explain in their own words with reasonsing.
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data-driven
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Data driven was a key word that always grabs my attention. This is where data can be placed into the course to understand where a certain student's pathway lies. This would also be a great example of our students. We have students that are 18 years of age, with minimal prior education but we still place them as a senior grade level. This allows us to really personalize learning for that student for them to be successful.
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‘We often say we want creativity and innovation – personalization – but every mechanism we use to measure it is through control and compliance.’
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they digitally attached it to a generic animated child’s body that “plays” with Barney in the video.
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“’Personalized’ learning is something that we do to kids; ‘personal’ learning is something they do for themselves.”
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Tracking kids’ “progress” with digital profiles and predictive algorithms paints a 21st-century gloss on a very-early-20th-century theory of learning.
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this brings to mind the questions of PLCs 1. What do we want all students to know and be able to do? 2. How will we know if they learn it? 3. How will we respond when some students do not learn? 4. How will we extend the learning for students who are already proficient? I'm still struggling with the idea of personalized learning and how structurally fits into our school model.
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B.F. Skinner proposed setting each child before a teaching machine,
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The idea of personalized learning is seductive
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“Personalized” learning is something that we do to kids; “personal” learning is something they do for themselves.