This is one of the main reasons that I've tried to implement peer assessment in the past. In group projects, I incorporate some form of peer assessment to encourage students to be motivated and contribute to the group. I hate that I use peer assessment as a carrot to get some students to do the work, but I haven't figured out another alternative yet.

I have noticed that students will often give the same scores for all group members, even if it was clear during the process of working that not all students participated equally. I think this becomes less of an issue when the students are in groups that don't necessarily include their friends, but can still be hard for students to complete honestly.

I think this is one of the barriers for teachers to using self or peer assessment in their courses. The main assessments need to be developed ahead of time, and I feel that too often, educators are throwing an assessment together after the instruction has begun. I believe teachers are getting better at this because of UBD and the focus on learning targets, etc. but unless the assessments are ready before starting the unit, it's hard to clearly communicate all of the criteria ahead of time. I see this as a barrier to implementing these types of assessment and a possible explanation as to why we don't see these types as often.

I often have these same thoughts when I think about our science standards. So much of the standard is based upon what students can do beyond memorizing content, so it doesn't seem appropriate to assess students in ways that make it more difficult to demonstrate those skills. Rubrics obviously lend themselves to these performance expectations well because of the science and engineering practices within them. However, I think there still has to be a balance because not everything can be assessed with a rubric.

I've never thought of viewing a rubric as scaffolding before when students are completing assessments. I think that's a more positive way to view rubrics if students are using them as guidelines to complete the task. Even if students have a rubric and know what is expected of them, it doesn't mean that they will automatically score much higher. They may still be lacking understanding/skills that the rubric is being used to assess.

I do like the leverage that rubrics provide students in knowing what is expected of them. It levels the playing field for all students if they have those guidelines ahead of time. I would imagine students also appreciate that they know what the teacher wants from them and isn't using the assessment as something to hold over their heads.

Although I would say this is definitely still true in the courses we teach (we still emphasize bigger, summative assessments), I think we have changed how we view student progress. Our summative assessments aren't all tests, some of them are projects or performance assessments. Those assessments are also no longer considered "one-and-done" opportunities. Students can retake assessments or make corrections, etc. to show progress in their learning even if they didn't get it right the first time. It's less focused on the final grade and instead, assessing what students have learned.

I find this distinction between summative and formative assessment interesting. In our freshman group of teachers, we have a category for both formative and summative assessment. Formative is weighted at 20% and summative is weighted at 80%. So although in my courses we were taught not to grade formatives, we still assign a score to it and put it into the gradebook. Also, if formatives weren't graded, I wonder how much of them would actually be completed by students?

My school has increased its emphasis on learning targets this year. We are all using a 5D+ template to write unit plans and the learning targets are similarly broken down into knowledge targets, academic targets (transferable skills), and performance targets. I think that writing unit plans and sitting down and thinking about the individual types of targets has really strengthened the types of instruction teachers are carrying out in their classrooms. They are more familiar with the targets they want students to meet, and in turn, students are also more familiar with what's expected of them.

I think that this is something that both teachers and students likely struggle with at first. Because it looks so different, teachers really have to be prepared to help 28 different students on any one thing. At the same time, students have to be comfortable with knowing that there isn't that one way of doing things to get it right. I've spoken with some of my students and I ask them what they would be interested in studying if they had some more choice and a lot of them give me the traditional "idk" answer. They want choices, but then when asked what they might choose, they realize that the decision isn't as simple.

I've definitely had some struggles along the way with trying to set up a more blended classroom. Even small things that I thought were set up correctly in Moodle and then when students go to access them, I find out I forgot to do something. However, the small successes when things go well do make the effort to shift thigns worth it. I do try to listen to the students who provide input beyond the usual complaints because they know what works best from their perspective.

This sounds like such a freeing way to operate a classroom. I would love to have students move through things at their own pace so that I have the opportunity to meet with small groups or individual students based on their needs. It makes me uncomfortable though, because I cannot imagine being able to have a full unit ready ahead of time that students can go ahead and dive into. I'm guessing this teacher had a curriculum that was well developed because sometimes I am planning things as I go. I also how this works from a perspective of science teaching? How does a teacher manage multiple labs within one day or anticipate when labs would be needed at times? Perhaps there is more structure that would be needed for those days and deadlines to where all students need to be at a certain point so that the whole group can do a lab and then they go back to moving at their own pace?

This seems like a tool that would be effective for all of my students. Most of them still take notes in their science notebooks--but a few have dabbled in writing their notes digitally. The problem I see with this is that they write them in separate google documents and then do not find a way to organize them so that they can access them easily when needed. This could be a good tool for them to learn early in their high school career and then carry it on as they get into courses with a larger need for note-taking.

This is definitely something that I would worry about with my students initially. Because they are used to having technology, I sometimes take for granted the skills I expect them to have when it comes to using different sites. Moodle has been a bigger learning curve for my students than expected, so I know that I would definitely need to prepare my students for setting up and using PLE first. Which also means that I need to feel comfortable explaining what it is and how it works to my students as well.

I find this becoming more and more true the longer I teach. My frustration comes from where to start in supporting students so that they can become more sophisticated in learning online. For example, I use Moodle for my courses rather than Google Classroom and I run into more hesitation and complaints from students than I anticipated because it is "something different." I'm not sure if it is because only a small subset of teachers are currently pushing their students outside of their comfort zones when it comes to online learning and that's where the pushback is, but I feel like we need more teachers to buy into changing the landscape of online learning beyond Google Classroom. I feel like only then will students start to develop those skills and abilities to grow in their capacity as online learners.

I often wrestle with these different questions/thoughts from a high school perspective. Personalization seems like a great way to reach each individual students' interests and needs, but the logistics of measuring progress always surface. How do we ensure students are still meeting all of the state standards and critera so that they can earn a credit that is satisfactory for graduation? How do we make sure that things are coded appropriately so that those courses are recognized by post-secondary institutions? How do we allow personalization but don't limit it because of the need to be compliant for some things?

This sounds like a great opportunity for a lot of my students, but I'm not sure it will also fit every student's needs. The more flexible schedule and choice inherent within it worries me about some of my students who really struggle with staying on task and making progress. I wonder how much structure would need to be embedded for these students and would it alter it to the point that it wouldn't be considered personalized?

There are certainly some changes that need to happen on a macro level if we want to reach our students in the optimal way. State assessments would need to change, the way that colleges rate students may need to be different and even the way college is taught could have implications. What happens if we are teaching these high schoolers in innovative ways that are truly personalized, but then a students ends up in a freshmen lecture hall with 300 students and is put back into that cookie-cutter scenario? Will they be prepared with the skills to handle that?

I'm still trying to find the right ways to engage students in active learning and to incorporate active learning among groups of students. I want my students to be actively learning together and not in isolation.

This is something that I plan to do now that I am implementing Moodle in my courses. It would be interesting to conduct an online learning survey for students before and after having them learn using Moodle rather than Google Classroom.

I believe this will be essential so that I can help my students navigate between everything they need in the course. I often find myself double and triple-checking things in my Moodle course to make sure students can access them and everything runs according to plan. It definitely requires patience as well when assisting students with the technology.