I think this is the component most missed in the online learning I've seen for COVID. Teachers interact with students and students with content but the student to student interaction is missing. it takes more creativity and the use of other tools to implement this well.
a wide variety of
assessment procedures to assess students’ mastery
of content
I need to improve in this category. After taking the OLLIE assessment course I see where I need to vary my assessments to include self and peer assessments.
alternatives to auditory or visual content, as well
as accommodating the use of assistive technologies
This will be especially important for me next quarter as I will have a student with cochlear implants. In an all online course these would definitely be a challenge and something I need more help on depending on the device the student is using or abilities.
Teaching online will require me to look for the variety in resources. I have my go to sites and strategies. Teaching a course strictly online would force me to increase my resources on the web. Taking the OLLIE courses has helped to increase these resources and tools.
‘Forcing’ the individual
student to assess their own behaviour, as opposed to others
is more constructive – it supports the aim of developing
collaboration skills, along with the knowledge component.
The whole point is to increase collaboration. Students need to realize the importance of this. Forcing them to see if they are a contributing team member which is greatly valued in the workforce.
The instructor must explain expectations clearly to
them before they begin.
I see this all to often being neglected. Whether it is overlooked, taken for granted or for high school and college students teachers think it has been taught before. In order to be effective this has to happen from each instructor.
•Encourages student involvement and
responsibility
Anytime we can encourage the students to be more responsible for their own learning is a plus. When students self assess they can take control of their learning. This would need to be modeled to be effective.
Is the assessment
responsive to what we know about how [students] learn?” and “Does
the assessment help students become the kinds of [citizens] we
want them to be?”
I think this is important to ask, it may not help all students learn best using a rubric. Are we being cognizant of different learning styles? How often do we ask ourselves if the assessment we're using helps students become a better citizen?
Can different
scorers consistently apply the rubric?
It will be interesting to see how we all compared with the rubric we made for the essay we assessed about the cities. Discussing grading with colleagues, there are many views and even with a rubric I think it would be hard to be consistent among different teachers.
teachers must provide
the results in a way that helps students move forward.
Specific,
descriptive feedback linked to the targets of instruction and
arising from the assessment items or rubrics communicates to
students in ways that enable them to immediately take action,
thereby promoting further learning.
I think this step gets missed sometimes due to time constraints in the classroom when face to face. This is something I need to improve on, without it the assessment is essentially worthless. Online this spring I was able to give more specific feedback to all as they competed assignments.
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.
A few years ago we found ourselves testing 4 times a year and in some subjects 7 times a year. It felt like all we did was test and teachers were not using the results to drive instruction so the time was wasted. Whenever assessments are given the results are only worth the time if incorporated into instruction. The more we tested we found the students putting forth less effort and we didn't feel like the assessments were accurate representations of ability.
I agree with you, students learn more when they take responsibility for their learning. Any ideas on how to motivate them to do this? There are a few that jump up to the plate, its hard to get all to see the benefit.
assessment-literate teachers would not
Use a reading score from a state accountability test as a
diagnostic instrument for reading group placement.
In addition to the FAST score our district also looked at results from the NWEA test that was taken 3 times a year to plan interventions and group students.
Because classroom teachers can effectively use all available
assessment methods, including the more labor-intensive methods of
performance assessment and personal communication, they can
provide information about student progress not typically
available from student information systems or standardized test
results
Often stakeholders do not see this. I wonder if going standards based would be beneficial to allow everyone to see the progress and success rather than just a number. This makes communication so important.