How do I word/explain this?

Hi Everyone, as the 'newbie' to this group, I am wondering if anyone has a short little explanation that they may have used in a course outline (secondary) that they would be willing to share.  I would like to do this in all of my classes next semester but feel there needs to be something added to my course outline to explain.  Thanks for any ideas/assistance you can provide

Tracking of Feedback

I'm looking for some effective ways to track all of the feedback that is given to students.  As a music teacher I don't have a desk in my classroom and therefore I don't have my computer available all the time as I'm often playing with my classes to demonstrate and model and also to share in their hands-on learning.    While I have some checklists that I have used in the past, I wonder if someone has something they can share in terms of tracking ther feedback given.

Does it Count?

“Does this count?”

This is a powerful statement statement when we are thinking about the importance of removing grades or marks from the ‘evaluation’ process. The idea of, “does this count’ indicates that at this point the student is valuing the grade over the learning.  I have seen it many times over, the motivation becomes I need to get an A overrides the original intention of the assignment or learning.  Nothing makes that more clear than when the student gets the assignment back they look at the Grade and immediately move on. If you were to ask the student a few days later, “What did you learn from that assignment?” The answer quite often, “Umm, I don’t know.”

“Does this count?”

When the intention of assignments is learning, then everything counts and it counts for authentic reasons. Students become engaged in the learning. The process and the journey are what’s important because that is the learning. The final product is the way to communicate what the student has learned but it is not the goal or the end point. The communication of the thinking becomes the launch pad for what comes next. When we remove the number or the value, it takes away that extrinsic reward or punishment and allows students and teachers the freedom to focus on the learning. After all, we are in the business of learning. Learning should not be the bi-product on the way to an A, it’s the learning that is the goal.

Learning or Achievement?

What is our purpose? Our why?

Most people want to say learning. Student learning that carries on beyond the classroom. But the further you get from the student desk, the harder it is to say that, and mean it. Get far enough away from the student desk and it sometimes becomes less about learning and more about achievement. More about standardized scores, grades and averages. When you can't see and hear and experience student learning directly, it is easy (and understandable) to look for measures to know how well our children are learning. The trouble is that these measures are limited in what they can tell you, just as they are limited in what they can tell the student.

Achievement is about yesterday.       

Learning is about now and tomorrow.

Students often see grades as an end point. Grades are history. Whether it's an A or a D, a grade says "That's it for me. All done. Nothing left to learn here." Student learning motivated by a grade is artificial. Deep learning for a purpose is powerful. Self reflection and feedback from educators, peers, parents and the global community make learning iterative and meaningful. 

If a student asks themselves, "What did I take away from that assignment/task/project/experience?" and the answer is "A 72." then what do they do with that? However, if the answer includes statements like, "I want to learn more about..." or "I discovered that I need..." or "Now I see a connection to..." then the learning continues.

So, why do we still have grades? Grades are good for measuring student achievement, streaming students and university admissions. It's much easier to look at a data set and see how students have done over time or decide on a student's pathway or admit students to university programs. Much easier than observing them learn and demonstrate, easier than talking to them about what they are learning and easier than looking at a portfolio of work. Are we giving grades because it is good for students or because it is easier for us? Easier for parents? Easier for universities? 

What new information does a report card tell a parent who has been an active partner in their child's learning process? Not much. In fact, that parent could likely have written the report themselves. But, we are not there yet. Generally, parents aren't active partners. Not yet. The conditions for genuine active parent partnerships aren't widely in place yet. People want grades because grades are all we have ever given them to let them know how our children are doing.

I am interested in seeing how #TTOG can help change that.

Isn't Growth More Important than a Grade

Over the last number of years, I've often thought as an educator that we should be more concerned with the growth of a student (where did they start and how far they have come) rather than the result of a test/quiz or assignment.  As a music educator, I am all about the progress and the growth of the student rather than the mark on the page.  To develop skill, which music develops so many different skills, one must gradually and continually work towards the smaller goals. Students and adults all learn at different paces, so someone may demonstrate huge progress for them as an individual, but it won't result in them demonstrating this on a test/evaluation.  This will also get the students to further develop a growth mindset with them looking at how they can improve rather than the % grade.  It would also have them look more at the progression of learning, self-awareness and individual goal setting.

Rethinking Assessment: An Administrator's Perspective

I recently led a book study on Carol Dweck's "Mindset" that created a lot of discussion around assessment, feedback and the mixed messaging that staff are feeling about priorities at this time. With the current focus on innovative instructional practices, my goal is to investigate how assessment can be better aligned with 21st Century instruction to promote student achievement while meeting provincial requirements. 

One of my goals for students is to help them develop independent problem solving ability and a love of the process of persevering through challenges.   The research of Alfie Kohn suggests that there are three consistent effects of giving students grades:

1) When focusing on grades instead of growth, the learning diminishes.

2) In order to be "successful", students come to avoid taking risks and choose easier tasks. 

3) Students think in a more superficial fashion and do not retain information. This reminds me of when, as a student, I would do well on a spelling tests, but would forget the correct spelling of most of the words within a few days.  

As a school administrator, I have the unique opportunity see what feedback and assessment look like in multiple classrooms each and every day.   I look forward to co-learning as we explore this topic together! 

Suggested Reading

Kohn, Alfie, "The Trouble with Rubrics"   

Kohn, Alfie, "Turning Children into Data" 

Kohn, Alfie, "The Case Against Grades" 

Just an opinion piece.

Just an opinion piece. My thoughts are my own.

Recently, I wanted to know about the history of grades.

I googled the letter A. My search revealed nothing of value. In fact, the phrase “waste of time” came up more than once in the top sites (along with several articles about TTC rate hikes by John Tory). This result is likely an indicator that my search term is inaccurate. I know that because of the feedback with which Google has provided me. Thank goodness for feedback!

On my next attempt, I googled “grade A”. Now, I’ve gotten somewhere. The second hit is to this wikipedia article. Turns out grades may or may not have come from a professor at Cambridge named William Farish who used them with his students in 1792. He is also known for having given the first written university exam. Thanks, William.

Other results suggest that grading is borrowed from shoe factories in industrial England, where the best quality shoes were given an A grade (an “F” meant the workers weren’t getting paid).

Grades are great for meat and shoes, but what about for helping our children learn? I know that a large F appearing on my computer screen after my initial search (for the letter A) would definitely tell me my search skills needed work, but without any additional information I might not have determined a more accurate term was needed.

The conversation about the usefulness of grades in learning is well worth having. A good look at that wikipedia article led me to the most recent research on grading and learning. Check it out here. The abstract for the article reads as follows:

Parents do not send their children to school to learn how to speak. How then do children learn to speak? The objective becomes obvious to children due to the frustration of being unable to communicate. Learning tasks allow for practice. Feedback is immediate and clear because adults love to help young learners. Applications of new knowledge are made so as to continue learning. Children take responsibility for all aspects of this “natural learning process.” Natural learning obviously works.

Conclusions?

The traditional teacher-responsible design for education in universities conflicts with what we know about how people learn.

I found this research compelling. Grades are artificial; a valiant attempt, during the industrial revolution, to measure the learning of a vast number of pupils filling new educational institutions. But, they do not model how learning occurs, nor do they promote learning. Rather, some say they end learning. 

Are the findings of this article the end all and be all of pedagogical research? Of course not, but there’s a conversation to be had, and it needs to be evidence-based. 

This blog post is my personal opinion, based on some of the evidence I've come across. I know I’ve made errors. If I want to increase my knowledge base and learn more about the issue, I have to keep researching the topic, keep refining my search, but I can also rely on the feedback of others. I know that if the comment section for this entry simply reads “A” or “D” or even “F”(Thanks, William), I will learn very little, but if you prod me, ask questions, or point me to facts supporting an alternative view, I will learn.

Parent Partners!

Last night we shared our #scdsbTTOG project at the central PIC (Parent Involvement Committee) meeting. The conversation was rich and the questions valuable! Working with parents as partners to support our inquiry is crucial as we make changes to classroom assessment practices that support learning. It is through discourse, both challenging and supportive that we strengthen our beliefs. 

Students First

Students First.

I once had an administrator ask me "why do you do what you do?"  It was a powerful question that I've used to guide my learning and teaching ever since.  I wrote down a statement on the front of my day planner that has been my mantra ever since: IT'S ABOUT THEM.  This leads into my curiosity about TTOG.  My current thinking and knowledge tells me that when I show my kids that I value what they know and what I know they are capable of then I'm telling them that they matter. They matter more than the end of the task or unit. That I value their learning so much that I want them to continue to learn, search and discover long after the task is over - the learning is more important than the task.  I am excited to think more deeply about what grades really mean and what really drives learning forward. As a kindergarten educator, I know that the foundations we set in the early years impact the attitudes and learning of students onwards and look forwarding to exploring TTOG in this particular context. 

A new mindset

I have been teaching for over a decade and thought I had a good understanding of assessment. This year I was given the challenge of teaching grade 4 (after 11 years in primary) and felt like I was starting over again. Not being able to rely on a filing cabinet full of resources I decided to jump in to the inquiry process with both feet. During an inquiry session that I attended at BIT14 I heard that we need to shift our mindset from making our students' learning fit into the curriculum to making the curriculum fit in with the students' learning.  This statement made so much sense to me and has made such a difference in level of engagement and understanding of my students. This new way of learning demands a new way of assessing, but what does that look like?

#TTOG MEME Challenge- Expressing Ideas Through Images

5 Meme's in 15 minutes.

Pick a cartoon. Collect images. Create Memes. Blog about it.

#Canyouhandleit? #TTOG

Assessing through Experience and Conversation

Education has continued to roll on for centuries. A machine that goes with little overall  change. During our first meeting of #scdsbTTOG, there now may be some light. I am an artist and a teacher, but am I critically reflective within these roles?  Cole & Knowles’s (2000) idea of becoming a teacher or educator is being rooted in the personal. According to Mezirow (1990) to understand and create meaning we must make sense of an experience. It is through personal conversations that true meanings and understanding can occur. It is during a process of deconstruction of experiences and learning that I am, along with my students, able to interpret the true meaning. Can these conversations occur through numerical assessment?? Hmmm....  

References:

Cole, A.L. & Knowles, G.J. (2000). Teaching as autobiographical inquiry. Researching  Teaching: Exploring teacher development through reflective inquiry. (14–24). Toronto: Allyn and Bacon.

Mezirow, J. (1990). How critical reflection triggers transformative learning.  Fostering critical reflection in adulthood: a guide to transforformative and emancipatory learning. (1-20). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

One night in the Sheraton Parkway Hotel

Still buzzing with excitement after our initial meeting with the #scdsbTTOG assessment inquiry group. It is hard to believe only a few months ago at the Sheraton Parkway Hotel, Lisa and I dreamed up a plan to make changes to assessment practices in Simcoe County. We had lengthy discussions into the night and during our breaks at the Fall SIM session about how to make changes to an education system in desperate need of modernization.

Today, I had the hounour of sharing a room with a group of educators all interested in helping to improve the quality of learning for our students. We want to shift the focus from simply earning grades to valuing learning and growth. Great discourse, questioning, and challenging conversations!

1960's? What are we doing differently?

Stay tuned as this adventure unfolds.