Reflect after reading Chapters 12-14:
How do we check for understanding in a thinking classroom? What might formative assessment look like?
Consider the following questions:
- What is resonating with you from the reading?
- What caused you to pause and think during this section?
posting this for Kelly Yvarra: Building expectations together has always, in my experience been more of a buy in from the students. I love the 2-day t chart, rubric idea and on day 2 using their ideas moving to rubric that all groups have access to as they work after the discussion piece of it.
ReplyDeleteNavigation instruments to communicate to students where they are and where they are going was a new idea to me. I really like the visual for students to see the result of what is expected in learning. The key being explicit in the list of outcomes. Giving students the power to give themselves a self-assessment using this tool which can be followed up by a meaningful conversation with the teacher. I am interested to try collecting data on a recording instrument like in chapter 14. I like that it shows trends over time of a unit and really ties well with our standards based grading system.
I really like the newly developed rubric, specifically its purpose and use. I think this format is so much more efficient. It is very beneficial for me to note specific things about each student, as that helps me direct my instruction, but I think it is also important that the students understand how much they do know and how much they don’t. This relates to a main point made in Chapter 13, which was the concept of helping students navigate their learning. It really ties in to the importance of metacognition and the role it plays in learning. Personally, I think that I could improve my implementation of metacognition and its value in learning. Often times I thoroughly encourage reflecting on what was learned, but I don’t think that I have used class discussions as a way to converse about how they learned and what strategies worked best and why.
ReplyDeleteI found the ideas in chapter 12 around evaluating what we value really interesting! This idea of evaluating the competencies that are vital for students in a thinking classroom reinforces to students that these skills are important. I liked the idea of co-creating the rubric and keeping it simple, without all the headings and different stages in between. Having students use the rubric to self-evaluate as well as the teacher is so important.
ReplyDeleteThere were many good ideas to ponder in these chapters, but I found these ideas the toughest to picture implementing. I think that's because while evaluation should be for the students and for guiding us, it often feels like data is required by the district for reporting purposes as well as for parents. (Or that's what I let myself get caught up in.) I'm hopeful that as I delve into the practices described in this book, that I can return to these chapters again to see how I can make evaluation and assessment more student focused and less "grade" focused. Formative assessment really should be for students and for guiding our instruction. A good reminder to me. I agree that the co-created T-chart idea is a very valuable one and can see implementing that practice early in the year as we work towards encouraging the behaviors, such as perseverance and cooperation, that we want students to engage in. I also liked Liljedahl's parachute example and the idea of "data gathering" rather than "point gathering". Admittedly, this sounds the most challenging for me. When I look at his examples of tables that he has for each student and the data that should be gathered, I am overwhelmed and already know that this will be a growth area for me. I look forward to learning from colleagues this coming year about ways they are efficiently doing this.
ReplyDeleteI agree that creating the rubric with the students can be such a powerful moment. It goes back to previous mentions of student autonomy. It's another way that they can take ownership of their learning. It not being to complex either stood out to me also, making self evaluation more meaningful.
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ReplyDeleteI like the redesigned and simplified rubric. It makes the communication between student and teacher clearer. Students can easily understand the expectations given. In addition, the idea of co-construction of rubrics really will empower and encourage students to be autonomous in their math thinking and studying.
I really like the idea of the simplified rubric, it seemed like it made it really easy for the kids and the teacher to be able to communicate what was expected and what was need to be done/learned. I think it puts the responsibility into the kids hands and the teacher more freedom to talk and feel less judgmental in the grading process. It takes the why and puts it into the kids hands.
ReplyDeleteSo many great things but a stand out for me is a simple rubric, they can become complicated when to much is in a rubric and the use for one becomes lost to students. I can see how much easier it would be for both student and teacher to use a simple rubric and to get across the expectations. I love the co-construction to encourage students and give both student and teacher the opportunity to make the rubric together.
ReplyDeleteSomething that made me stop and think was to "evaluate what you value", pertaining to the 3 competencies: perseverance, willingness to take risks, and ability to collaborate. By showing that WE value these skills and behaviors, it will naturally cause our students to value them as well. This is a very refreshing way for students and instructors to look at growth and performance, rather than just the score on an assessment or activity.
ReplyDeleteEvaluate what you value. As we begin this new curriculum I want to keep this in mind. I want to try cocostructionting a perseverance rubric. I can see how this would be useful to bring out as needed throughout the year. I also like the idea of replacing the headings with an arrow at the top of the rubric. I can see how this changes the focus of the rubric from “who the students are” to “where the students are”. I would like to work in PLC+ to make navigation tools for the students to use to track their progress throughout the units. I am also interested in finding more ways to collect student data during the unit to get a better understanding of what students are able to do. I am wondering how we can use some of the ideas in Chapter 14 to score checkpoints and final assessments and make a math COE.
ReplyDeleteI have to be honest - Chapters 13 and 14 were a bit more than I can digest at this point. Knowing myself, I will need to implement instructional changes before I can really think through the assessment pieces. Also, we have pretty strict guidelines in Tahoma regarding assessment . . . However, I really liked the ideas shared in chapter 12 about evaluating competencies. I see the value in focusing on learning skills like perseverance and collaboration. I plan to implement the use of the "arrow rubric" as a way to illustrate the importance of these learning behaviors and help students focus some of their energy in growing in these skills. I really liked the idea of posting the rubric by the wipe boards in order to keep that skill front of mind. It will be interesting to see how it goes.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I'm not the one grading our students, I love the simple behavior rubric with the arrows as well as charts that show the students where they are and where they need to go (Basic, Intermediate, Advanced). The Chapter 14 grading system based on logging student data in the chart seems like it would take a TON of time, but maybe after getting toolkits #1-3 smoothly implemented, logging this data wouldn't be so cumbersome.
ReplyDeleteMy a-ha moment was how we don't always evaluate what we value! So true! We give little evaluation to the real skills and competencies we want our students to demonstrate even after they leave us. I liked the idea of the coconstructing the t-chart with the students and turning it into the rubric. I very much resonated with the section that described how students do not really look for feedback from rubrics that had more nuanced and subjective language. This made me think of the writing rubrics we use and how they are exactly this. Plus, as a teacher, they stress me out when I'm not sure if a kid is really a 2 or a 3 in a category. The rubrics developed that focused more on student behaviors than outcomes are much better for providing guidance and feedback to students. The chapters on formative assessment and grading were interesting and made sense, especially how the formative assessment tool can effectively helps students keep track of what they do and don't know. I think the idea of implementing this would be overwhelming without a lot of support or collaboration.
ReplyDeleteI agree, the part of about the lack of usefulness of a learning goal stated prior to a learning experience being resonated with me and his example made me chuckle! Someday I hope to learn what a minimum spanning tree is. ;)
ReplyDeleteAlthough I don't give out grades as a resource room teacher, I found these chapters interesting when thinking about how we gauge whether a student has met their IEP goals and indeed how we write those goals. Typically we do use data collection (rather than a points paradigm) to evaluate goal progress, but I think we could do a better job of gathering evidence in different ways, always through the lens of students understanding what they have learned and how it relates to the big picture and where they are going. I also appreciated the ideas for "evaluating what we value" being a way to help foster the learning behaviors we want to see. The simple rubrics are also so refreshing! I'm so glad I purchased my own copy of this book to refer back to.
ReplyDeleteLike many people already said, I like the idea of the rubric he suggests and creating it with students. I also had to stop and think about what he said about evaluating what we value. Lots to think about in these chapters.
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