Some Final Thoughts About Assessment

With the semester coming to an end I thought it would be appropriate to write one more blog entry and gather my thoughts on what I have learned this semester.

I will start of with the my assessment literacy quiz. Below are my results from the start of the semester and then now. As suspected, I knew I would be shaky in my assessment literacy, I didn’t really know what to expect this semester but I know I had a lot to learn. By the end my assessment literacy results definitely changed. The biggest change was the system based assessment literacy, prior to this class, I had almost zero knowledge on that topic, I know feel I have access to resources I never had before to keep educating myself on system based assessment. The communication with stakeholders has also improved, I think involving students more in the assessment process, like co-creating rubrics is something I would like to incorporate every now and then. Another area is this topic that I feel I have improved on is giving proper feedback. Although I do not have a whole lot of experience giving feedback to students after discussing descriptive feedback and how beneficial it is, I will definitely start to pay a lot more attention to how I am giving feedback and making sure it is adequate enough for students to be able to learn from it, know where they went wrong and what they did right.

The last couple of weeks in class we also spent some time peer assessing. Peer assessment to me is new and I have never done it in a class before. It was really interesting to see the results, I think this was great practice for pre-internship as well as our careers. It was interesting to see the range in grades given we all had the same rubric. This made me become more aware of the product that was in front of me and comparing it adequately to the rubric.

This semester I also learned that collaborating with other teachers is important, how it can open up new perspectives even though sometimes it can be hard. I think we all saw this in the fractions activity when we discussed what a passing grade would be, there are different reasonings for different ways to mark but ultimately we need to try and all be on the same page, which I think is easier said than done. This class has taught me many different ways that students can be assessed, that assessment matters and that I always need to keep learning and keep an open mind when it comes to classroom assessment.

Five Big Ideas About Classroom Assessment

My thinking process so far in regards to assessment is that I know what the basics of assessment is. I know that assessment is used to gain knowledge about what your students know, where they are so far and what you have to do to get them to where they need to be. I guess I have a lot of things to learn about assessment. I have only had one pre-internship experience so far and that was only one day a week for eight weeks and I did not have the chance to assess students as much as I would have liked. Based on my assessment quiz results, I have a lot to learn about assessment. 

Some areas of assessment that I would like to expand my knowledge on this semester are creating rubrics, learning how to effectively assess assignments like essays where it’s not so black and white like a math question would be, and my third area of assessment I would like to expand my knowledge on is different assessment strategies. Below are my big five ideas that I have learned this semester that helped me accomplish this goal. 

Idea One – Every student is different, not everyone will learn at the same pace or in the same way, this is why having different assessment strategies is extremely important. I know when I was in school there were certain assessment strategies, like writing papers, that I struggled with as I am not the best writer. I know that having different strategies will give me a more accurate view of what my students know and what they have learned so far. 

Idea Two – Collecting data. With having different types of strategies it is important to keep records of the student outcomes so you can get a bigger picture of their learning and what they have learned so far, what they are able to do and where you need to go next. Our textbook explains this is a great way with something called Triangulation. Triangulation is where you collect evidence of student learning by observing, conversations and products. Learning about triangulation was extremely beneficial to help with my understanding of assessment. 

Idea Three – Developing success criteria with students can better help their understanding and contribute to their learning.  Developing success criteria with students also can help with participation and ownership of the assignment/task and they will know what is expected of them and what is satisfactory and what is not. 

Idea Four – Peer assessment is beneficial for all. At first I wasn’t too sure how I felt about peer assessment, but after completing the peer assessment activity last week on our dialogue papers, I can see how it is all extremely beneficial. I think knowing that your classmates will be looking at your paper and assessing it makes you stay true to yourself and accountable. I think it also makes you stay true to yourself if you also have to self-assess. It was an eye opening activity, and it was interesting to see my classmates work compared to my own. Overall I believe it benefits everyone and has helped us learn about assessment. 

Idea Five – There are endless amounts of ways to assess students. To name a few that I have come across this semester that I would not have thought of to use as learning assessments are: eportfolios, rubrics, panel discussion, interview, debate, crossword puzzles, and puppet shows. 

Overall I have learned a lot this semester about assessment. From triangulation to Bloom’s Taxonomy these concepts have opened my mind to new possibilities that I as a pre-service teacher will be able to use throughout my career. Another way I have learned about assessment this semester and learned about new ideas and points of view was through our learning circle discussions. I know that teacher collaborating is extremely important to help us grow as educators and I am happy that I was able to do that this semester.

ECS 401 – Week Six

ECS Week six we started off in our learning circle discussion groups again discussing chapter 10 & 11 of our textbook. Chapter 10 talked about Evaluating and Reporting and Chapter 11 talked about Learning by ourselves and with others. Below is the discussion my group and I had.

We then came back together as a class and discussed chapter 10 & 11 as well as the book overall. I really enjoyed our classroom text book – Making classroom assessment work by Anne Davies, it was an easy read yet it brought be a lot of knew knowledge and ways of implementing different assessment techniques. A lot of what is in this text I can see myself using in my future classrooms.

As you can see it looks like our class really liked chapter 7, 3, 6 & 2.

This was our last learning circle that we did this semester. Personally I really enjoyed the learning circle and it was interesting to see what my group mates agreed with me on and what new perspectives they were able to bring to the table. Overall it was a really great learning experience.

After the chapter discussions we moved on to Saskatchewan’s education system and what we thought about it.

As you can see from the poll guru a lot of us either had no clue or we thought it was middle of the road

After thinking about those two questions we moved onto learning about PISA and PCAP. Personally I didn’t know about these programs and it looks like a lot of my classmates did not know either!

PISA – Program for international student assessment

PCAP – Pan-Canadian Assessment Program

Below are some results we discovered and looked over, we learned where Saskatchewan stands compared to other provinces as well as where Canada stands compared to other countries.

I thought it was really cool to see all the numbers and where we stand.

We then moved onto learning about student led conferences. We discussed how letting student lead the conversation during conferences allows them to take ownership and allows for opportunity for reflection.

We then discussed Hattie’s effect and influence list related to student achievement. We saw what effected students learning and what influenced it. Below are some results my classmates and I were surprised to see:

It was really interesting to see the list and what thing contributed to student achievement and what didn’t. I was surprised to see Lack of Stress low on the sheet as I thought a lack of stress would result in higher achievement.

ECS 401 – Week Five

This week for ECS 401 we started of with our learning circles groups discussing chapters 8 & 9. Chapter 8 focused on collecting, organizing and presenting evidence and chapter 9 focused on Communicating about learning. Below is the conversation my discussion group and I had on the chapters.

After the learning circle discussion we moved on to watching a peer assessment video and learning about feedback. We reviewed the document below and talked about descriptive feedback. Descriptive feedback is important because it helps the student get a better idea of where they are and where they need to go, what exactly they might be doing wrong and what exactly they need to do better. Overall descriptive feedback sets a student up for success.

We then looked at a worksheet that had statements that were either full of details and very descriptive or lacked detail and were not very descriptive at all. This showed me ways of how I can be more descriptive with feedback as a future educator. It showed me how a student/parent/etc. can get a better insight of what is being said by just changing up what you are saying by being a bit more descriptive.

Then we watched a video on two stars and a wish. The video showed students presenting on a certain topic and the other students commenting with feedback – two starts (something they did well) and a wish – (something they could improve on). We tried this in class where someone was chosen and given a random topic to talk about. Here are the two stars and a wish our class gave the presenter.

I thought this was a great activity to help us get started on providing feedback and to start looking where students did well and where they can improve.

I found this class extremely helpful as it helped me discover ways of how I can provide descriptive feedback to my future students. Below is how our class feels on providing feedback, it seems like most of us like it and believe we can provide good quality feedback.

ECS 401 – Week Four

For ECS this week we started with our learning circles, which is how we have been starting every class. This week we focused on chapter 6 and 7 which talked about Using assessment to guide instruction and involving students in classroom assessment.

Something that I found interesting about these chapters was the involving students in classroom assessment. An example of this would be co-creating a rubric together. I can’t remember a time throughout my elementary or high school career where students were involved in the assessment planning so this was something new to me. After the learning circles we came back together as a class and had a discussion on chapters 6 and 7.

As you can see a lot of the class used engagement, self assessment and involvement to describe chapter 6, these are all terms I do agree with as the chapter talked about involving students in assessment.

These are some words the class used to describe the contents of chapter 7.

In a previous class we discussed on how we can make our conversations more engaging and how we can contribute more and expand the conversation. Below is an example of how we have been doing that.

These statements help us have more in depth conversations during our learning circles.

After our learning circles we moved on to graphic organizers, we were asked if we know what a graphic organizer was. For me, I did know what they were and I was able to create some of my own during my one day a week, eight week internship last semester. As you can see below most of the class knew what graphic organizers were or had an idea of what they were.

We also learned about graphic organizers and how to use them. Personally I like that graphic organizers help students make decisions and how it makes it easy for them to classify their ideas. I think it helps get students going, especially for the ones who struggle to start an assignment or task.

We then had to work in groups to complete a graphic organizer, below is what my group completed.

Our topic was assessment for learning

After learning about graphic organizers we moved onto learning about Triangulation of evidence. Triangulation of evidence is where data from different types of sources t is collected. This is important as student show what they know and what they have learned in different ways, and we must gather various types of evidence of learning to get the full picture.

After seeing the triangulation of evidence we did a poll guru on the methods we experienced in the K-12 system, as you can see most of us only experienced one of the three sources of evidence.

On the bright side, it looks like we all plan to use different types of ways for collecting students data on learning. This is really exciting to see as we change and move towards a new direction on collecting data on student learning.

We then learned about different methods we could use to collect student learning data. And what categories different activities fall into.

Here the was a a mix of answers, I think some strategies may overlap but I would see Book reports as a product.

I really liked doing the poll guru as it brought new ideas for gathering methods and what categories they fit into.

After the triangulation activity we moved into buddy journals. This is where you write something one a certain topic, and your buddy responds with feedback. Below is my partners response to when we were shown the Metis Flag and my response back to Erika.

I think buddy journals are a great way for students to learn, they may learn something from their partners response and they also learn to respond to the partners entry and come up with other ideas of their own.

This was a great exercise to get us into the next topic, which was descriptive feedback. We learned about how to provide descriptive feedback and we also were able to practice this by looking over our classmates dialogue papers.

ECS 401 – Week Three

For ECS week three we started off with our learning circles where we discussed chapters 4 & 5 of our textbook. Chapter 4 focused on describing success and Chapter 5 focused on Evidence of Learning. Below is the conversation my learning circle group mates and I had on the two chapters.

Our group discussed what describing success looks like to us, and how we weren’t 100% sure what to look for while we were in our 1 day a week internship, so this chapter kind of brought some light to us. Of course we won’t fully know until we get more experience in the classroom but the learning group discussions are extremely helpful to help us with our knowledge of assessment.

Later we can back as a class, and talked about the learning circles and how our team did. As you can see below, you can tell the learning circles are quite beneficial and it seems like most of the students are participating and are able to expand and relate to the topics.

We also discussed a personal connection we had to the chapters, below is what the class had to say. For me something that I liked in these two chapters were the talks about samples. As a student it helps me when teachers provide a sample of what they are looking for as it helps me understand what is expected. I think this is an idea that I would take into my future classroom.

Next we went over the assessment showcase rubric as well as a self assessment personal goal activity. Below is the recap of the activity with Ty the T-rex.

We then looked at a simple and complex activity. Below is a picture of the handout. In this activity we had to take a task and make it either simple or complex, and it helped expand my knowledge on how to make tasks/assignments/questions and make them either simpler or more complex.

Then we were introduced to BLOOMS taxonomy and structuring the learning journey. Below is the video we watched. Blooms taxonomy is a tool that can be used to organize learning objects. The 6 steps of Blooms taxonomy are 1. Remember 2. Understand 3. Apply 4. Analyze 5. Evaluate 6. Create. This video helped me understand how some students might learn and how to organize the learning for better outcomes.

Then we had Activity number #2 – where we had to differentiate between simple and complex tasks.

In activity number three we were given a topic where we had to come up with questions that could be used for each of the six steps in Blooms taxonomy. Below are the questions my group and I came up with, our topic was Red River Cart.

Next we went to pull guru and answered some questions about how confident we felt about grade 5 geometry. As you can see below a lot of the class did not feel that confident. I think we don’t give ourselves enough credit.

After the poll guru we were given a grade 5 geometry problem that we worked on our own for. I did feel confident being a math major and I have seen this type of question before, so I was quite confident in my abilities. Below is what our tasks was.

After we had some time to work on this ourselves, we were paired up and had to see what our partners came up with. My partner and I had similar ideas, and it was interesting to see how different our brain worked on some ideas and how similar our answers were on other ideas. We then came back together as a class and discussed our findings.

As you can see most of the class was proficient even though a lot did not feel confident.

With our answers and discussions we were then put into larger groups where we had to come up with a success criteria for the task. I really enjoyed this activity because it helped me see things that do qualify as success criteria that I might of have not thought of on my own, and it was nice to be able to work and collaborate with everyone and build this together. Below is the success criteria we came up with.

Overall this class was great as I was introduced to new concepts and was able to work on building a success criteria, something I have never done before.

Personal Learning Plan – SMART Goal

Personal Learning Plan 

Nelly Zepeda

Faculty of Education

ECS 401-003 Critical Perspectives of Assessment

Chris Atkinson

January 27, 2020

My present skills and knowledge about assessment are quite limited. I know assessment can be used to determine a students skill level and it’s not like evaluation. Assessment is more to get an idea of where students are at and what they know so far, it’s a way to collect information for learning. Evaluation in my opinion, a bit more formal and concrete, you are evaluating students on their knowledge and if they do well rewarding them with something like a good grade. The area of assessment that I feel I need to learn about is creating things like rubics or knowing how to grade something like an essay where it’s not so black and white, right or wrong and being able to use the rubric correctly and effectively. The other area I would like to expand my knowledge on is on different assessment strategies. There are many things about assessment that I still need to expand my knowledge on. 

One of the outcomes for this class is, Explore assessment strategies with focus on their implications for classroom practice. This is something that I want to focus on and what I want my SMART goal to be around. My SMART goal for this class is to explore different types of assessment strategies and how they can be used in the classroom. This goal is important for me to achieve this semester because I believe it will make me a better educator when I can efficiently and successfully assess students in my class to help them as much as possible. Different types of learning strategies can help me learn a lot about my students. There are also different types of learners and just because an assessment works for one student it may not work for someone else so being able to adapt is important. 

A way I will achieve this goal is by starting to collect data from class discussions, learning circles and from readings. I can also talk to other educators and get their perspectives on assessment strategies.  I believe that during the duration of the class I will be able to achieve this goal. That being said I also recognize that I am a lifelong learner and that certain assessment strategies I learn about and implement in my classroom may change and evolve overtime. 

ECS 401 – Week Two (Jan 20th, 2022)

To start the class this week be began with our learning circles. We were to read chapters 1-3 of our text Making Classroom Assessment Work by Anne Davies, Ph. D. I really enjoyed the learning circle as it allowed us to do a deep dive into the text and have some meaningful discussions. Below is the conversation my group had. We also did a poll guru on how we feel about our learning circles and what our classmates did well. The response was great, which was really great to see, it seems that everyone is really eager to learn and participate in the class.

After our learning circles, we did some poll guru polls on what we thought about the text and the chapters we had read. Below we see that our class thought the main two ideas of Chapter 1 were Assessment and Evaluation. Chapter 2 the class thoughts were the main ideas were goals, mistakes, community and feedback. After reading the textbook I would agree with the topics that our class thought of, I also really liked the poll guru question on this because it made me see certain topics/ideas that I didn’t pick up or think about while reading the textbook.

One of the questions that I really liked about the poll guru was “What content did you personally connect to in the chapters?”, it was interesting to see my classmates responses and the connections that they had. One big takeaway that I took from Chapters 1-3 is that every student is at a different learning level and assessment is crucial so we know where students stand and, that assessment is a took we can use to help students and get them to where they need to be.

We also did some poll guru polls on our e-portfolio’s.

We also worked on starting our SMART goals, we worked on this with a partner to get us starting and get the ball rolling on what our SMART goals will be and look like. This activity led us into reviewing assignment number one which is our personal learning plan where we will state what our goal will be.

We also discussed the basics of assessment and the difference between assessment and evaluation. We had a poll guru to find out where we stand as induvial and as a class. Below are the outcomes we had, it seems like this class does lean more towards the assessment side vs. the evaluation side.

Induvial Responses

Pair Responses

This wraps up class number two of the semester.

ECS 401 – Week One (Jan 13th, 2022)

This week was the first class of ECS 401 took place, this semester we are once again learning online with the hopes of going back to face to face classes sometime soon. Class started like any other class with an introduction to the course, we learned a bit about each other as a class and who we are, we learned this using poll guru which is a platform that is new to me. Below is a diagram showing what grades everyone in the class wants to teach with grades 1-5 and 10-12 being the most popular. Personally, I would love to teach grade 9-12 Mathematics.

We also assessed ourselves on our own understanding of assessment, this is where Ty the T-rex helped us. Below, is my assessment on assessment with Ty the T-rex.

We also went over the class outline in breakout groups and came back together as a class and went over the document. We discussed projects, assignments and what is expected of us from the class.

We also took an assessment literacy quiz, as expected my results were a bit shaky, which is what I had expected. I am looking forward to growing my knowledge of assessment throughout this semester.

We also took an individual multiple intelligence quiz, I learned that my top two individual intelligences are logical/mathematic and visual/spatial. My two lowest intelligences are Musical and Verbal/Linguistic. These came as no surprise to me. Below is what our class scored with logical/mathematical being the highest answer.

We also completed a growth mindset activity, where I learned I have a strong grown mindset. This did surprise me as I thought I would definitely score in the “fixed with some growth ideas” category.

This wraps up the first day, I am excited to continue on with this class and to grow my knowledge on assessment and have some good class discussions on assessment.