I am a lucky bugger. I had a great practicum and professional development from teachers that were really ahead of the curve. I also am a part of a private school system that is extremely productive to my desire to become a better teacher. The more I read and interact with the teachers in the twitter/blogosphere, the more I realise that I am blessed to be where I am. This is clearly evident in my mentors approach to assessment.
Standards Based Grading was never around when I was in high school, but it was taught in my university, and is promoted at my school, so professionally I have felt that there is really not any other way to do it. In my first year of teaching did I climb the great peak of assessment and profess "Veni, Vici, vidi?" No, it was somewhere more along the lines "stressy, no sleepy, defeatsy." This summer however I have had the chance to read also sorts of blogs from master assessors, and I have really begun to hone in on what I desire from my classes.
One major problem that I have been looking to rectify is the conflict between numbers, and feedback. Personally I just don't feel ready to get all Blue Harvest up in here (though it is an ideal that I long for), but I feel I can have students engage in meaningful assessment that looks to their feedback as a guide rather than simply look at there number grade and leave it at that. My thoughts here today have stemmed from reading Dan Anderson's post where he gave a great visual of what students see when they see a number. Since I am not abandoning numbers cold turkey I devised this strategy. Have them self assess before getting to see the number. I created this small reflection.
Standards Based Grading was never around when I was in high school, but it was taught in my university, and is promoted at my school, so professionally I have felt that there is really not any other way to do it. In my first year of teaching did I climb the great peak of assessment and profess "Veni, Vici, vidi?" No, it was somewhere more along the lines "stressy, no sleepy, defeatsy." This summer however I have had the chance to read also sorts of blogs from master assessors, and I have really begun to hone in on what I desire from my classes.
One major problem that I have been looking to rectify is the conflict between numbers, and feedback. Personally I just don't feel ready to get all Blue Harvest up in here (though it is an ideal that I long for), but I feel I can have students engage in meaningful assessment that looks to their feedback as a guide rather than simply look at there number grade and leave it at that. My thoughts here today have stemmed from reading Dan Anderson's post where he gave a great visual of what students see when they see a number. Since I am not abandoning numbers cold turkey I devised this strategy. Have them self assess before getting to see the number. I created this small reflection.
| assessment_reflection.docx |
I feel like this would have students think about their assessment, maybe get rid of the time spent grade comparing, since students would be preparing their reflection. I don't know if this is a fix, or if it is just more busy work for students at the time of assessment, but it seems to fit with my understanding of assessment as learning. Will it work? I have no clue. I'm still new at this...
