"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid" - Albert Einstein
The way in which we conduct assessments in schools is one of the many ways the education system has changed in the 21st century. Measuring a child's intelligence strictly by their ability to hand in a piece of work that has robust guidelines is an outdated and ineffective way to measure student success. What about the student who is intelligent, but not engaged? The student who excels in one subject area, but not another? The student who has great work ethic, but marks do not reflect this. This form of assessment does not take into account a wider range of student skills and promotes the tragedy of lost potential in students.
Growing success highlights this change in assessment through the emphasized importance on work habits and learning skills. It is not the outcome that matters, but rather the process to promote assessment of and as learning. This is especially important for the student whom you have no work collected for. Keeping a record of anecdotal assessment notes is imperative to understand where the student excels, struggles and will help to determine where to go next in order to create sufficient evidence for their report card.
This can further be seen in Growing Success, where a student is on an IEP with alternative learning expectations. For such students, it is not advisable to even provide a percentage grade for their work, but rather the focus us on their growth as an individual.
Building character in students by emphasizing importance of work habits and learning skills has also become pivotal in student learning. Students who show initiative, effective collaboration skills, self regulation are becoming effective learners. Such skills are important as a stepping stone for students to achieve success in their educational careers.
It is of course still important fof students to realize the importance of handing in work, however marks are not and should not be the most important aspect in child education. This idea is highlighted brilliantly in Sal Khan's Ted Talk Let's Teach for Mastery not Test Scores. In this talk, he discusses how test scores are used inappropriately- we teach, we test and then we move on irrespective of the students not all understanding the unit fully. But how do we ensure that every student understands the material fully without spending too much time on it and not fulfilling the rest of the curriculum? Through observations and anecdotal records and summative assessment! Unit tests are not the best means of understanding student ability.
There are, what seems like a thousand, ways to assess student's ability. If a student is not performing well on tests and as previously stated, not handing in work, the teacher mst elicit information about that students learning.
Above all, teachers need to ensure they are providing students with ample opportunities to show their learning and understanding in a variety of ways. Differentiating you instruction as a teacher may be one of the most important roles to encourage student success. Provide modifications to students who are in need so that they can show their understanding in a way that better fits their learning. Alter your teaching instruction to assess ELL students in the classroom. Recognize lags in student learning and find a different approach so that student can show their ability. Growing Success has highlighted the importance of all these methods to ensure students are not getting left behind, which ultimately will have a profound impact in my own teaching strategies and assessment strategies in the future.
A standard, province- wide guide to be used by teachers to make judgements about student work based on clear performance standards.
The achievement chart categories include: Knowledge and Understanding, Communication, Application and Thinking. Each category expands across 4 levels. Level 4 being the highest and level 1 being the lowest. Teachers use the achievement chart categories for every subject, and every assignment and every test. Every rubric created uses the achievement chart to assess students work. There are general definitions under each and they expand as you go across the levels to what is expected from each student.
Learning Skills and Work Habits
The skills and habits that can be demonstrated by a student across all subjects, courses and grades and in other behaviour at school. These learning skills and work habits promote student achievement of the curriculum expectations. The six skills and habits are: responsibility, organization, independent work, collaboration, initiative, and self-regulation.
The six learning skills and work habits: responsibility, independent work, organization, independent work, collaboration, initiative and self-regulation are skills and habits that should be seen in all aspects of student learning and school life. Students receive feedback such as: Excellent, Good, Satisfactory and Needs Improvement in each course, grade and aspect of school life from their teachers. Students are encouraged to improve upon these skills and habits until the very end of the year in order to be the best overall student that they can be for themselves and their school community.
Learning Goals
Brief statements that describe for a student what he/she should know and be able to do by the end of a period of instruction
The goals a student should have by the end of an instructional lesson.
Purpose and Nature of Assessment
Assessment for learning-diagnostic assessment is used by teachers to determine what students already know; formative assessment is used by teachers to monitor students’ progress towards achieving the overall and specific expectations
Assessment as learning-formative assessment is used by students to provide feedback to other students
Assessment of learning- summative assessment is used by the teacher to summarize learning at a given point in time
Assessment for learning- diagnostic assessment is used by teachers to determine what students already know; formative assessment is used by teachers to monitor students’ progress in achieving curriculum expectations
Assessment as learning- formative assessment is used by students to provide feedback to their peers
Assessment of learning- summative assessment is used by the teacher to summarize learning at any point in time
Success Criteria
Standards or specific descriptions of successful attainment of learning goals developed by teachers on the basis of criteria in the achievement chart, and discussed and agreed upon in collaboration with students that are used to determine to what degree a learning goal has been achieved. Criteria describe what success “looks like”, and allow the teacher and student to gather information about the quality of student learning.
A list of learning goals that is to be met in order to be successful developed by the teachers. It is a way for students to see what they must do in order to achieve the necessary criteria.
Assessment Strategies
The process of gathering, from a variety of sources, information that accurately reflects how well a student is achieving the curriculum expectations in a subject or course.
Teachers use a variety of educational assessment strategies and tools, which may include (but are not limited to) direct observation, portfolios, journals, rubrics, tests, projects, and self- and peer assessment.
Oral interviews, learning logs, or portfolio
The ways that teachers can assess students to determine their knowledge of the material. It can be delivered through means like oral interviews, portfolios, journals, tests, and many more. They can be changed in order to meet a student’s specific needs.
Assessment Tools
Teachers use a variety of educational assessment strategies and tools, which may include (but are not limited to) direct observation, portfolios, journals, rubrics, tests, projects, and self- and peer assessment. Data from assessments, along with information from parents and others who have worked with the student, provide a detailed picture of the student’s learning needs.
Ways in which teachers can evaluate students’ progress and work.
Differentiated Instruction
An approach to instruction designed to maximize growth by considering the needs of each student at his or her current stage of development and offering that student a learning experience that responds to his or her individual needs. Differentiated instruction recognizes that equity of opportunity is not achieved through equal treatment and takes into account factors such as the student’s readiness, interest, and learning preferences
Ensuring that instruction is manageable for all students in the class regardless of individual differences and/or barriers and providing different avenues of learning for these differences.
Assessment and evaluations have been connected to education since the implementation of schools, though how we assess and evaluate changes, the basic core remains. Assessments are also apart of schools that students loath the most, but why is this?
If we reflect on our own experiences as a student, I'm sure we can think of a number of times when we've been entirely anxiety filled over a test. For myself, this is most apparent when reflecting back on my four year undergrad at York University. From class to class, we would have exams worth up to 60% at times and compiled from information and resources over the course of 8 months. Students would pile up inside the Rexall Center, which holds thousands, and in rows you would have 2 hours to complete an examination. The stress level of these situations is enough to even increase suicide levels (which is why universities were granted an extra reading week). So, why do we still test like this?
Moving from a university atmosphere towards the current college atmosphere, I'm sure we can all agree that the two are vastly different. One major difference being no tests! But, what I've found to be even more interesting is that within these two months, I've learned more long term information about teaching practices that I have retained more not through testing, but rather through active engagement and collaboration from class to class. This form of ongoing evaluation is a more effective form of assessment in my opinion. This is not to all evaluations should be done in this manner, however, differentiation of assessment I think is imperative for effective results.
In my elementary days, I remember the anxiety filled task of public speeches. Public speeches were a core component of students oral communication assessments. I however, had a very difficult time with any and all oral presentations. For me, I was always a hard worker, I loved school and would work tirelessly on my speech. However, when the day would come to present my entire body would fill up with anxiety. In all five years I would stand in front of the classroom and just stare blankly. My teachers would all get very frustrated and just repeat themselves to simply “read what I had written.” In my head I would be thinking “I know that, but the words are just not coming out.”
Instead, what I view now as an alternative/improvement would be to gain those oral communication marks in other ways. Maybe if I had a partner or a group up in front of the class presenting it wouldn't be so scary. Or maybe if the class was divided into groups and each student presented in front of only 5 students opposed to 30, this may have been easier for myself and other students who struggled with public speaking. Similar to throwing a child into the deep end of a pool and seeing if they will sink or swim- yes some might have a natural ability, but most are probably going to sink. These baby steps to get comfortable with public speaking I think would be more effective than fully immersing shy students into it and potentially creating a lasting fear, instead, those teachers probably made my fear of oral communication prolonged.
