2. Overview
Who we are and our school
FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT
White boards
- what they are
- how they support formative
assessment in:
science and math
English and social studies
- pros and cons
Wikis
- their support of formative
assessment
4. In 10 words or less what
does
“Formative Assessment”
mean?
5. MY JOURNEY
Most important
“teaching technique”
I have discovered in 25
years of teaching
6. Formative Assessment
“Formative evaluation” is feedback and correctives at
each stage in the teaching-learning process. By
formative evaluation we mean evaluation by brief tests
used by teachers and students as aids in the learning
process.
While such tests may be graded and used as part of the
judging and classificatory function of evaluation, we see
much ore effective use of formative evaluation if it is
separated from the grading process and used primarily
as an aid to teaching.
Benjamin Bloom (1969)
7. COPY
5x + 7 = 62
(REMEMBER: You must show steps)
8. ADVANTAGES - teacher
Instant “assessment” of :
- Student understanding
- Common errors
- Student misunderstanding
9. ADVANTAGES - teacher
Instant “assessment” of :
- student understanding
- Common errors
- Student misunderstanding
Keeps students on-task
Non-disruptive form of student
teacher communication
10. ADVANTAGES - teacher
Instant:
- “assessment” of student understanding
- Common errors
- Student misunderstanding
Keeps students on-task
Non-disruptive form of student
teacher communication
LOW COST (except markers)
11. ADVANTAGES - student
- “safe” (non-permanent)
- Anonymous (re: other students)
- Promotes risk taking
- Fun / motivational student - participation is higher
13. English and Social Studies
I want students to be able to:
-show me what they know.
-take risks
-have dialogue about their learning
Work needs to be
-emotionally safe
-meaningful
23. Wikis support formative assessment.
Formative assessment requires students to be involved in
the process of selecting, reflecting on, and reviewing
artifacts with the teacher that show their learning. ( Stiggins
2002)
Students tell their learning stories.
24. Wikis
A wiki is a space on the Web where you can
share work and ideas, pictures and links, videos
and media.
27. Problems
- access to computers – at school and at
home.
- access to web. – at school and at home.
- dumping ground – becomes cluttered.
- work is deleted.
28. Alternatives
- Power Points – saved on thumb
drives or slide share
-Google docs
-blogs
-Microsoft Front Page
Editor's Notes
Won ’t bore you, but for 25 years I’ve been teaching more or less the same way. Explain about evaluation, recommended book, skimmed, at conference, just try something new – DEFINITION on next slide
Continue with story: dumbest thing a teacher can say “Do you get it?” Everyone ok? Give brilliant lessons, check, next day so many already forgot. How could I have such stupid students???
Helen Barrett argued and I have found that assignments given for summative assessment have little meaning for students. They try to figure out what I want and give it. I am looking for ways to engage students in their learning. I want to see students take risks in their learning. I want to have a dialogue with students about their ideas. I want to see what students know. And I do not want it to be emotionaly threatening, nor do I want to mark a lot of work. White boards have become one method of creating a safe way for students to take risks, show me what they know and have dialogue.
first thing once boards are handed out students want to draw pictures. Write their names all over. Which is fine. I think it is part of being creative – doodling, sharing. Perhaps it activates the left side of the brain.
They also want to write about themselves. I give them five minutes to get this out of their system. This was the first thing written on the board and it stayed there for the rest of the class. The boards support risk taking because nothubg is permanent. Easily erased. Lack the formality of paper
Use white boards to demonstrate understanding of concepts – like math – sometimes there is only one correct answer. show it. Here Students identify subject and verbs
Collaborative – even if students copy one another, they still have something for me to discuss with them. Assigned on paper and it may come in blank. Additionally, students often copy from neighbors so group discussions can occur because they both have same mistakes.
Do this only for woman. Sometimes more possible answers and we see variety. Have group copy and punctuate these sentences.
Assigned task of devining qualities of literary heroses.
Risks because there is not emotional stress of evaluation. I have the opportunity to see students think outside the box. No right answer. Here students summarize R and J in ten words. I want to see variety. Safety of no marks means students do not try to anticipate what I want
Make connections – laugh over student ideas, chuckle. Have dialogue with students about what they wrote.
Whiteboards are not permanent so they are great for dialogue, risk taking, in this way they support assessment for learning. Do not support selecting, reflecting sharing . To support assessment for learning I want students to be able to identify examples of good work, explain why they are good examples of work, share them, discuss them., and use them in the future as tools to support their writing.
We began using wikis for students to store many assigments. Effectively became working portfolio. Show Brandon’s . Too cluttered and difficulty to navigate. Turned to using Wikis as presentation portfolios – students select examples of their best written work to present. As it stands it is nothing but a container of student work. Formative assessment comes from student reflecting on work. Expressing why it is good work. And dialogue with teacher.
With out self-evaluation the wiki becomes nothing but an electronic containers for work. Students need to be able to explain why their work is good, how it could be imporved. Simplest version – two stars and a wish. Next step for students is evaluation. Often evaluation is at first descriptive – this is good because I double spaced and spell checked. It moves to explanatory my topic sentence is a simple sentence which I think is a stronger way to present my idea.
Once electronics is introduced a Pandora's box can be opened. Powerful tool but use sparingly. Tried to build working portfolios – frustration with access and programs working correctly. Use only for presentation – limits amount of time spent on computers. One hour every few weeks to update, change.
