Session 9: Assessment and project-based learning.
By reflecting on this week's readings I was able to look closely at my practices of assessment and project-based learning scenarios. I realized that I could do more to help English learners decode standards and academic language that would often have a very big impact on their learning, even if they are not explicitly taught! Examining standards and learning objectives has been a major part of my graduate studies; I have come to realize, as you can see from my post, that students need a curriculum with standards that guide them through producing meaningful work. If students can become involved with the curriculum on a personal level, whether through authentic assessment, tiered choices for learning activities, or connecting their Funds of Knowledge to the classroom lessons, they will have more ownership over their learning and feel that they are working toward those "worthy goals." In the future, I will take care to design various learning opportunities for students that offer these kinds of authentic or project-based learning.
Amanda's reflection on March 23, 2014:
1. What did you learn about alternative assessment from the readings? What assessment are you planning to use in your thematic unit?
The common thread in all of the readings and the video seemed to be on creating authentic learning situations for our students to make the best use of assessment data. The Alvermann & Phelps (2005) article stresses student involvement in the assessment process. I really liked the 5 Guidelines for Tough & Fair assessment on page 325-326. I think #5 on that list (Collaborate with students to be clear about & decode standards) will need to be added into my lesson plans in the future. In the past I have always shared the current week's standards or essential learnings we're working on with the students; I did this mostly because my administrators asked me to but also because I thought they should know. What I realize now is that all students, in particular ELLs, could learn the academic language and decode the meanings of these standards and perhaps learn about the meanings of this highly-academic language.
From what Falk (2006) chapter says I again saw attention given to using standards that involve the students in varied, authentic interaction with the skills and knowledge they are supposed to be learning. This is why we teachers and our students should not think that all standards are evil and coercive: the true purpose of standards is to have a meaningful curriculum that actually takes the learners somewhere and accomplishes some learning that it intends to accomplish. In page 347 she elaborates on what purposeful standards at the school or district level can accomplish: having high expectations for all and focus more on student work than on grades. Falk again stresses the need for various opportunities to learn and show learning. Authentic assessment which involves the student in some or all of the decision-making process can result in better outcomes for learning and more ownership of the learning process. I particularly like the concept of "directing toward worthy goals" and totally agree that standards across content areas should be organized so that students have adequate practice and application/processing time.
I would like to allow different choices for students to be assessed for some part of my thematic unit. I like to give choices for different intelligence types or interests such as writing, 3D representation, oral report, etc.
2. What did you learn about project-based learning from the textbook and the video below? How would you incorporate project-based learning into your teaching?
One thing I want to use more is student-assessment. I have incorporated it in some activities in my classroom, but I feel that it really helps students be responsible for their work and their learning. From the project-based learning and the Diaz-Franco I took away the importance of constructivist practices which allow students to build upon their prior knowledge. KWL-Questioning is helpful and can be done with participation from everyone in the classroom. I noticed that the teacher in the video pointed out the large amount of planning that goes into a project-based learning unit. I think every teacher would have to reconcile how much control he or she wants to give to students in deciding the content and skills they will need to learn about any topic. With enough structure, students will have enough to do and still be able to learn about what interests them. I think I would like to design a way to bring Funds of Knowledge into my classroom with regular project-based assignments so that we can explore what the students learn about and care about in their communities outside of school.
Abduljabbar's reply:
Dear Amanda
Hi
I like your assessment choice where you are trying to deal with students' differences justly. Some students prefer to work alone and some are not. Therefore, Setting one assessment that fits all student are not a wise way of assessing different personalities. Moreover, allowing students to choose what to study and allowing them to contribute to class organization may drag the students into class and turn them to be efficient party in their class. As a result of that, treating students as different entities and allowing them to participate in their class organization is a great indicator of the success of that class and its teacher.
Kara's post:
I learned from the readings how crucial and important varying types of assessment is in order to effectively assess every student. However, I think it is very difficult for many teachers in districts that tell them exactly how to assess (using high-stakes, standardized, objective tests) to do these alternative assessments, because even if they do them in their own time, many teachers are told not to use any other type of assessment than the ones they are given to by the ones their district has paid for. That being said, I do believe that using varying types of assessments in the form of formal, informal, summative, formative, traditional, authentic assessments should be used in order to effectively determine the how each student is gaging and obtaining information. Furthermore, I think that performance and authentic assessments are especially telling of a student's understanding, because it requires the students to demonstrate mastery of a skill they've learned by performing something to reveal their knowledge. This forces students to use the skill they've learned in a real life situation, rather than just regurgitating information they've learned on a standardized test and then forgetting it from lack of use in a real-life situation. I'd love to incorporate technology in whatever assessment I use in my thematic unit, and I'm leaning towards using a cumulative portfolio as assessment, as to use varying types of assessments within, but I definitely think having several performance assessment and authentic assessment involved in the most important.
Project based learning is great because it asks students to be in control of their learning, to use inquiry and discovery to obtain information, to think critically and pose high level questioning and thinking. However, I do think this requires a ton of planning on the teacher's part, and a lot of times, project-based learning activities require resources that public schools do not provide or even allow (going back to schools that don't allow teachers to assess in their own way or twist the curriculum away from textbooks and resources provided by the district) which is what project based learning virtually is. I believe engaging students in project based learning one time or so per semester is reasonable and great, but anything more than that just doesn't seem very doable with all the other responsibilities and tasks teachers are given, and with the restrictions placed on teachers through their administrators and districts.
Amanda's response:
Thanks for your post, Kara.
I agree that using multiple forms of assessment is the most valuable way to check for student learning. I have been in a school district that used standardized test scores and allowed performance on benchmark tests as their sole form of assessment. Student grades were based on benchmark achievement. Some of the problems with this were low motivation, extreme ability grouping, and huge achievement gaps and failure for students who were not successful on standardized tests. Sometimes decoding academic language and recalling learned information are difficult for students with disability. They may know the content and could demonstrate their understanding, like you said, with performance assessment or other authentic assessment. I just see some kids struggle with "the test" and I also think it causes problems for teachers who do not make an effort to diversify their assessments.
There must be solutions for those teachers who are given a very prescribed curriculum. Maybe they can involve students in authentic assessment and project-based learning with periodic "paper & pencil " tests to keep their test-taking skills fresh and to see how things are inter-related.