Interview Blog Post – ECS 410

Assessment and Evaluation Philosophy

          When it comes to assessment and evaluation, I believe that students should be involved in setting their own goals for the year. Ideally, this would be the students sitting down with their parents and the teacher to talk about what kinds of goals they would like to set for the year using the course syllabus, and things that they are going to learn throughout the year. If it turns out that the parents do not want to be involved in that process, even just the teacher sitting down with the student to discuss their goals for the year is valuable. This shows the students that, as a teacher, we are interested in their learning for the year, and want them to succeed in school. It shows them that we care. It also gives the student a clear idea of what they are going to achieve in class. Nothing is hidden, and they can take responsibility of their own learning.

Another concept that I believe in when it comes to assessment and evaluation is that a teacher has to be clear and concise with what the assessment or evaluation is, how the students are going to be assessed or evaluated, what the process looks like to get there, what a finished product looks like, and to have consistency in their assessment and evaluation. By modeling this for the students, the students are not in the dark about what they are supposed to do. They can see what the teacher is expecting of them, and how they can achieve that goal. This can go as far as creating classroom assessment with the students. If the students have a say in what they think the end product should be like, they are more likely to be able to get to that product. Another way to be clear and concise is to model what the process looks like. This could be as far as doing the assignment alongside the students. By seeing how the teacher does the project, the students will know what the process looks like, as well as what the finished product looks like. Also in all of this, students should have choice when it comes to the projects they are to do for assessment or evaluation. With the choice, they are more likely to be more passionate about the one they pick. By having consistency in evaluation, students will also know what to expect, and how to achieve with that evaluation after a few times of the teacher using it.

The types of assessment that I believe to be valuable for both the teacher and the student are diagnostic assessment and peer or self-assessment. Diagnostic assessment, if used right, provides the teacher with an idea of where their students are at. To be used right, it has to be clear to the students that it is just a diagnostic assessment for a certain topic, and that it is being used to see where they are at in their knowledge, and it is not a test. It is beneficial for the student because they also see where they are at, and can make goals to what they have to work for. I think that peer or self-assessment is a great tool because it allows students to get more ideas about their assignments or project. It is more than just the student doing their project, and if it is just themselves, they are using some sort of checklist or rubric to closely look at their assignment or project. The more someone looks at it, the more valuable the feedback that allows the student to achieve. This is also valuable for the teacher because they get a more polished final product from the student if they were just to hand it in without peer or self-assessment.

When it comes to formative and summative assessment, I believe that formative is more valuable to the students. The more formative assessment involved in the students’ work, the more likely they are to achieve during a summative assessment. I do not believe in giving marks to rough drafts of any assignment. This is where I believe that formative feedback is valuable to the students, so that when it comes to the summative, they have the feedback that they need to achieve. I know that we have to give marks to students because the ministry says that we have to, so I do believe in types of summative assessment, but they do not always have to be a test. I believe that some students do not benefit from writing a test, and that there is other ways to show a student’s learning and ideas. These ways include final projects with choice, process portfolios, best works portfolios, or essays. I believe in finding out what best works for students when it comes to summative assessment, and if needed, create adaptations in the assessment or evaluation that suits the needs of the students that need them.

Another thing that I believe in when it comes to assessment and evaluation is the idea of letting students re-do an assignment, project, or test. However, this only happens if the student takes time to sit down with the teacher to talk about what went wrong. If the teacher has evidence of why the evaluation went the way it went, students can see where they went wrong. If the student can see what happened, can make a plan to re-do it, and sign a contract to get it done, then I believe in giving students re-dos. However, I will not chase students down time after time for them to re-do assignments. I will make it clear at the beginning of the year, or the first time that I let them re-do something, that it is their responsibility to take their mark into their own hands and to put a plan in action.

Lastly, I believe that teachers have to teach in a way that is going to be memorable. Students are not going to remember the tests you gave them, or the projects that they did, they are going to remember how you made them feel in class. I believe in creating an environment that is fun an engaging, and a great place for students to learn with positive assessment and evaluation experiences.

Assessment and Evaluation in the Field

          Since I was only in the school for three weeks, I used formative assessment way more than summative assessment. The types of formative assessment that I used was quick writes that I took in for feedback, exit slips that I took in for feedback, a rubric to show students where they are at in their rough drafts, and a checklist. The quick writes were the students anticipating what a short story would be about, anticipating what would happen next during a short story, or a general question that would check to see their understanding of a text. What I didn’t realise until after the three week block, was that these were diagnostic assessment tools, because I was checking for students understanding. I used an exit slip twice to check for understanding, but that was in a physical education setting. I found them very helpful to see if students understand the outcome of the class. The one time I used a rubric was for the students’ rough drafts of their literacy essay. It was to show them where they were at, and how they could improve through feedback on their rubric. I used the checklist once, and that was in a physical education setting. The students made an obstacle course that had to have certain elements in it, and I checked off to see if they had them in it.

As for summative assessment, I used my co-operating teacher’s rubrics because that is what she wanted. This is because she wanted to have the final say in the marking, so she felt more comfortable if we just used her rubric. The first one I used was for their rough draft of their literacy essays. I know I mentioned this in the formative assessment, but she also used it to enter marks for their report cards. The rubric that was used was a comprehend and respond rubric with six different levels. The other rubric I used was a compose and create rubric that had six levels and was used for the students’ narratives they wrote.

Because I was there for only three weeks and my cooperating teacher wanted me to use her assessment tools, I wasn’t able to involve the students in the assessment process as much as I would have liked. They were given the rubrics at the beginning of the assignments, and we went through them thoroughly as a class, but they didn’t have any input on the rubrics.

When it comes to adaptation to the assessment process, I realised I ended up doing more in my three week block than I thought I would. In my English B10 class, my partner and I had the students write literacy essays. We looked at the students’ record of adaptations before we even had them start to get to know what the students needed, so when it came to the assignment, we knew what to do. The first adaptation that we added to this essay for some students was that they were able to do a two body essay instead of a three body essay. It was still marked the same way on the rubric, just had one less body paragraph in their essays. Also, in this class for some students, we took out the grammar part of the rubric because some of the students’ record of adaptation recommended that we do that, and then we averaged out their rubric to be the same marks as everyone else.

In my English A30 class, I had seven students out of nineteen who were EAL learners. I made adaptations for them in both their assignments and their rubrics. The assignment was to write a narrative in the point of view of a character from the short story “The Lamp at Noon” by Sinclair Ross. This short story was set during the great depression in the prairies in the 1930s. Most of the EAL learners and their families have only been in Canada for a couple of years, so they would have no background knowledge on this point in time. Because of this, I allowed them to write a narrative of the first time they came to Canada and their thoughts. It still fit the theme of Canadian stories, and it fit into the narrative category as well. I also gave leeway in grammar for the EAL learners because they are still learning, and I could tell that they were trying really hard.

Also in this class, I had my first ever experience with a student who handed in their assignment, but did it completely wrong. He wrote in third person on many events, instead of in first person and on one event. I tried to adapt the rubric to fit what he handed in, but it still caused him to have a low mark. I talked to him, and asked him what happened. He told me that he didn’t understand, and asked if he could redo it. So I let him, and he handed it in the next day, and did much better.

Philosophy Alignment and Discrepancies in the Field

            The assessment that I used in the field aligned with my philosophy quite well, but there were two discrepancies. I was able to be clear and concise with what I wanted students to achieve through their rubrics. I was able to use much more formative assessment than summative assessment. And I was even able to allow a student to redo an assignment, and he achieved through redoing the assignment.

The first discrepancy came when I had to use my cooperating teacher’s already made rubrics. I was really looking forward to making my own rubric and trying it out in pre-internship. This also prevented me from making a rubric with the students, which is something that I believe strongly in my philosophy. I know this is because I was there for only three weeks, and I hope that this doesn’t happen to me in my internship. If it does, I think I would need to sit down with my cooperating teacher and talk to her about what I want to do with the rubrics, and how it aligns with my philosophy.

The other discrepancy was when my partner and I had to give a percentage mark to a rough draft because our cooperating teacher wanted a mark for their three-way conferences that were happening during our pre-internship. I did not feel good doing this. I talked to my cooperating teacher and she said the mark that we would give them will change once they hand in their final draft, and that it will not affect their overall mark. However, I still didn’t like it because it went against my philosophy about giving marks to a rough draft. Because I was under the instruction of my cooperating teacher, I had to do it, even if I didn’t like it. However, if this happens in internship, I think it is a matter of having a conversation again with the cooperating teacher about how it doesn’t align with my philosophy, and if there is any other way that I could get away from doing this.

Three Key Learnings

            The three key learnings that I learned during ECS 410 about assessment and evaluation are:

1. Tests are not the only summative assessment.
   • There are many other ways that teachers can check for understanding from students. Many students do not benefit from having tests all the time. Some students have text anxiety and preform horribly on tests, so how can we know from a test if that is everything a student learned. Things like final projects or portfolios can be great ways to check for students understanding. I do believe that there is time for a test, but not all the time.
2. Diagnostic assessment is just as valuable as all other assessments.
   • Diagnostic assessments may take up some time, but they do show a teacher where their students are at in their learning. Sometimes assuming students know certain things does not work, and a teacher has to figure out where their students are. It is also valuable to use during an activity to see if students understand then as well.
3. Students should be involved in the assessment process.
   • When students are involved in the assessment process, they are more likely to achieve because they know what is expected of them. The students are not going into an assignment blind.

These three things are going to be very important in my teaching practice because they align well with my assessment and evaluation philosophy, and I believe that they are crucial in a classroom for students to succeed. I want to create a classroom where students are responsible for their own learning, which also has them being involved in their own assessment, and where students are able to achieve their goals. I want to have a classroom where the students are doing fun activities to show their learning, not sitting in a desk writing a test at the end of every unit. I think that there are so many fun possibilities for fun, engaging final activities for units in any subject.

Mar 5th, 2015 – ECS 410

This week, we basically wrapped up the past 6 weeks with a carousel of four different topics that brought up some interesting discussion with my group. We also went through some big ideas for assessment, and had 8 takeaways from what assessment is.

The first station that my group was at was the contract station. The first part of the booklet we were given was about the independent novel study. After being hung up on the word ‘maximum’ we concluded that this was an activity to do with choice, and students would have to pick certain activities to do to get to 100 points. When skimming through the ideas I had kind of a deja vu moment where I am pretty sure I have already seen this. After reading some more in-depth, I am almost 100% certain that my own high school English teacher used this exact document when we were reading Luna by Sharon Butala. We were told that we had choice for our final assignment for the novel and got to pick our assignments, as long as they added up to 100 points. Personally, I loved this method. I was able to take responsibility into my own learning. We were also given the choice of making up an assignment, and presenting it to the teacher with evidence of how many points it should be. This allowed for those students who are more creative to make up their own assignments. In connection with contracts, I think that this could be used as a contract where a student says this is what they are going to do, tells the teacher, signs a contract on it, and gets to work on it. This was probably my favorite document in the contract packet.

I also really liked the RAFT(S) document, standing for Role, Audience, Format, Topic (or Time). Being an English major, I think this could be very interesting way of bringing new assignments into the classroom. You could give the students a different role than a student, different audience then the teacher, an unique format, and a topic that is relevant to the curriculum. It brings fun back to English. A student’s role could be a character in a story and they are writing a letter to another character about their ideas of friendships (one of the overarching themes in English curriculum). One of the examples in this document is the role of the mayor of Vicksburg, Mississippi speaking to the congress through a rap or song in the time of two years before the war ends. There are endless possibilities about what could happen using RAFT. Students could even create their own RAFT, and I think this is where the contract does come in, so students sign a document saying that they will stick to their RAFT, and that they know what they will know, understand, and be able to do using the RAFT.

When looking through the contract booklet, my group realised that a lot of these documents situate around the idea of choice, and that students should have choice. This is where our discussion led to. We talked about how important choice in the classroom really is. I found a document called “Crafting Effective Choice to Motivate Students” by Kevin Perks. It states three main points of what choice should do for students. It should give students “a sense of control”, “a sense of purpose”, and “a sense of competence” (Perks 2). When students are given choice, they are given optimal opportunity to take responsibility in their learning. They take charge, and do things that really interest their learning, and this may provide more learning opportunities for the students. This also connects really well with inquiry learning. However, sometimes for students, choice may be a difficult thing to wrap their head around, so I think this is where adaptations come in for students. You could give fewer choices for those who need it.

Our next station was the Rick Wormeli videos. We choice to watch his video called “Redos, Retakes, and Do-overs”. I have to first say that Wormeli is very passionate in what he does, as it comes through in his loud voice while talking. I really liked the point he brought up about how failure is not something to demonize. It is okay for students to fail, as long as teachers give them a way to recover. This also relates to the whole zero debate. He talks about how it is okay to give a zero as long as you give students a way to recover. I think that is a valid point and should be looked at when debating if zeros are okay or not. My group had quite the lengthy discussion on re-dos or re-takes. We all liked re-dos or re-takes to a certain extent. We had some valid questions about how far would you go for a student who just doesn’t care, or how many times should you give the chance to re-do something? What came from these questions were a few ideas that we had. One was that, as teachers, we should come up with a policy on the first day with students, let them have some say in it, and clearly communicate with students what you expect from them. Another thing we talked about was communication. If a student needs more time to do something, talk to the teacher beforehand. As teachers, we have to always make sure we are open to students and allow the classroom to be a safe place for them to come talk to you if they may not make a deadline. Another thing that we came up with was a contract that students could use. If they were not able to hand in their assignment on the due date, they would have to hand in the contract with the reason it was not in, and set another due date that they will have it in by. This could also be something that they talk to the teacher about beforehand.

Rick Wormeli has many videos that I absolutely love. His ideas are phenomenal and very informational for beginning teachers who have so many questions. I was curious on some other things he had to say, so I just watched his video “On Late Work” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHeij2Zfil4). I really appreciate how he brought up the fact that some students may have to support their family outside of school. Some may have to go work until late at night, or some may have to take care of siblings until their parents get home from their jobs. They may not have time to do work outside of the classroom. He also brought up that fact that some students may not learn as fast as other students, therefore, they may not be able to do assignments as fast as other students. I also like the idea that if you allow students to do the work that was late, they will learn from it, and will come to respect deadlines. And lastly, I like how he states that students will learn more from doing the assignment then giving them the zero. I think this also brings up the challenge for teachers of having assignments handed in months later and right before a final exam. It creates a lot of pressure and marking on the teacher, so I believe that there should be some guidelines and boundaries that should be created in a policy on the first day.

Our next station was on inquiry based teaching and learning. I have heard multiple times in English about inquiry, but never connected to the four steps that were explained by Tracy. The four steps are immerse, investigate, coalesce, and go public. Throughout this entire presentation, I could not get my mind off of how this is exactly what a science fair project is like. We are given the overview that our topic has to be, in some way, connected to science, the areas that need to go on a science fair board, and to talk about what some possible topics would be. This is the immerse step. Then we were given time to go research and come up with our own topics and going deeper into those topics. This is the investigate step. Then put it together and present to class. This is the coalesce step. Lastly, we had a science fair with the entire school, and community members who wanted to come in. This is the go public step. I know that it can be used in many classrooms and in many cross curricular ways; this was just what was going through my mind when thinking about this idea.

Our last station was the test and quizzes station. Two things that caught my eye in this document were to use a variety of questions and to keep tests short. Being an English major, I tend to think that there are way more efficient ways for students to show their learning than to test them, especially for those students who get testing anxiety. However, being that we are going to be beginning teachers, and not accredited teachers right away, we are going to have to give students the final departmental, and we are going to have to prepare them for that using tests, so I will keep in mind those two points about testing, as well as all the other ones in this document.

Another thing we did was discuss the two checklists of assessment. They repeated a lot of ideas that we learned in this class. Cooper’s 8 big ideas, I felt like, were exactly what we learned in the last 7 weeks of classes. In an overview, assessment should serve different purposes at different times, so sometimes diagnostic assessment is needed over formative assessment for what you are teaching. Assessment should be planned and purposeful, meaning that it should connect to the curriculum and the students’ needs. Assessment should be balanced and have variety and flexibility. I think this connects really well when we learned about different types of assignments and how to do adaptations for the students who may not benefit from a certain kind of assessment. Assessment should have predetermined criteria. This connects with creating assessment with students, and getting students’ input on what the assessment should look like, as well as, giving students the assessment before they start an assignment. And lastly, grading and reporting should be timely. Students should know where they are at, and teachers should check in with students.

Lastly, we were given the “8 Takes on Thoughtful Assessment” from assessment gurus. It has 8 quotes of wisdom about assessment from 8 different people. My favorite quote from this page is from Dylan Williams: “If students answer all the teacher’s questions correctly, the teacher is surely wasting the students’ time. Worthwhile questions cause students to struggle and think.” I 100% agree with this quote. We were told in our ENLG 350 and 351 classes that if we are not challenged by our questions, then neither will be students, and that sometimes the worthwhile questions have you unsure of the answer as well. It creates learning with the student and teacher alongside each other.

I am extremely grateful to have experienced this class, and I am sad that it is already over. However, I know that my learning will continue throughout the rest of my life about assessment. I really like how teaching is really an on-going learning opportunity. I appreciate the idea that our philosophies will change because we are not yet out teaching in the classrooms, and haven’t had the experience to know how things are going to be. I’m excited to see how my philosophy will change 10 years down the road.

Perks, Kevin. “Crafting Effective Choices to Motivate Students.” Adolescent Literacy in Perspective (2010): 2-3. Print.

Feb 26th – ECS 410

It kind of just dawned on me that this was our second last class, and that pre-internship is coming up so fast. Which I am completely excited for, and cannot wait to jump into!

Anyhow, this week has flown by, and I felt like this class even went fast. It started off with going through our outcome plans with another pair, or in our case, another person. Heather and I were able to go through our plan with Kayley, and to go through hers as well. This was a form of peer assessment where we were able to give and receive feedback. To me, it was a great use of time in class. I had so many doubts about our outcome plan, that it may not be what is expected, but to have a peer go through and confirm that we are on the right track was just what was needed. I also learned many different ways to adapt your lesson for students who need the adaptations. It is nice to have another mind thinking in the process, and I feel like we can credit Kayley for some of our ideas in this particular part because she is very knowledgeable about it. I never got to do much peer assessment in high school, and by doing this assignment, I was able to see the importance of doing this peer assessment activity even in a high school. I could definitely see myself doing this numerous times, especially in English to help with students writing. I say this in ways where students are conferencing with other students about their work. This is shown very well in Kelly Gallagher’s textbook, Teaching Adolescent Writers. He talks about “”I Like’ Conversations” (Gallagher 146) where students exchange their papers with other students, and they talk about what they like in their peers pieces. This shows the positives in the student’s paper, and encourages them to work more on what their peers likes to improve their paper. I feel that in English, the more time allotted for feedback from peers, self, and teacher, the better the outcome of the students’ learning.

The next part of the class we had Tim Caleval, from the Ministry, present to us about what the ministry is doing to improve education. The first think he talked about was that Saskatchewan education is deemed as lower than surrounding provinces. He talked about how if students want to get into Engineering in Alberta they would need an 85% high school average, but since we are from Saskatchewan high schools, we would probably need a 92%. This shocked me. I have never heard of this being that I have done schooling in Saskatchewan all my life, and continued on to go to a Saskatchewan University. What he also talked about here was the idea that Saskatchewan students’ marks drop more in university than Alberta students’ marks drop. I was told in high school to expect to receive marks 20% lower than what I was receiving in high school, so I thought that is just how it is. However, Tim stated that people from Alberta’s marks drop, on average, 4%, while people from Saskatchewan’s marks dropped, on average, 10%. To be honest, mine dropped 15%, and I did not change one habit from high school to university. I feel like I have worked harder in university and still have had a drastic mark drop. All of this was a lot to take in. This is a reality that we are going to be facing as new teacher entering into this profession. I am very happy to know that these factors are being worked out with the Education Sector Strategic Plan. However, I also question why this hasn’t been looked at earlier than now.

Tim also talked about the vision for 2020. He called it something different, but in our ECS 310 class, it was called Vision 2020. It is a list of things that the ministry wants to improve by 2020, among the top being graduation rates of First Nations and Metis students. Since I heard this in another class, I knew about this. Also, it wasn’t discussed in this presentation, but we were told that Vision 2020 was the first goals given to schools by the provincial government. I feel like this is a huge deal, and a lot of weight on our shoulders being that most of us will enter into the profession before 2020 and when these goals will be looked at. What I really appreciated about this was the fact that First Nations and Metis were involved in the process of coming up with these goals. I feel like it is such a positive step in repairing the relationship with First Nations and Metis people that has been broken through our history.

I feel like Tim’s presentation inspired me a lot. The one thing he talked about that I had a huge smile on during it was the Student First program. I pretty much was saying “FINALLY!” in my head. It’s a program that listens to the student’s needs, and what they need to be successful in school. One of the main things that students said they needed was relationships in the schools. This connects so well with my ECS 350 class, where we are talking about students’ stories who have dropped out, and the main factor in every story was that the teachers did not know the student who dropped out, and did not take the time to see what was going on in their own personal lives. Everyone has a story, and it is not just a school story. There is more to students’ than just school. The other two things that Tim talked about students needing were engagement in school, and to see the partnership in school. I was overwhelmingly happy when listening about this in class. It shows hope for the future, and shows hope for helping students to get through high school.

One of the questions that Tim posed was “What is school really about?” He answered it with one word: learning. I was quite torn when he talked about this, just because I believe that school is for sure about learning, but there is also so much more that school is about. Students grow up going to school. I was in school for 13 years before graduating, and, wait for it, I went into 4 more years of schooling with university. School for me was about learning, but it was also the friendships, the hardships, the memories made, the lesson learned, and many more things. Because students are in school for many years of their lives, they do much more than just learn. So I say that school is much more about learning, it is also the relationships made, the memories made, and the learning. When I think back to high school many of my memories are of the sports teams I played on, or the fun activities we did in class (like a modern rendition of Hamlet), not that a² + b² = c². Many of the things I learned in school were life lessons not math equations. I think we have to remember this as teachers while teaching the curriculum. I know we have to teach it, but I think we have to teach it in ways that will be memorable.

The last thing that stood out in Tim’s presentation is that this plan is something that they adapted from schools in New Zealand who have been implementing this plan for years now, and how they have succeeded so well because of the relationships teachers had with students, and the high expectations that they had for their students. I think this is wonderful that New Zealand has been able to make this work, but I wonder why it has taken so long for this to come to Saskatchewan. Why has it not been here earlier? Canada seems to be so far ahead in so many things, but education. Any yet, I feel like education is one of the most important things because it prepares adolescences for the path that they are going to take for the rest of their lives. I am excited to see how this turns out in years to come here in Saskatchewan. I really appreciate the idea that the students, teachers, and administrators are going to be getting surveyed during this process. It helps the ministry see how this is going, and allows for students to have voice as well. And I really liked the last point that Tim brought up: “It is not about changing the students; it is about supporting the teachers”. I cannot agree more with this. If anything has to change in the education system, it is how the teachers teach, and how they create relationships with students. It has been stressed in so many of my ECS classes about relationships with students and its importance, and I am so glad it is. It makes us see how important it really is.

The last thing we did in class was discuss the article by Myron Dueck called “The Problem with Penalties”. The basic overview of this article is that penalties are not taken seriously by students, and handing our zeros is not going to work because they do not care if they get a zero, it is just one less assignment for them. My staff group talked a lot about the idea of marking things as incomplete until they are handed in. I think this could be seen as an effective tool if all teachers were on board with it. That way students see consistency in every class they are in. It is hopeful that students will see their incomplete as a way to work harder. In my staff group we also discussed how we will not be giving out zeros unless it is it is the only possible choice left. By this we mean that it is after the school year ended, and the student was given multiple chances to hand the assignment in, and still didn’t hand the assignment in. Tracy brought up in class that we should document everything we do in class, like the measures we take to help this student get their assignments in because you may not remember, and may have a parent breathing down your neck about their son or daughters marks. I feel like I should have a journal just for documenting things down that happens in class, even if it is just minuscule and small, it may come to save you in the future.

Lastly, for today’s class we were to have read Chapter 9 and 10 from the Anne Davies textbook. Chapter 9 is called “Communicating about Learning”. This chapter is basically what it states in the title. One of the main things that I really liked in this chapter was “Student-Parent Conferences” (Davies 89). This is where the student is able to show their parents their work, instead of sitting down with the teacher and talking about what they are learning. It allows for students to take ownership of their work, and take pride in it while showing it to their parents. This is not something that I had in school. However, my brothers are in Grade 7 and 8 in the high school I went to, and they are doing these student led conferences. My mom thinks they are wonderful things because she is finally getting to see what my brothers are doing in school through their eyes. It is always a struggle after school when she asks what they are doing in school because they are teenage boys, and usually answer that question with a grunt. Here, she is able to see their work. I personally love them too because they take a lot of work away from teachers who would have to prepare for, what we used to call, parent-teacher interviews. Students have to take the responsibility for their work.

Chapter 10 was called “Evaluating and Reporting”. It talks about how we will eventually have to give evaluations and reports because it is a legal thing we have to do that is set out by the ministry. A quote in the textbook that I particularly like is: “When you make your plans for evaluating and reporting, take time to be sure you know what rules and regulations govern these procedures in your school. Ask at the district or province/state level. Don’t accept someone else’s interpretation of the rules. Become an expert on exactly what you are responsible for, so that you can figure out the best way to use the evaluation and reporting process to support student learning” (Davies 103). This is such a powerful quotation. It shows how we have to be our own person, and stick up for what we believe is right when it comes to evaluation and reporting, and to really know your stuff when doing this. I also think that evaluation and reporting is going to be a trial and error process for us as beginning teachers. It isn’t something that we are going to be experts at right off the bat. We are going to have problems with it, but we are going to have the support to get through those problems.

Davies, Anne. Making Classroom Assessment Work. 3rd ed. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree, 2011. Print.

Gallagher, Kelly. Teaching Adolescent Writers. Portland, Me: Stenhouse, 2006. Print.

Feb 12, 2015 – ECS 410

Today’s class started off with a presentation from Cori Antonini, where he went through his website he created that helps with creating rubrics. It is essentially a place where teachers can go to do everything involved in making unit or lesson plans for a class. It has the Saskatchewan Curriculum (so we do not have to copy and paste), I can statements for indicators (for when we are stuck on making our own), prompts for Bloom’s Taxonomy, instruction strategies, assessment strategies, differentiation strategies, and it compiles all your ideas for activities, instruction, and assessment into a summary. I, frankly, was sitting there in complete ‘awhh’ while watching this presentation because I have been wishing for an easier way to organize things, and my wish was just granted.

This application constructs a rubric from the outcome and indicators that are picked, and puts them onto a four level scale. I heard about this scale from my mom because it is now being used in the schools that I went to, and she is experiencing it with my brothers. It is something that I have been struggling to understand because I have never heard of it, or have seen it in application. The way that Cori explained it cleared up those struggles. Four is an established, meaning the student can do the work independently and can teach it to other students. Three is meeting, meaning that the student is doing what the I can statements state. Two is progressing, meaning that the student is approaching meeting, is able to do the activity most often, and can be talked through the activity by a teacher. One is beginning, where the student does not have all the necessary skills to be at meeting. I really appreciated the idea that he said a three is where students should aim towards, and that a 4 is more of a mastery level. I appreciate this because my brother who struggles, has come home with threes, and to me I thought maybe that was equivalent to a 75% (being from the generation that got percentages). However, now knowing how Cori explained it, I understand that a three is really good for him, and is a confidence booster because he does struggle.

Another thing that I have to say about his presentation is the idea he brought up about modelling work for students. It has been a common theme in many of my classes this semester that we should model what an assignment, like a writing piece, should look like to the students, or what success should look like. He brought up the idea of showing students in high school a model of a level one or two piece, and allowing students to look at the piece, find out what is wrong with it, and figure out how to make it look like a three or a four level. I think this is a wonderful way for students to think deeper about their work, and take responsibility in trying to get to a three or four by knowing how to figure out how to get there.

Lastly, Cori talked briefly about redoing assignments in the classroom, and this is something that I want to explore a little bit deeper. I really like the idea of giving students more chances to redo their assignments because there is more going on in a student’s life than just school. However, I think there has to be a policy set out for students. Reed Gillespie, an assistant principal at Kettle Run High School in Nokesville, VA, has a wonderful blog set out where he writes about the “12 Steps to Creating a Successful Redo and Retake Policy” (http://reedgillespie.blogspot.ca/2013/04/12-steps-to-creating-successful-redo.html). I am not going to highlight each step separately, I have picked out a couple that I like and am going to summarize them. One that he talks about is that if you are giving students a chance to retake a test, do not use the same test that they originally wrote. This way they do not just simply memorize the answers, but have to take responsibility for their learning. He also adds to this to change the test style or form of assessment. If it was multiple choice, maybe a student would benefit more from a short answer or essay type questions, or vice versa. Or change a test into a project where student can show their understanding and learnings. Some students do not benefit from taking tests. And the last one that I like that he states is that even high achieving students should be allowed to redo assignments or retake tests. If a teacher is going to have a retake or redo policy, I think that it should be applied to everyone, so that they are able to achieve to the best of their abilities. Gillespie also has a post called “Redos and Retakes” (http://www.reedgillespie.blogspot.ca/2013/04/redos-and-retakes.html), where he states the pros and cons of redos and retakes.

The next thing that happened in class is that we got to-construct a rubric for our Outcome Plan assignment. I was thrilled with this idea. We have been talking about getting students involved in the constructing of assessment, and its benefits, but to now see it in action was beneficial as a pre-intern. My group was working on the band of the rubric that dealt with I Can Statements. This activity seemed more difficult than I thought it would be because we had challenges with how to word our ideas so that they fit into the rubric. There were arguments between using the words always and consistently, and which one would be better to use. Through these arguments, however, we were able to address our discomforts, learn from them, and work together to figure something else out. We eventually got our portion done, but I feel like creating rubrics is going to be a learning process through practice, and making them, not something that can be learned in one lesson.

Lastly, chapter 7 and 8 of the textbook were discussed. Chapter 7 is called “Using Assessment to Guide Instruction”. This chapter talks about asking students what they think they need to do to complete a task and what is important to complete that task. They then brainstorm and create ideas that could be used as assessment for the activity they are doing. I really like this idea because, being an English major, I think I would use it. English can sometimes be broad, so by using the students’ thinking, it can be narrowed down to what the students think is important. The teacher does have a final say, however, it is a good way to figure out what the students are thinking about a specific activity. A teacher can work the assignments around that so that the students have the best potential for learning. This chapter also uses acronyms to be used to remind students what they are being assessed on. I think it would be a fun activity to have students create their own acronyms, that way they can take ownership to them, and they will be able to remember them better.

Chapter 8 is called “Collecting, Organizing, and Presenting Evidence”. Davies states how “collecting, organizing, and presenting evidence of learning used to be the teacher’s responsibility alone” (73), but now the students are more involved in this process. It talks about how the process of involving students has to be “practical and possible” (74), and to make time for this process to happen. I like the whole idea of getting students more involved in gathering their evidence of learning. We are doing this in my ELNG 350 and 351, but creating a process portfolio of our evidence of learning throughout the semester. I think it is a valuable concept in my own learning because I am reflecting on what I learned. This chapter talks about many types of portfolios and they are progress, process, reporting, best-works, and learning goals portfolio. Being an English major, my favorite of all these is the best-works portfolio. The students get to pick what they think is their “best-works” and highlight their accomplishments. Being that English is a lot of writing, marking everything that a student writes isn’t beneficial to the student, or a teacher. Giving feedback on all their work will be more beneficial, and then have them pick their best-works for marks allows them to take ownership of some of their writing, or projects, and be proud of them.

I am very apologetic about this being so long, but there was a lot to unpack about this class, and I had a lot of thinking to work out on this post.

Feb 5th – ECS 410

This class started out with a discussion on the Dylan Williams video called “The Classroom Experiment”. I really appreciated that he incorporated the physical activity before school. In my own experience at high school, I participated in sports teams when the practices would be at 7 am because that is the only time that worked out for everyone to be there. I found that was I was more responsive in the morning classes when I had the physical activity before class rather than when I would just go to class with no physical activity. I think it is important to have physical activity, and it was interesting to see the students respond to it over time. At first they were reluctant to it, but towards the end, the students seemed to have more participation and enthusiasm towards it. In my own school setting, I think I would definitely incorporate it for those students who are willing. It could be as simple as a club that gets together half an hour before class to do fifteen minutes of physical activity. It helps get the brain juices flowing!

Dylan Williams used many different strategies in this video. I am not going to discuss them all, but rather the one that I liked the most, and the one that I disliked the most. The one that I liked the most was the whiteboard strategy. Every student got a whiteboard and a marker, and had to answer every question on the whiteboard and hold it up for the teacher to see, and the teacher would address the question if there are any concerns. I think this would be a very useful diagnostic tool to see where the students are at their understanding. I know they can be a hassle, and be a distraction to students who are drawing on them. However, in time the novelty of the whiteboards will die down, and students will get over the fact that they could potentially doodle on them. Even though I like this strategy, it is not something that I would use all the time, but rather use it when it connects to what I am teaching.

The strategy that I disliked was the “secret student”. This is because I am thinking in more of a Grade 10-12 setting, and how this activity would seem “childish”. The teacher would pick a student to watch through the entire day, and the students would not know who it was. The student would have to behave correctly to give the whole class a check for the day. If they got a certain number of checks throughout a duration of time that was set up, they would get a reward of some sorts, like a trip to some place. If gives the students the idea that their good behaviour should be rewarded all the time, and if there is not a reward, then why should they behave well. Also relating it to Grade 10-12, these students should already, for the most part, know what good behaviour looks like and how to display it. By putting the “secret student” in place, it would be showing these students that we do not trust them to behave like the young adults they are. It is almost like we are chastising them. In my opinion, I just do not think that the “secret student” strategy would benefit students.

Next for this class was Chapter 5, which is called “Evidence of Learning”. The basic overview of the chapter was that the teacher has to decide what evidence they want to collect to evaluate what the students have learned, and how to go about picking what the teacher wants for evidence. One thing that stood out to me is that the evaluation of evidence has to be “reliable and valid” (47). It is not good evaluation if the evidence if it is not reliable and valid. The teacher has to be consistent in what they are evaluating, as well as give valid reasons to why the evidence got the evaluation it did. This makes me think of some of the university English classes I have taken. I would hand-in an essay, and get it back with little to no feedback, and a circled number for a mark. It made me question why I got the mark I got. So from this, I think it is very important to give very valid evidence of why the evidence was marked the way it was marked.

The next chapter was Chapter 6, “Involving Students in Classroom Assessment”. I agree 100 percent with even just the title. Students do need to be involved in how they are assessed because it provides better learning experiences for them. When they know what is being assessed and the criteria surrounding that, they are more likely to achieve success in what they are doing. One of the examples that I really liked in the textbook was just getting the students to brainstorm ideas that connect to the criteria. It allows students to have a say in what they want the criteria to be. Another thing that I thought was really important was this quote: “Be assured that the time spent improving classroom assessment will be well worth it in terms of students learning and achievement” (61). Teachers have to put time into approving assessment. It will be a difficult process, but there is support, and it is something that will be worth it in a teacher’s journey.

Lastly, in class we talked about Intervention First. This is something I have never heard of before, and I am beginning to wonder why I am only hearing it in my third year and not sooner. Because I am a very new at this idea, I looked at a video that can be found at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkK1bT8ls0M. This video is a short, descriptive video on Intervention First, explaining it in a visual way, which helped me a lot. One thing that helped me that was stated in this video was that students do not have to be identified as disabled to receive any of these interventions. When we were talking in class, I got an idea that maybe students that were receiving help in Tier 3 were students that were identified as disabled. I like that this is not the case, because sometimes students who are not identified as disabled still need the help. I think this is an amazing program that is being used in schools. I wanted to know more about it, so I stumbled upon Regina Public Schools website (http://www.rbe.sk.ca/teachers-staff/instruction/if-basics) that shows the basics of what Intervention First is. I realised that the reason it was founded was to “fulfill the vision that all children will learn” (para. 2). I love this vision, especially when we as teachers are dealing with more diverse learning needs in the classroom. Intervention First is a way to deal with these diverse learning needs.

Jan 29th – ECS 410

This week started off with a conversation about diagnostic tools and we made a list in class. Some of these tools included oral questions, think/pair/share, KWL chart, journal entry, or an exam that is not for marks, just diagnostic purposes. Before this class, I never really thought about diagnostic assessment and how beneficial it can be for a teacher who is planning the lessons to meet the needs of their students. Teachers can learn where their students are at, and plan on from there. These diagnostic tools can become routines in a classroom, to the point where students know what is going on, and know how to do it without instructions. This could be as simple as an exit slip after each week to know where the students are at when it comes to a particular topic. Now that we have discussed diagnostic assessment in great detail, I see the importance of it, and know that I will be using it in the future when I teach.

After we discussed diagnostic assessment, we began to discuss Chapter 3 of our textbook with the question: What should success look like? When I first heard this question I had no idea how to answer it, and after some further discussion, I realised that this was the point of the question. I am just learning to become a teacher; I am not going to know right off the bat what success looks like in my particular subject area. I am going to have to talk to other teachers in my subject area to get examples from there. I am going to have to create a group of people who I can go to for advice on what I am teaching. I am not alone in what I am doing; there is many other teachers out there to help. I can also go online to find out these kinds of things about what success may look like. With technology advancing so fast, there is bound to be something on the internet about what success looks like in every subject area.

Chapter 3 is called “Beginning With the End in Mind”. This chapter talks about how students are more likely to achieve and be successful when they know what they are working towards, when they know where they are going. Teachers have to involve students in the assessment process so that students know what is going on, and what they need to do to be successful. The textbook suggests that teachers should put the outcomes and indicators in a kind of language where students and parents can understand. I agree with this 100% because sometimes I cannot even understand some of the outcomes, and I have to work through them to make them become more understandable. I think this is where our outcome plan assignment comes into more focus with the “I Can” statements. It is a way of putting the outcomes in a clearer language that students are able to understand and use. It sometimes makes me wonder why the curriculum is written in difficult language. I think students and parents should be able to look at the curriculum and understand what is there, but sometimes it is not that easy because it is difficult to understand.

Chapter 4 is called “Describing Success”. This chapter is about the idea of showing students what success looks like by giving them models to look at. I really like this idea. However, being an English major, sometimes showing a model doesn’t help because it scares the students. You give them a finished, polished product with no grammatical errors, and it can be seen as intimidating. When you give them this finished product, you are not showing them the steps that it took to get to the finished product. This is something that we are learning in my ELNG 351 class right now. That if we are going to show what success is like, we are going to have to show the steps as well to get to success. This may not be true in all subjects, but I know it is true in English. So I do agree with the textbook that we have to show what success looks like, but I think we also have to demonstrate the steps it takes to be successful.

Also with this chapter came the question about common assessment and if we like it. Common assessment is when teachers in an area, whether it is school, school divisions, or maybe province, come together and make up a common summative assessment in a certain subject area and grade. At first I didn’t know what to think of this. It seems like it would be a lot of work to do, but after discussing it in class, I formed an opinion on it. In some ways I think it would be beneficial because you can get together with like-minded people in your subject area to come up with a common assessment that works. You get to collaborate and learn new ideas from other people. However, I also think it may be a challenge because you may not get with like-minded people who do not see the same way you do. I am thinking in the terms of English because English is so flexible for the kinds of literature that you can use in a classroom, so coming up with a common text for assessment may be challenging. This is something that I want to continue to look into and learn more about.

Next we learned how to come up with “I Can” statements. This is an idea that is somewhat new to me because we learned the “Students will be able to” method. However, learning it this night, and how to change indicators, was very informational, and I think it helped a lot. This is something I will use in my own classroom so that students are able to know what they are going to learn.

Lastly, we go our class composition for our outcome plan assignment. 27 students. 2 require enrichment, one of which is diagnoses autistic. 3 students below grade reading levels. 1 student who is FAS. And 1 student who is ADHD. This put into perspective of how real this assignment is going to be. We are going to have classes like this, possibly with even more challenges, and we are going to have to deal with learning how to assess each student properly. I am excited to see where this assignment takes me in my learnings.

Jan. 22nd – ECS 410

Thursday’s class was a lot to take in, so I decided to let my thoughts process over the weekend so I can have coherent thoughts about the content, and the class discussions. There is so much that I want to discuss, so I am going to try and get it all out as coherently as possible. We began with a sheet where we wrote the definition, purpose, examples and non-examples of assessment and evaluation. When I was handed the paper, I felt anxious and wasn’t quite sure if I was going to be able to fill the entire paper in. But after some time and careful thought, I was able to fill in the sheet. I later learned that this was a process of diagnostic assessment used to see where students understanding and knowledge level is at. We were also told that the feelings we felt were feelings that students in our own class will feel when being assessed. I like the idea of diagnostic assessment because it is a way to see where students are at, and it is a way to shape my own lessons to fit the needs of the students. If I were to use diagnostic assessment in my classroom, I would make sure students would know that it is not a ‘test’ and it isn’t for marks. It is for me, as a teacher, to know where they are at.

This connected really well with the middle of class when we were with our major groups. We were to choose an outcome from the Grade 9 English curriculum, and research, or invent diagnostic assessment tools. When researching, one of the really interesting things I realised was that some of the strategies we learned in previous classes are diagnostic assessment tools; they just weren’t given that name. These strategies that I learned were the KWL (know, what to know, and learned) charts, list-group-label charts, anticipation guide, and mind maps. I never thought of them as diagnostic assessment tools because they were never given that name, and I am excited that they can both be used for students’ learning, as well as a diagnostic assessment tool for the teacher.

In connection with the readings of Chapter 1, 2, and 11 from Anne Davies textbook, I really felt her textbook is easy to read, and understandable. This was a relief because I am finding other textbooks to be complex and half the time I do not know what I am reading. Chapter 1 was named “Making Classroom Assessment Work”. This chapter introduces the different between assessment and evaluation, and how important assessment is. I really like the spiral diagram in this chapter that shows how students can get more assessment through self-assessment, peer-feedback, teacher feedback, and if they have access to the internet, feedback from someone they sent it to. The loops show how much the students work is given feedback. I think this was an eye-opener because I always thought that teachers are the main ones giving feedback, and that it is going to take a lot of work. Knowing that this is not the case now, and that students can get more feedback is relieving and, being interested mostly in English, I am going to use these kinds of assessment to give students feedback. This is because English is a lot of writing, and feedback is very important in the writing process.

Chapter 2 was called “Building the Foundation for Classroom Assessment”. Its main focus was building a classroom environment that was supportive of assessment, and students know what they are going to be assessed on. One of the ideas in the text book is a goal setting conference, where teachers sit down with students and their parents to discuss goals that want to be set for the student. I really liked this idea. However, I feel that it may be hard to get parents in for a meeting because either they do not have time, or they do not care. I find it so troubling when parents do not care, and I wonder how this would work for those students who their parents do not want to come in for a conference, and all the other parents do come in. I like the idea of these conferences, but sometimes I think it may be even good to talk with just the students and not their parents because of problems with getting parents to come in.

Chapter 11 was called “Learning by Ourselves and With Others”. Its main focus is that we are not alone when dealing with assessment, and that we can get together with fellow employers to talk about what is going on. You have to find people with the same philosophies on assessment, and work together and discuss different kinds of assessments. I like the idea of finding people to talk to about assessment with people who are like you. I think it is extremely important to have a support system when it comes to teaching. Having people who think the same as you, and are there to help will save you some stress.

Another thing we talked about was the article by Brent Duckor called “Formative Assessment in Seven Good Moves”. It talks about different moves that will help when it comes to assessing students. One that really stood out to me, being a student who is in my pre-internship semester, is the idea of “wait-time”. I am extremely horrible with waiting for students to answer because it becomes awkward waiting. But I know that this time in waiting has benefits, and it is something that I really need to work on. I found an article on a teacher’s blog that talks about the importance of wait-time and how it really does help students to produce better answers. At my table, we talked about the idea of “think-pair-share,” where students think about the questions to themselves, then talk about it to their partner, and then share their answers with the class. I like using this tool because it allows students to have time to think, and to listen to what other classmates have to say.

Lastly, I want to talk about a few things that were brought up during classroom discussions and the questions I have. There were three things that were brought to my attention in class: the different reporting systems in elementary and high schools, if behaviour should be assessed, and the zero debate. When going through school I knew that my elementary and high school classes had different ways of reporting. In elementary it was all about attitude and behaviour being marked with VG (very good), G (good), S (satisfactory), and NS (not satisfactory). But we were still given a percentage for each subject. In high school it was a straight mark for each class, and possibly a one-sentenced comment about how contentious I was in class. Now, it has come to my attention that these marking systems have changed completely. I know in my high school that I graduated from, they are now marking on the 4-point scale, and I have no clue what that is. How do teachers keep up with the changing assessment and evaluation reports?

The question about behaviour and if it should be assessed is a huge debate, and I could argue either way. I understand that the ministry wants to get away from marking on attitude and participation because it will show in their work and the marks that students get on their work. I think I would really like to discuss this more in class because it is such a big topic.

The last one was the zero debate. I remember hearing in my first year of university that teachers were told that they couldn’t give students zeros for assignments. I was outraged. I thought it was ridiculous. In my old high school, they were also allowed to hand anything in after the due-date because they were not allowed to get zeros. Students ended up procrastinating and handing in everything right before finals. This gives so much more stress to the teachers to get things marked and in on time. I understand that life happens, and students may need extra time to get things done, but how does that affect the student who always hands their assignments on time and gets the same mark as the student who hands it in way after the due date. I understand the idea of not giving out zeros, but the idea of a no due date makes me mad. However, this may have changed now because this was a few years ago. The zero debate came up because of the teacher who was fired because he gave students zeros. This is something that I am really excited to discuss in class to see everyone’s ideas and opinions on the case!

Jan. 15th ECS 410

I was beyond excited that we finally are given the chance to learn about assessment and evaluation instead of being just expected to know it when making lesson or unit plans. Even though we have gotten chances to come up with assessment and evaluation for classes, we were never given guidance on how to do it. We went in blind. So I am happy we finally get to learn about it, just in time for our pre-internship block, so that it is fresh in our minds.

Class first started with our professor, Tracy Houk, saying, “Good evening everyone!” And many people didn’t answer. She then discussed how she wants everyone to answer when she says it, and went on again to say, “Good evening everyone!” to which everyone replied. The point to this mini-lesson was that you have to give clear and concise instructions to get what you want. This can be connected with assessment and evaluation, having to communicate clearly about what you want from your students. It was a quick example, but, to me, it will have a lasting impression.

I am relieved that the work load is manageable in this class. Many of my other classes have a heavy work load, and I feel overwhelmed. I was worried about this class, being that it was my 5^th and last class to start, and because I felt overwhelmed with the first 4 classes. However, the work load is perfect, and I am no longer worried, but more excited about the class assignments, and what I will learn in the class.

Talking about the positive and negative assessments we have faced in our high school experience was an eye-opener because many classmates had no problem coming up with bad experiences, and struggled to come up with positive experiences. This shows that we have to take the negative experiences, learn from them, and to never use them in our own classrooms. We have to start creating the positive assessment experiences in schools.

The main thing I learned in the first class was the difference between assessment for learning, assessment as learning, and assessment of learning. Assessment for learning is to improve student learning through formative assessment or giving assessment along the way. Assessment as learning is more about peer and self-assessment, formative feedback from peers and self. Assessment of learning is the test or evaluation. It is to show that the students have met the goals and outcomes, and it is usually the mark on the report card. I have never heard of these, but now that I do know them, they show the different kinds of assessments, and how they can be used in my own classroom.