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.