I have to admit, this blogging thing has been a bit of a challenge for me so far this semester, but in a good way. I believe the resources we have worked through are very challenging to the "traditional" model of teaching. While this doesn't come as a surprise to me (anyone that teaches almost 10 years sees plenty of educational practices and theories come-and-go along the way) I do find it interesting to read about how the new philosophies use the student, teacher, and information pieces around each other. The Chris Lehmann resource tackles a lot of things that I feel like I do still hear in the classroom today. "The purpose of school is this idea of a 21st Century workforce." He states that we need to be focusing on making the citizens we need in society. I know I discuss with my students the importance of learning and knowing a "skill". Something that they can do that few others can do in the workforce. I was also interested in his comments about formative and summative assessments. He states, " I think we overemphasize assessment, certainly summative assessment…I don’t think it’s possible to overemphasize formative assessment." This year I participated in a grading seminar for my county. Many teachers representing all different grade levels were there. A majority of our discussion revolved around this very topic, the balance between formative and summative assessments and what ratio is an accurate representation of what a student knows. I honestly was surprised to hear his comment on this. A lot of teachers I was around at this grading seminar were okay with summative assessments being the main factor in a student's grade. They felt these "culminating activities" should be the things to show just how much the student has learned. They felt the "formative assessments" should not carry as much weight because that is the student's time to learn and practice the new skill or knowledge being presented to them. They should not be penalized for being in the "learning" phase of the lesson. Maybe I'm not totally understanding the context within this comment? Maybe the conversations about engagement in classrooms and how to actually assign grades are still separate things at this point? I'm not sure. I just thought this was particularly interesting.
I think there is a very clear connection between inquiry learning, instructional technology, and great teaching. As "Great Teaching Means Letting Go" discusses, inquiry learning is about a teacher being comfortable with a teaching strategy that is radically different than what most of us have been taught and is different than the model most of us have seen throughout the entirety of our educational experiences. "It’s counter-intuitive to say: please teach less and help less, in order that performance might become more successful over time. Our instincts as teachers cause us to over-help rather than under-help." Instructional technology is the means by which a teacher can accomplish inquiry learning strategies through high-quality experiences for students. Through the use of the latest technology trends, a teacher can build engaging lessons for students that incorporate scaffolding, differentiation, and inquiry learning. These lessons then have much greater meaning and impact on students making the learning experience much more likely to stay with them. They are more likely to be able to process the information from just "recalling facts" to actually being able to synthesize and apply this knowledge. Suddenly, you have exactly the experience being described in this article, student transfer of knowledge.
I'll close with something I always try to share with my students. When working on a difficult problem or process, I always encourage them to look at each other for help and guidance first. Sometimes, this makes them very annoyed with me! But I tell them this, "One way you know you understand a concept is if you can teach it to someone else. You don't really need me." The greatest days in my classroom are when I see my students engaged with each other and almost forget that I am even in the room!
I also thought Lehmann's comments about assessment were spot-on. We often assess what's easy to assess, not what is the most important thing to assess.
ReplyDeleteAt GHC, we assess doggone near everything! But it's usually based on something easy to quantify, when we need to be assessing something that will take time to figure out. For example, I'm working on a project with a faculty member where we need to compare how students who completed a library assignment did on finding sources for a final paper versus those who did not do the library assignment (or did badly). We could look at the grade the students made on that paper, but that doesn't reflect the sources specifically. So, despite the much longer time, we've created a rubric to evaluate the paper's SOURCES, and will compare that separate meta-grade to the library assignment. Rather than a simple spreadsheet comparison, it will take a lot of time and effort. And I wonder if anyone (in administration) would have really cared if we'd just used the final paper grade? But we care, so that's what we're doing!
I do think time is something that pushes teachers to take "easy" grades. I know of some school districts that require a certain number of formative/summative grades per week! In that case, is the grade really reflective of anything the students has actually shown a knowledge or growth in? When I think about grading, I think that's the perfect example of changing the "old style" way of thinking about education. Parents are used to seeing a certain number of "daily" grades and "test" grades per 9-weeks or per semester. They are used to the 100 point scale were 70 is passing, etc. Is there a better way to communicate to parents exactly where their child/student stands on a particular class standard? And in order to do that, all stakeholders must be educated on how the new grading procedure will work. It must be a total team buy in.
ReplyDeleteThe topic of grading can draw a lot of passionate responses from educators! I'm like you, I'm going to grade in a manner that I feel like best helps my students!
I like reading your thoughts on this topic. Being at a STEM school my mindset tends to align with the author's. I am going to answer strictly from my point of view only to offer clarification to the reading... certainly not to discredit any stance you may have :)! This is always a topic visited often among our faculty. We look at it as this: what is our purpose and the desired outcome for a student? We always agree that lifelong, applicable mastery is our goal for each student, and our purpose is to get them there. If we mainly, or only, look at a summative assessment to communicate mastery... that outcome is based on one shot, in one moment. Considering all of the variables and factors that can affect the outcome of that one test (absences, home issues, hunger, abuse, argument with a friend, illness...), how reliable is the score that will label that students mastery? If they fail, should a tutorial and retest be given? If mastery is the goal, then that may be an option to consider if there is heavy reliance on summatives. Formatives measure growth. They allow a teacher, the student, and parents to measure progress and growth toward mastery. Also, the consideration should be made that category weights are able to be applied to each grading specification, such as classwork or homework. Formatives have such a plethora of implementations that it makes it easy to gauge and measure where a student falls on the mastery spectrum. Some teachers even take the formative grades and average them into the summative grade for a truer measurement on mastery outcome. I have had many kids fail a summative that knew the material... factors crept in and gave them a grade that didn't match their knowledge and application. Heck, I have had students fail on purpose due to peer pressures. I hope this somewhat brought some clarification to why the author considers formative assessment more reliable. Thanks again for your post!
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