I absolutely agree with Grant Wiggins’ responses in the interview. My feelings about assessments match very closely with Mr. Wiggins. Testing, like Regents exams, while they have gotten better in the area of social studies, is really only a small piece of the overall puzzle of what a student knows and what a student can do. I do see that analyzing documents and and then being able to pull those documents together into a cohesive written explanation of what they show, does assess whether a student is capable of several key skills: reading, thinking, comparing and contrasting, making inferences, stating a claim and find evidence to support the claim, using outside knowledge to add to the synthesis that is taking place. These are all key skills to have and being able to assess how well a student does these things is important. But, it is not the end all in terms of evaluating students and I think Mr. Wiggins agrees with that. I also agree with him that finding alternative ways to assess students is very time consuming and expensive on the state and federal level, but on a district level, it is very manageable. I know this because we use alternative assessments at Ready. Students complete an exhibition every marking period. They write a learning plan at the beginning of the marking period which identifies what they are interested in learning about. They develop the plan for what their exhibition will look like. They must have a product, a presentation, as well as make connections to real world experiences. Exhibitions then happen at the end of the marking period where each student presents their interest based project to an audience. The audience asks questions and then gives feedback. There is a post-exhibition reflection. It is time consuming, but if you feel that it is important, then you make the time and as someone who has seen students progress with their exhibitions, I do believe that alternative assessments as well as testing can live together. It isn’t easy and again, I think Mr. Wiggins said that in his interview. But it definitely is beneficial for teachers and students.
I have talked about his take on combining tests and alternative assessments. I would also like to touch on the third question in his interview: assessing students prior to planning lessons. In a perfect school, this would always happen. Assess skills, vocabulary, content knowledge and then using those specific assessments to then build your lesson. I can say that I do build mini-lessons to meet specific needs of students and those are often tied to skills. An example would be the skill of reading and for evidence that can support a claim. Or another mini-lesson would be organizing the evidence so the writing piece is connected and flows well. Something I discovered this past year was that many of my students could not read graphs and charts. What I assumed to be one of the easier aspects of the the Regents exams was actually really hard for them because they couldn’t answer the content questions and they couldn’t use the graphs and charts in the CRQs or the essays because they couldn’t get information from them. Over several class periods, we buckled down and worked on graphs and charts. Not always related to global history, but just any graphs and charts so that students learned how to read them and then use that information. We progressed to students creating their own graphs and charts for data. This is an example of assessing and then building lessons based on the results of the assessments. It was very effective because it really addressed a need and then students felt more confident afterwards. So, Mr. Wiggins is correct that this is a truly effective way to build lessons, but again, it is very time consuming. And if I can be honest here, I never feel like I have enough time to cover the curriculum that is required from the state.
I have already talked about interest based projects and exhibitions that are used at Ready to both help students uncover areas of interest and passion as well as help me assess the skills and progress that students are making. There is always a technology component as students use their iPads to create the presentation that they present. The technology is important, but I do not want it to be everything. We are pushing students to meet with experts in their field of interest in order to learn through observation and interviewing rather than having students research on the internet. We are also pushing students to do some type of teaching within their exhibition so as they share their knowledge in their area of interest, they are becoming the expert in the classroom and then they are actively sharing that knowledge with other students and adults. A student’s interest in culinary, specifically baking. The interest based project is about cake baking-different methods, testing scratch vs. box, etc. The student also has a desire to run their own cake baking business. An interview with the owner of a locally owned bakery takes place. There could also be an interview with the organization that runs the large bridal show at the Convention Center downtown in order to learn more about how different bakeries are able to participate in that event. Research is also done about what schooling beyond BOCES is necessary for this career to happen. Did the owner of the bakery also study business? There could be some research about small business grants as well as how small businesses are able to get loans to start the business. During the exhibition, the student who is presenting can show several items that have been made as well as a cake decorating demonstration, allowing several students in the audience to try it out. Back to the concern of being time consuming, it is of course time consuming. But it is also a real life experience and real life skills.
At Ready, there is some flexibility to do this that does not currently exist at the high school. I would want to have my mentee come over to Ready for a couple of observations as well as attending an exhibition. Not because I think the mentee could replicate this in his/her classes, but because it would be a way to introduce the concept of assessments being so much more than just tests and quizzes.
Again, I think the resources were good because it is great to have these refreshers. Reading, thinking critically, and discussing the craft of teaching. Both were great because they challenge the veteran teacher to really think about what we do in the classroom and why.
I have talked about his take on combining tests and alternative assessments. I would also like to touch on the third question in his interview: assessing students prior to planning lessons. In a perfect school, this would always happen. Assess skills, vocabulary, content knowledge and then using those specific assessments to then build your lesson. I can say that I do build mini-lessons to meet specific needs of students and those are often tied to skills. An example would be the skill of reading and for evidence that can support a claim. Or another mini-lesson would be organizing the evidence so the writing piece is connected and flows well. Something I discovered this past year was that many of my students could not read graphs and charts. What I assumed to be one of the easier aspects of the the Regents exams was actually really hard for them because they couldn’t answer the content questions and they couldn’t use the graphs and charts in the CRQs or the essays because they couldn’t get information from them. Over several class periods, we buckled down and worked on graphs and charts. Not always related to global history, but just any graphs and charts so that students learned how to read them and then use that information. We progressed to students creating their own graphs and charts for data. This is an example of assessing and then building lessons based on the results of the assessments. It was very effective because it really addressed a need and then students felt more confident afterwards. So, Mr. Wiggins is correct that this is a truly effective way to build lessons, but again, it is very time consuming. And if I can be honest here, I never feel like I have enough time to cover the curriculum that is required from the state.
I have already talked about interest based projects and exhibitions that are used at Ready to both help students uncover areas of interest and passion as well as help me assess the skills and progress that students are making. There is always a technology component as students use their iPads to create the presentation that they present. The technology is important, but I do not want it to be everything. We are pushing students to meet with experts in their field of interest in order to learn through observation and interviewing rather than having students research on the internet. We are also pushing students to do some type of teaching within their exhibition so as they share their knowledge in their area of interest, they are becoming the expert in the classroom and then they are actively sharing that knowledge with other students and adults. A student’s interest in culinary, specifically baking. The interest based project is about cake baking-different methods, testing scratch vs. box, etc. The student also has a desire to run their own cake baking business. An interview with the owner of a locally owned bakery takes place. There could also be an interview with the organization that runs the large bridal show at the Convention Center downtown in order to learn more about how different bakeries are able to participate in that event. Research is also done about what schooling beyond BOCES is necessary for this career to happen. Did the owner of the bakery also study business? There could be some research about small business grants as well as how small businesses are able to get loans to start the business. During the exhibition, the student who is presenting can show several items that have been made as well as a cake decorating demonstration, allowing several students in the audience to try it out. Back to the concern of being time consuming, it is of course time consuming. But it is also a real life experience and real life skills.
At Ready, there is some flexibility to do this that does not currently exist at the high school. I would want to have my mentee come over to Ready for a couple of observations as well as attending an exhibition. Not because I think the mentee could replicate this in his/her classes, but because it would be a way to introduce the concept of assessments being so much more than just tests and quizzes.
Again, I think the resources were good because it is great to have these refreshers. Reading, thinking critically, and discussing the craft of teaching. Both were great because they challenge the veteran teacher to really think about what we do in the classroom and why.