Assessment...What do you think?
BVP broke down Assessment during the last two weeks.
What are your take aways?
What do you think about his thoughts about grades and grading?
What are the customs at your site regarding TESTS and ASSESSMENTS?
What are your take aways?
What do you think about his thoughts about grades and grading?
What are the customs at your site regarding TESTS and ASSESSMENTS?
I don't want to give the episodes away, but the thing that stood out to me most is 1) I love his thoughts on assessment and tests, 2) I agree 100% with his thoughts on grading (today's episode) and 3) he outlined EXACTLY my policy on participation...except that mine is 5 points, not 3, just because it matches all of our other rubrics that way. I hope you enjoy!
ReplyDeleteI thought the podcast on assessments was thought provoking. It was interesting to hear the difference between assessments and tests. An assessment is where teachers determine student knowledge and progress where as tests are basically used to assign grades. The gentleman from the podcast also mentioned that assessment is measuring an outcome in order to determine success of a plan. Unfortunately, testing and grades seem to drive curriculum because teachers need to somehow measure and rank their students. The podcast also advised that assessments are used to determine if the curriculum is meeting the goals and it is not referred to the assignment of grades. As a teacher, I know I need to improve in assessments because it is important for several reasons. First, assessments (diagnostic, formative, or summative) help guide my instruction. Second, it holds the students accountable to learning and acquiring another language. Third, I want my students to feel some sort of success as they preserver toward proficiency in another language.
ReplyDeleteMy name is Preston Hill and I responded to the Assessment podcast on 01/23/2020 at 3:38 p.m. Thank you for reading.
DeleteI told my students that if I ever have a term where everyone gives me their 100% best...which for some would result in a C, and for others their 75% effort gets them an A...but if everyone gave me their all, I would gift them all As.
DeleteTo me, that seems like the most fair system we could have. THOUGHTS?
Loved this podcast! In addition to what Preston already outline about assessment vs tests, the idea that seems to resurface the most in my thoughts is participation. I moved away from participation grades years ago, when I realized my traditional way of assigning the grade (how often a student raises his/her hand to offer an answer) had nothing to do with learning nor acquisition. In place of participation, I implemented a speaking grade. My rubric (and consequently, grade) is based solely on how often the student takes the risk to speak to me in Spanish. It doesn't take into account vocab, grammar or fluency as everyone will begin with single words and then chunks (and I cannot compare novice lows with my dual immersion students from Valley - that isn't fair nor reflective of natural language acquisition.) It doesn't matter to me at the middle school level where the student is with proficiency (novice low, novice mid, intermediate high etc) as long as he/she takes the risk to speak.
ReplyDeleteHowever, what caught my attention (and of course, makes perfect sense!) is BVP's discussion on how listening reflects participation and thus acquisition. I need to go back and listen to that portion of the podcast again.....Carolyn, I would love to see a copy of your 5pt rubric if you are up for sharing it.
And, last but not least, I found Raina's call very intersting as it really focused on what so many teachers ask: "but I have students in 3rd and 4th year who are speaking the language despite a traditional curriculum, so why change?" The other part to BVP's response that I would add is those students who already are bilingual and consistently speak another language at home acquire Spanish so much faster and with much more fluency. Their brain is already wired to acquire.
(Susan Manly)
I'll gladly share! I'll post it in the classroom. To clarify, as a class, we created it together in my first period, edited with the next group and came to an agreement as to what "participation" meant. At the AP level, it included 1) not speaking English 2) offering answers 3) contributing to small group Think-pair-share type things and 4) being "present"... not as in attendance, but like those kids that don't volunteer to answer, but they are always with you. They get your jokes, they nod, blah blah...you know they are "with you". I'll post asap!
DeleteI'm wondering what people thought about the idea of front-loading through at-home on-line activities so that students are prepared with chunks of language to help them comprehend the communicative interactions in class. It makes sense and seems like a great idea, but he made it seem like it would be so simple to design, and that's the part that tripped me up. Bill says, essentially, "just build some activities on-line to help students get familiar with whatever concepts you're going to address communicatively in class (i.e., his example was sleep patterns and routines); just create a series of 8-10 items with 5 activities and the course management system will automatically grade it." He makes it seem like an easy things to design and implement. I'm wondering if anyone else is able to visualize this and how to actually do it, because it isn't readily apparent to me.
ReplyDeleteSo, in the times that I've seen Bill or his students present, this basically looks like how we would think of a flipped classroom. You might assign a video that explains the structures that they need to know, or even create one yourself. It is USUALLY Comprehensible Input, and not an authentic resource. I'll dig for one that I've used in the past, but I recall using one that focused on cuyo and all it's gender and plural amigos. So, the kids did an activity that USED cuyo/a/os/as where they were attending to meaning, such as:
DeleteEl estudiante cuyo hermano es super guapo es...
La estudiante cuya beca le facilita asistir a la Laguna Negra es...
La profe cuyos estudiantes son muy jovenes...
(this was in regard to el Internado, our Friday show)
They then had to complete a Co-construction of grammar in just a few sentences. That way, they have some previous exposure to the structure, and you can refer back to examples.
I don't use My Connect, but you could easily do this in Google forms, by assigning a Quizziz for homework, or in Kahoot, where they complete them as homework, and you can assess their understanding.