[Math]odology Monthly Message |
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Upcoming
Professional Development Opportunities
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Engineering the Perfect Kindergarten Classroom |
(session descriptions are listed below) |
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A New Year and a
New Look At Assessment
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New Year Greetings to you all, and we hope you had a blessed and rejuvenating holiday break.
For much of the twentieth century, the method of assessing a student’s knowledge and their performance with that knowledge was via tests and quizzes. For the student, their success or failure of an assessment was communicated through red pencil notations, a score in the top right corner, with perhaps a smiley or frowning face drawn next to the score.
The student typically reacted in one of three ways, happily gloating for high marks, shamefully hiding the paper for dismal failures, or reflecting complete indifference for middle of the road scores. Neither the instructor’s scoring nor the student’s reactions achieved any measure of improvement. And the protocol called for “full steam ahead to the next chapter so I can get through the book.”
Last month we discussed Math Fact Fluency and the ineffectiveness of rote memorization. Why ineffective? Because without understanding the applications of the answer what good is it to the student. “Correct or incorrect” assessing models are ineffective for the same reason. For the student, what means is there to understand why they failed? And for the teacher, what data is there to really know a student’s level of functional comprehension?
Please join us on January 27th for our Workshop Wednesday meeting. I will be hosting three educators who will discuss their evolving philosophy regarding assessing and its impact on their students.
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Learn with Passion!
Sarah
At [Math]odology, we inspire and nurture creative forces within each of us: one teacher, one student, one school at a time.
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[Math]odology MONTHLY MESSAGE
VOL. 5
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Reflecting on My Assessment Practice |
Perhaps your career started differently than mine? I recall hearing chatter regarding formative and summative assessments, and thinking “I have no clue what that is.” I just thought you taught the chapter, possibly gave a few quizzes throughout, capped it off with a chapter test, and then moved on. In retrospect, my perception of assessment radically changed because of my encounters with three experts in the field.
Influencer #1- Dr. Yeap Ban Har
Director of Curriculum & Teacher Development- Pathlight School, Singapore
Academic Director for Singapore & Anglo Singapore International School, Thailand
2012-While visiting Singapore, in addition to observing classrooms, I had the chance to see Dr. Yeap teach a course to teachers. It was at this time, Ban Har introduced me to the importance of reflecting on the learning experience by incorporating journals into my classroom. John Dewey, the great educational reformer, taught that we do not learn from experience…we learn from reflecting on experience. In our September 2020, blog series we took a deeper look at what this process entails. In 2012, the use of a journal became one of the most important tools for assessment in my classroom. Not for evaluation purposes, because I did not grade them, rather for the directional insights they provided. The journal became a place where students and their teacher interacted and communicated mathematics in a non-threatening way. We questioned each other, shared our own opinions, and experimented with new methods. Not only did I know and understand each student more thoroughly, but the environment in my classroom changed. Our classroom culture saw learning as a shared experience where the teacher’s role was to facilitate and guide the conversation.
Influencer #2- Dr. Eric Mazur
Professor of Physics and Applied Physics-Harvard University
2015-I was in South Florida for my son’s soccer tournament and decided to jump on a treadmill before we headed to the fields. To help numb the boredom of 60 minutes staring into space, I searched YouTube for something to speak to me. And there it was...“Assessment, The Silent Killer of Learning.” Those 60 minutes changed my life and I felt INSPIRED to make a change. Maya Angelou’s words, “When you know better do better” echoed in my heart and emboldened me to alter my course. I was ready to look at a more collaborative approach to assessing and learning through peer instruction. After a visit to observe Dr. Mazur in action at Harvard, and reading his book, Peer Instruction I was ready to launch. I revamped my classroom to include vertical whiteboard space, created tasks to be solved in collaborative manners, and allowed students to take both individual and group assessments. Yes, group assessments. I recall Dr. Mazur’s remark and I paraphrase it below:
There are few if any times in a person’s life when they are not allowed to ask a question or look up an answer. When we assess students by putting them in isolated areas and not allowing them to talk to a single person, we are not setting them up for life. We need to create tasks that require them to work together and know-how and when to question another classmate. This is when deep learning occurs.
So, I fully embraced group assessments, tweaking them as needed to make it work at the high school, middle school, and elementary levels. This change was a watershed moment for my perspective regarding assessments.
Influencer #3-Dr. Richard DuFour
Teacher, Principal, and Superintendent
In working with Dr. Yeap Ban Har, I noted he incorporated Richard DuFour’s 4 critical questions into his training sessions. Richard DuFour was an American educational researcher noted for developing strategies to create collaborative teaching environments in K–12 schools. In 2016, I finally had the opportunity to attend one of his Solution Tree Training sessions in Jacksonville, FL. After his heartfelt keynote session, where he shared his battle with cancer, I approached him and asked if we could share a cup of coffee so I could pick his brain regarding assessment and his 4 critical questions. Much to my surprise, he invited me to lunch with him and his wife Becky. During lunch I focused on the 2nd critical question, How will we know students have learned it? What would he advise that would further my quest to be proficient at assessing and to better meet the needs of my students?
He suggested I read Transformative Assessment by W. James Popham, as it would give me a very practical way to understand and use formative assessment. He was absolutely right! The book gave me all I needed to answer the question; what is formative assessment and how do I implement it in my classroom?
I share these stories to inspire you as you begin this new year 2021! As these three gentlemen have left an impact on me and how I view assessment, I hope to inspire you to further explore assessing. By means of the various training sessions we offer and through guest speakers and bloggers, I want to challenge you as others have done for me. Please join us for “Workshop Wednesday” this month; we will hear from three educators that embraced these changes and are confident they are assessing like never before!
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OUR JANUARY 27 TH WORKSHOP |
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Amy Bilek,
K-8 Math Instructional Coach, provides:
4-Tips for Assessing
in SeeSaw
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Melissa Williams,
Kindergarten teacher at the Westminster School shares:
Top 5 Ways for Collecting Data During Formative Assessments
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MJ Kinard, .
Grade 4 teacher at Suwannee Elementary School addresses:
3 Ways to Make Grading More Enjoyable
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Attention Parents
Although there will be no [Math]odology Monday this month, we encourage the parents to visit the our website to view some of our favorite videos, including this month's showcase video on assessing student's performance.
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Engineering the Perfect Kindergarten Classroom |
We’ll put the finishing touches to your plan on January 12th when we tackle the idea of setting foundations for addition and subtraction, offering a conceptual understanding of what the symbols represent, and how we start building fluency within those operations.
DATE/TIME:
Tuesday, January 12th
7:00 PM TO 9:00 PM EASTERN TIME
This is the fourth in a series, prior registration required
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Teachers are invited to a forum discussion focusing on the assessment process. More specifically, what should we be assessing and how to best collect and interpret the data? Join noted author and mathematician, Sarah Schaefer, and her special guest experts for our Workshop Wednesday.
DATE/TIME:
Wednesday, January 27th
7:00 PM - 8:00 PM EASTERN TIME
WORKSHOP LINK:
Click the link below to register, and you will be sent the link for the workshop.
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1122 3rd Street, Suite 7
Neptune Beach, Florida 32266
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