Classroom Compass |
Defining Our Goals |
Betty Culver never felt comfortable with traditional report cards for her students. In fact, she was not satisfied with any form of impersonal reporting. Describing the complexity of the children's learning throughout the year was difficult. Even parent conferences, which did provide face-to-face explanations of the students' achievements, could not adequately describe their growth and development. How could one gather all the details from the past six weeks and communicate them in one short session to a listening parent? Betty's solution was to capture on-going classroom work and teacher-student interviews on video. She showed clips to the parents as an introduction to their conference discussion. The videos helped her effectively communicate student progress and analyze her own instruction. Assessment became a tool of learning, not a weapon of control.
Defining Our Goals
What should instruction accomplish? Should students be memorizing
multiplication facts or solving problems? Or both? Should they be
conducting inquiries or studying codified scientific understanding? Or
both? The answers to such questions should be the basis for assessment
strategies. When expectations for a core of knowledge, skills, and
practices are defined, teachers and students can identify what is
required for success. Rigorous standards, which articulate expectations
or benchmarks for students at various grade levels, can provide a
foundation for teachers, schools, and communities to build an assessment structure. Assessment results can be guideposts that help both
teacher and student identify what has been learned and what areas need
further work. They can be used as part of a cycle that includes
instruction and assessment, then evaluation and redesign of instruction.
Such assessments are an integral part of the teaching day, not a report
that appears every six weeks. As much a reflection of the instruction's
success as of the student's progress, assessment can help teachers
redirect their efforts to match students' strengths or weaknesses.
Assessment should also help students think about their own learning.
Fitting Assessment with Instruction
To be sure assessment supports learning, match it with classroom
experience. While textbook-based tests measure what the textbook has
presented, they will not provide information about students'
contributions to a lively class discussion. If students spend their time
working in groups, they should be assessed in a similar setting. Observe
them as they interact, using criteria that define your expectations for
success and be sure they know your expectations before assessment
occurs. If they use calculators to solve problems, give them the same
tools to complete their assessment. If the goal of instruction is to
assist all students in developing their understanding of mathematics and
science, use assessment to help them expand their understanding. While a
single assessment indicates understanding at a particular moment, a
collection of student work and the teacher's perceptions provides a
reflection of the fluid, dynamic nature of learning. Assessment that
occurs as teachers listen, observe, interact, and reflect provides a
picture of student development over time.
Tools for Record-Keeping
Each day students provide evidence of their understanding in many
ways - through explanations, discussions, projects, and questions.
This evidence of student learning can be lost if there is no conscious
effort to keep track. Traditional report card grades and
paper-and-pencil tests reflect only a part of the classroom experience;
teachers need a variety of record-keeping and reporting strategies to
capture other evidence of growth in understanding. These can include
videos as well as checklists, rubrics, student portfolios, and project
evaluations - tools that can convey the complexity of student
learning. Teachers are researchers in their classrooms. They are engaged
in observing students who are engaged in learning. Walking around the
classroom with a clipboard and an observation sheet can be an effective
way to keep track of student progress. Some teachers have found that
personal digital assistants (PDAs) are invaluable portable aids to data
collection. These hand-held electronic record-keepers can be programmed
with learner profiles and defined characteristics the teacher will be
looking for. The information can later be downloaded to a computer.
Another tool - the camera - can be used to take photographs that
record activities and projects providing excellent reminders of events,
student participation, and products.
Putting Numbers on Performance
Single-answer questions are easy to score. Part of the power of
standardized, single-answer tests is the solid, quantifiable numbers
they produce. But how does a teacher quantify an open-ended class
discussion? What can be reported about the processes used in a science
investigation? Teachers need ways to organize and report what occurs in
the classroom. One way to do this is through the use of rubrics. Rubrics
are scoring guides that assign numerical values to achievement outcomes.
Many rubrics include examples that illustrate and differentiate between
the different categories. For instance, one of the
rubrics below addresses observation - an essential
skill in scientific investigation. The example provides a continuum of
designations of observational skill: Novice ("Sees only obvious
things"), Proficient ("Can quantify observations"), or Advanced ("Uses
patterns and relationships to focus further observations"). Content
knowledge is categorized in a similar way in the Food for Animals
rubric.
Getting Others' Views
Even with the aid of good instruments and tools, a teacher may want to
involve others in the assessment process. Expanding the audience for
student performance helps guard against personal biases and adds the
value of additional perceptions to the assessment process. A team of
teachers can cooperatively grade a collection of portfolios or projects.
Groups of teachers who regularly discuss assessment practices and issues
will uncover alternative views of students' achievements. Teams from
within the school or the community can examine collections of students'
work or be the audience for student presentations. Students can
contribute by suggesting evaluation criteria and voicing their views of
what constitutes acceptable and quality work. Assessment is an essential
part of the teaching process; some say it actually drives instruction.
If this is true, then introducing alternative ways of assessing students
will result in different ways of teaching. Instruction that helps
students perform confidently on a performance test is very different
from instruction that prepares students for a paper-and-pencil test. The
resultant learning will reflect those differences.
FOOD FOR ANIMALS
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