I know many of you have been waiting for this next installment with bated breath, laying awake at night wondering 'how will Peter react to the next chapters in his PED3141 textbook?'. Well, worry no more my friends, here are some of the things I reacted to and some of my own related experiences.
Chapter 3: I found this chapter, (like the previous) to be fairly enjoyable and informative. The focus was on implementing the backwards planning model and some of the ways in which essential questions, skills and understanding can be enhanced by that planning process. Right from the beginning, I completely agreed with the idea that any serious planning for a new curriculum or lesson needs to include people OUTSIDE that field of expertise. This allows for honest critiques, a fresh perspective, and also the identification of what really is essential knowledge, and not a teachers favorite subject or lesson, which probably gets included every year despite its lack of relevance. I found this bias was something I've been guilty of in the past, as I have selected and leaned towards projects and lessons based upon how easily and comfortably I could teach them, and how often they succeeded. I see now how short sighted that was, and how continuing to include them robbed my students of richer experiences I should have attempted. I definitely think a lot of areas in academia are too insulated and never allow outsiders to challenge the validity of their common beliefs. This was followed by the concept of INTU's, aka: things I Need To Understand, which reworks the more common themes or topics we normally work with in lessons. This definitely changes the traditional model of assigning topics and students just amassing information on them, which now can be done rather easily and superficially on google or wikipedia. If we have students identify their own INTU's, and base their research on that, they will naturally focus on essential questions and knowledge, rather than adding the first bits of information they find. I have definitely been on both spectrum's of that example, and I can see the inherent merit of adopting this system. Throughout my University career, especially in history, I often approached large papers with the objective "What does my Prof. want to read?" and worked from there. Which is a kind of backwards design, but not in a good way. It allowed me to crank out papers as quickly as possible and just adding the minimum amount of information, while making my papers seem thought provoking and insightful. That probably saved me in a lot of ways, because those papers were always done at 3 am the day they were due. I also used the idea of INTU's before exams throughout high school, and having not really studied, I would ask my friends right before, what information I really needed. This helped me perform rather well, since I completely skipped any rote memorization of facts, dates, etc., and I was able to relate the key essential knowledge points effectively. Conversely my friends who had studied for many long grueling hours, would always score lower than me, since they were bogged down by useless information they couldn't effectively apply. I guess that's another bad example of INTU's being subverted, but I'm glad they helped in get here ;) Hand in hand with the INTU's are the clear indications of what are essential questions, skills and enduring understanding, and how assessment design can strengthen those key areas. The enduring understanding emphasis is something I've benefited from, and I had a wonderful grade 11 chemistry teacher who helped impart real world examples to engage my interest. By illustrating simple applications of chemistry, checking shampoo labels and food nutrient breakdowns, she actually lit a spark within me that connected the boring, dry classroom material with these that actually matter to me. I know a lot of my day to day purchases ever since then have been influenced by that one lesson, which is quite a memorable experience for me. If I can focus my own assessment based planning to incorporate effective situations that model these ideas, I'm sure my own students will be carrying elements of enduring understanding with them into the foreseeable future. Moving along, I was a little surprised by Cooper's attack on the simplified view of problem solving in most assessment rubrics and how shallow those expectations are. I can see by his examples that we really don't try to engage students to problem solve on a deeper level, and even less so, to demonstrate that skill in a quantifiable way. I definitely think a really good way to integrate problem solving assessment would be to tie it into the inquiry based learning we've been talking about in PED3121. If students are driving the lessons, making their own questions and influencing the curriculum and lessons, they are almost by default engaging in problem solving, as they navigate what they feel is important to learn. That would definitely be a measurable metric that would tie into the ideas in Chapter 4. One last thought on Chapter 3 was that I was definitely not liking all the talk about rubrics, creating new one's, modifying or challenging existing one's, etc etc. I'm really more worried about the planning, assessment and technical aspects of teaching than I am about creative lesson ideas, implementing my ideas in class and being in front of students. There is a lot of information, and the amount of content being thrown at us from Ministry books is daunting. So Cooper's emphasis on reinventing rubrics is not all that appetizing at the moment. But I definitely have to admit, what he is saying makes sense, and that students need to be evaluated in an effective manner that targets the goals we've set in the backwards design. Chapter 4: For me, Chapter 4 had a few areas which really interested me, and more areas where I simply nodded my head and thought "yeah this makes sense". So I'll focus on some of the areas which piqued my interest. First was the development of the one sided method in which most assessment occurs, namely based on solely writing input based criteria; tests, papers, reports, exams, etc. I know that many school boards and methods of education focus WAY to heavily on memorization and standardized testing. My time in Korea and Japan were probably the most EXTREME examples of that (it's literally all they do, all day, all the time), which caused me to appreciate the Ontario school system. Now that I think about it, we do have a lot more opportunities for student involvement, creative projects and cross discipline lessons, however we usually end all of those with some kind of written marking scheme. Marks for performance and oral portions are usually severely limited in comparison to the handed in work. I've personally been against the heavily weighted exam systems or final papers of post secondary institutions, but I didn't realize how much of a change we could initiate in the lower school levels. I found Cooper's reference to the driving examination kind of amusing. Yes it does support his point of needing multiple kinds of assessment, including performance of knowledge, like driving, but the written multiple choice portion is probably one of the worst examples of enduring understanding or essential learning :p I mean, who has ever retained demerit point information from that test? I also liked the example of Leanne's approach on page 52, since that tied directly into our class today in PED3121, where we were tasked with creating a usable and effective assessment rubric for one math category. Reading Leanne's rubric helped put my own into better perspective and I have a better grasp of why specific, fully flushed out rubrics are key to both teaching and assessment, instead of academic jargon based one's sent out by the Ministry of Education. The last point I'd like to touch upon, and probably the most interesting to me from this chapter, was the various ways to approach late and incomplete work. Removing the rigid, binding timelines and due dates seems like a somewhat risky move, especially speaking as someone who was delinquent and lax on all my assignments at all levels of schooling. I don't think I would have benefited from extended or looser time frames, as I constantly took every possible moment to procrastinate and would still have been late regardless. I do recognize that the check ups and timelines might assist many students, but I believe those are already in practice quite a bit. I always had timelines for brainstorming, rough drafts, first drafts and then final copies. Ultimately though, since none of those steps were really being graded, the outcome of being late at the end rarely changed. I think maybe an incentive based approach might have helped a student like myself. What I was thinking was having those other processes in place, timelines, process check, etc., but then in addition to having the final due date, add a stipulation that students who complete their assignments in a reasonable time around that due date, will have feedback from the teacher on the finished work, and if they want, a final chance to make some adjustments. This kind of retains the notion of being on time and time management skills, but also adds one more layer to the developmental process, while not outright saying it. Maybe it's all the same thing, but I thought perhaps if approached in the right away, it might entice both high performing students to further develop their assessment for learning, while allowing the students who are under performing or struggling a means to help themselves. The completion contract was also a novel idea, since it brings more responsibility and understanding to the student, and hopefully with that ownership, more drive to complete their assignments. Well once again, there was quite a bit going on in these chapters, and I definitely feel I might benefit from writing some Cole's Notes styled summations, but I am enjoying the learning process, and I'm optimistic that all these lessons will stick in my head somewhere, with all that enduring understanding jazz, and help me in the near future. Thank you for reading, Peter~
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Responses to "Talk about assessment: High school strategies and tools" by Damian Coope and "Too Cool for School? No way!"
Chapter 1 I'm pretty impressed that I managed to read through Cooper's first chapter without becoming agitated, frustrated or sleepy. I found the breakdown of the importance of assessment informative, useful and easy to follow. It definitely seems to make more sense to develop an assessment rubric first, before finalizing a curriculum, adding vision and direction to lesson planning and themes to be taught. I found the 8 big points kind of blending together, and I wish they had assigned some kind of acronym or key word for each one, because honestly, even after reading it 2 minutes ago, I can't recall specific steps or summarize them offhand. I think the real reason I agree with the ideas presented so strongly is that my own experience in different school system echoes the pitfalls and dangers of overly strict, absent or corrupted forms of evaluation and assessment. When I taught in South Korea, my English class was not given any grade or mark, and students were not being assessed. This put me at a HUGE disadvantage, as there was no motivation or incentive for the students to participate or try, as it was basically just a free period to relax and goof off. I had to rely on generating interest, with no help from the curriculum or larger school structure. That was also highly contrasted with the students normal experience with assessment and evaluation. Since elementary school, these children had been BOMBARDED with standardized tests in almost every subject, twice a year, that rendered their whole academic year hostage to memorizing and performing mandated material. Creativity, inquiry and any other form of expression was simply ignored as there was no time for teachers to deviate from the set curriculum. Teachers would ask to take over my class time to further prep 10 year old students for their end of term exams. It was insane. Development tools in assessment, such as assessment for learning and assessment of learning were never employed. As soon as the student was assigned a grade, they were shipped off to the next grade, regardless of any other learning or improvement they could have benefited from. My third experience was from teaching in a private school in Japan. Our curriculum should have been more open and flexible, as we were an International after school program. However, it was a small school, and parent input had a disproportionate amount of power. Our students parents had decided that they valued results based criteria more than anything else, and that the sole purpose of our teaching should be to prepare their children for the standardized English Eiken tests. This meant we were constantly sacrificing content, chances for learning and the students interest and passion, to hammer in grammar points and vocabulary. Speaking is not heavily tested in Eiken, so that section of English learning was almost completely discarded. I wish I had a document such as Cooper's first Chapter to present to my bosses and parents to illustrate the real values of continued assessment, and learning based around flexible interpretations of knowledge, not simply test scores and percentages. Sadly, I did not have that opportunity and I know for a fact that many students suffered because of that. I doubt I would have paid as close attention to Cooper's arguments and points had I not had those experiences. My own background had a mix of feedback, scan-tron tests, and other forms of evaluation, but I never suspected how deeply those grades and marks could have affected my teachers, my education and the outlook of education in general. I will definitely try to keep this lesson and it's points front and center throughout my teacher education process and onward's. Chapter 2 I definitely came into this chapter thinking there would be some real practical contradictions to a criterion-referenced system, such as the ones stated, real world application, not coddling students, preparing them for disappointment/responsibility/higher education. But I have to admit, all my concerns were handled pretty comprehensively by Cooper's arguments, and especially the case studies. This also tied in closely with the discussion and lesson we had in PED3121, Teaching at the Junior Level, where we explored ideas of entity theory based learning versus incremental theory learning. That was more applicable to the teachers initial outlook on students, their ability, and if their potential/intelligence should dictate their future education. Here, the same principles are shown to be effective influences based on an assessment model. I think most teachers have good intentions, and focus on following rules, guidelines and grading criteria, with strict consequences in order to better serve their students, or at least, better serve the top performing students. Those who buck the prescribed method of teaching/evaluation need to be punished for their infractions and the teacher is then in a position of judge, jury and executioner. Cooper rightly points out how ineffective that is for their long term growth, and that such black and white portrayals of student behavior and necessary consequences only worsens their situation. I found the example of Rebecca's art class particularly hard to reconcile, as it seems that the art teacher was doing a grave injustice to her, and his unwillingness to compromise or help her was tragic. At the same time, judging that situation from just those few lines is a little hard, and I realize, after reading Cooper's points, maybe I'm overly sympathetic. I would hope that if a situation like that ever crossed my path, there would be enough room for discussion, alternatives and compromise to find reasonable work around's to keep Rebecca engaged in the classes, pursuing her education, and allowing her to take greater ownership of her classes and responsibilities. I also found the introduction, with a student taking a cell phone picture was a wonderful opportunity to open a discussion for the class on modes of learning, and how people learn in different ways. Maybe they could come to a consensus on how to incorporate new technology without becoming distracted. I think teachers need to include their students on discussions about new issues to learning, and see how they react when given a choice. Too Cool for School? No Way! 'Using the TPACK framework' by Punya Mishra and Matthew Koehler. This short, but fairly informative piece was interesting to read, and also terrifying at the same time. I definitely agree with the idea that teachers need to be extremely mindful of their ability to disseminate knowledge and information to students and facilitate their learning in a subject, beyond having a strong grasp of the subjects themselves (the PCK abilities); however I didn't realize how far behind my own knowledge of technology and online media is now. To be honest, I'm not one for the newest and latest technologies, and I hate things like social media, twitter, and new cutting edge search engines or databases. It's just too much for me to get caught up in and I actively tune out to a lot of it. However reading this article made me think about how detrimental that mindset will be for me as a teacher walking into a classroom with students deeply immersed in the newest website or app. I really value the importance of interpersonal connections and one to one relationships with students. Making eye contact, tone of voice, supporting them and being able to listen. I've never equated these principles with responding to a text, or posting on twitter, but maybe I should re-evaluate their merits. I would hate for my own preferences to deprive a classroom of potential learning opportunities or stifle their enthusiasm. I'll have to brush up on my tech savvy, and also look into these new fancy things like "content based web searches". I'm definitely feeling a little out of my element, but that's probably a good start. |
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September 2016
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