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Toolkit

Page history last edited by sbeleznay 12 years, 7 months ago

Assessment Tool Kit

 

Create a Responsive System:  who are the learners (not what do we have to do)

 

Begin with an assessment to see who they are

  • Faye Brownlie's Standard Reading Assessment allows you to use text that you will expect your students to read (nonfiction or fiction) and assess quickly using the BCPS. 
  • It's important to provide a broader picture than "schoolish things."  Faye and Leyton shared this Getting to Know You handout for the beginning of the year.  They suggest introducing it with a colleague (pull in the principal, the secretary, the librarian) to give example with you.  That way students see that everyone will have different "answers."

Conduct a class review with the support team in your school.

  • What are the strengths of the class?
  • What are your concerns about the class as a whole?
  • What are your main goals this year?
  • What are the individual needs in your class?

Build your plan for the class based on who you have!  Want help to try this?  Email sbeleznay@sd68.bc.ca.  Check out the Class Review slideshow from Faye Brownlie and Leyton Schnellert at the recent workshop in Nanaimo.

 

 

Create a Community of Learners

 

We are motivated by learning, participation and connection.  See our Community page for more ideas.

 

  • Remind students daily:  we need all of us to learn; we need to work together, each of us has unique skills to contribute.  Got great tools?  Let's post them.
  • Gratitude:  keeping a gratitude journal has been shown to improve wellbeing, optimism, progress toward goals, enthusiasm, determination, energy.  Anyone want to experiment?
  • Mindfulness:  For "Mind Up" training, contact Jan Thorsen (jthorsen@sd68.bc.ca) and go to http://www.thehawnfoundation.org/.   There is a great deal of research to suggest that some simple exercises can reduce stress, refocus the mind and enhance learning.   (The most important person to practice mindfulness practice is us!)
  • Celebrate learning! Got specific tools?  Let's post them.  Here's an idea from Port Hardy teacher Jillian Walkus: Pat on the Back.
  • Include the students! 
    • Flexible planning allows student input:  http://tinyurl.com/24s8od7
    • Exit Slips:  check in to see what the students learned at the end of the day and plan the next day through that.  For example, you might say, here's an important question that someone asked in the exit slip that I thought we'd better think about before we move on.  It also allows you to pair students up effectively for review.  See examples.
  • Teach students about the brain!   
    • Students learn that we each learn differently (and that's okay!) and they also begin to understand the reason for predicting, for example, or frequent practice.  See brain fact posters:  we post them as we teach students (this can be done in an integrated way as you are learning content information).  Note:  the Mind Up curriculum teaches students about the brain.  
  • Welcome each child individually each day. 
    • Steve Austin and Dave Sully at JBCS - stand in the hall together to greet the students before the bell.  They make sure that every student is greeted daily with a hearty welcome and often a short conversation.
    • Faye Brownlie suggests that certain children need daily a daily check-in with someone in the school (a resource teacher, a principal, the librarian to be sure they are safe, fed, organized). 

 

Post Learning Intentions

 

Learning intentions helps us to stay focussed in the hurly-burley of classrooms and continue to build student understanding of prescribed learning outcomes, rather than "doing stuff."

 

Peer and Self Assessment

 

We can't do it all!  We need to include the rich resources of other students. And the pay-off:  by teaching others students learn more deeply; by seeing other examples, students understand the "next move"; by reflecting on their own learning, students become independent learners.  It's win, win and win again!

 

 

  • Multi-age groups - older and younger kids working together; teaching each other; assessing each other.  Note that Joy Tretick very successfully had her grade 1 class teach a lesson to a grade 7 group! 
  • Use student examples to build and deepen criteria
  • Student-developed criteria

 

How to Assess without Marking

 

Why should we reduce marking?  Watch Dan Pinks video on motivation.

 

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Use the "right kind" of praise

 

Carol Dweck's research reveals that when we praise kids for being "smart" and for doing "good work," we inadvertently hold back our students; instead notice their effort.  An "must-read" article to clarify our thinking:  Perils and Promise of Praise.doc

  • Say thank you
  • Say nothing
  • Say what you saw
  • Talk less, ask more:  Why tell him what part of his drawing impressed you when you can ask him what he likes best about it? Asking "What was the hardest part to draw?" or "How did you figure out how to make the feet the right size?" is likely to nourish his interest in drawing.  (see http://www.alfiekohn.org/parenting/gj.htm)

 

 

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