Tag Archives: Formative Assessment

Reading this week…13th January⤴

from

The first piece is by Mark Ensor, and it’s about parts of teaching which are not seen, but happen all the time in a reflective classroom. The piece discusses lesson observations at one point. I’ve had a few of those and I wouldn’t rate them highly as something that has improved my teaching. The things that have improved my teaching are reading websites, tweets and books, high quality training and casual observations and chat with the wonderful folk I’ve been lucky enough to work with.

Here is teacherhead revisiting Dylan Wiliam’s formative assessment strategies. When I’ve heard or read Dylan, it is a good reminder that his key principles of formative assessment have become many things to many people. He doesn’t think all of them are a good fit with his initial ideas.

If you’re wanting some podcasts for the new year based on education Third Space has this list.

I’m very interested in the use of retrieval practice to secure pupil learning and I’m always looking for ways to use it in class. Here is one teacher’s ideas.

And here are some more ideas of how we can use recall in class.

A simple sketchnote to help develop depth in questioning from Impact Wales. And another one.

Day 24 of 365

Gordon McKinlay

Day 24 of 365

Mars, LAC and LCoP – Term 1 Reflection⤴

from @ Shugod's Blog

A time for reflection…

The Research

The Secondary Schools’ Literacy Initiative (SSLI) http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rlae20/21/5

The Visit

So, we had our visit from Dr Noeline Wright.  Memorable andunforgettable that Dr Wright visited us and augmented our understanding of the SSLI research. We have video and audio of our discussion.

The S1 Mars Report

And we had at House Time (we have adopted a ‘vertical house system’ for our tutor forms S1 – S6) activity which ran for a fortnight, although was originally scheduled to be formally enacted for one week and then undertaken by pupils in the second week.  We hopsted that with four subject teachers could present Mars from their particular subject’s perspective: RME, the morals and ethics of spending trillions on space research; History, The Space Race and its legacy; English, film and textual imaginings around Mars and the solar system; Science, the facts and figures associated with previous and the current Mars Curiosity Rover.

We did attempt to introduce De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats.

The LCoP

Some of the members have been at the school for a considerable time – many of whom were there at just those right times when, as a student teacher and probationer, I needed some vital advice, feedback on that dilemma – and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t awed in some way.

Much positive and negative feedback was provided as ‘minutes’ of each LCoP meeting.  In summary:

Positive

  • It was a chance for practitioners of different disciplines to meet up and discuss pedagogical issues.
  • The Mars Curiosity Rover proved to be a relevant and current scientific event under investigation by our pupils and the media – perhaps for longer than expected.
  • S1 pupils were excited about the project.
  • Artistic, technical and literacy was being showcased – as was the ability to meet a deadline.
  • Pupils were already aware of the importance of Literacy – this re-iterated the fact, delivering a whole-school exercise.
  • This was the first time that Literacy – as ‘a responsibility of all’ – was given the high priority it requires, and primarily of its inextricable link with successful learning.

Negative

  • Too little time in which to undertake all activities during 20-minute House Time.
  • Too much information.
  • Many pupils ‘cut and paste’ (something I think that we are increasingly more aware of in light of the ubiquity of digital information).
  • Concern was raised about how often staff are supposed to assess literacy in a subject – there is little time to mark for content let alone literacy.
  • Cognizance should be taken for the participation from other year groups (although I personally had S2 and S4 pupils providing peer-support, for which they gained a ‘House Merit’).

 

The Way Ahead

A whole-school Correction Code which will be laminated and on display in every classroom in the school

Collegiate Peer-Assessment Activity planned for November 19th (the next collegiate meeting) and will allow non-English subject teachers to be  part of a supportive LCoP and led by a Key Person (KP) drawn from Modern languages or the English Department.  Small, supportive and interdisciplinary with a focus on a subset of the Writing Es and Os of under ‘Literacy’.

The LCoPs are to foster and nurture interdisciplinary tasks that can be constructed and ‘sand-boxed’  during House Time; allowing smaller-scale projects that minimise negative impact on both teacher’s confidence and curriculum progress.

4 Collegiate Meetings have been afforded and ring-fenced by senior management – a commitment to LAC has to be demonstrated by SMT, and the SSLI research asserts the dependency on successful LAC progress as being linked with CPD.

Strategy for greater links with associated primary schools already underway, with peer-reading to be constructed, and Big Writing to continue beyond Primary and into S1.  VCOP, Correction Code and Literacy  Es and Os should be the focus.

Sharing of House Time Mars Activity with associated Secondary English Departments.  Positives and negatives that have been identified will not only help our future adoption of similar whole-school House Time tasks, but also the dissemination of this interdisciplinary task fosters closer relations with associated authority schools, and should assist in resource creation and moderation.

Resources

LAC Information Sheet

LCOPs-Version 3-Anon

LAC Marking-3

correction code POSTER

Mars Glow Blog

Eportfolios⤴

from @ wexucate.com

I’ve decided to write this post about Eportfolios because even though I’ve been using them with my class for quite a while, I am constantly asked for advice on how to set them up. This post will hopefully help those people with any questions they have. If you think I’ve missed any important information out or have addition questions please feel free to comment at the bottom of this post.

What are Eportfolios?

Basically an eportfolio is an online digital space that pupils can use to reflect on learning, record wider achievement and teachers can use as an assessment tool.
Why did I start using Eportfolios?
Currently the school I work in uses a Learning Log as a way for the children to share their targets and reflect on their learning. This learning log is a folder which contains sheets of paper which the children fill in. I’d been finding that completing these logs was becoming very time consuming and very uninspiring for the pupils. At that point I had just not long completed my Glow (Scottish Schools VLE) training and decided to use this as a place to house our eportfolios.

How do you create an Eportfolio in Glow?

There is a National Eportfolio Glow group which can be found here. There you will find help sheets and videos which will take you through the set up process. However three things you will need to do before setting up eportfolios are
1. Ensure all pupils have Glow Light enabled (this can be done by clicking on pupil or staff home, scrolling down to the bottom of the page and clicking on Change Glow Light Settings. You must then ensure that Use Glow Light as my default home page when I next log in has been ticked)
2. Ensure that all pupils have permission to use Glow blogs (this can be done by your school ASM or by your Glow key contact)
3. Create a class or year Glow group which can be accessed by all the pupils. Either use the weblink part that already exists or create a new one for the pupils to put the URL’s of their eportfolios.
Once you have completed these 3 steps you are now ready to create your eportfolios with your pupils using the How to create an eporfolio help sheet.

What if I don’t have Glow?

The main part of the eportfolio that is created in Glow is a blog which uses wordpress. You can create your own free blog at wordpress.com. There are lots of other sites where free blogs can be created e.g. blogger, edublogs, primary blogger, etc.

How can I use eportfolios with my class?

1. Each pupil’s eportfolio has a static front page; this allows them to create an All about me page. They can create an avatar and write some text to introduce themselves.
2. All posts the pupils write must be categorised. This makes it easy for readers to find posts on a similar subject; this is especially useful for interdisciplinary learning. Our eportfolios have categories for all areas of the curriculum, achievement, attainment, targets and review of the week.
3. Pupils can use the eportfolios as a place to record any targets they set for themselves and review their learning.
4. Pupils can report about and reflect on any learning undertaken. This becomes a very useful assessment tool for the teacher as it is easy to determine the level of understanding each pupil has of the activity they have participated in.
5. Eportfolios can be used as storage for evidence of work i.e. pieces of writing can be typed up and posted. Using a site called Slideboom PowerPoint presentations can be embedded into the blog. Websites that have been used for digital literacy activities e.g. voki, animoto and GoAnimate can also be embedded.
6. Feedback – All posts that are written can receive comments. This allows teachers to give instant feedback and also allows for peer to peer assessment.
7. Eportfolios can be shared extremely easily with parents who can also comment on their child’s posts.

Using the eportfolios with my class has been very successful. The pupils really enjoy creating posts and sharing their work. I’ve noticed a marked improvement in their enthusiasm to write and in their writing skills. Often pupils will post stories that they have been writing at home.

I have been involved in providing training other teachers in my cluster in how to set up eportfolios. Our next step is to decide what information an eportfolio contains so there will be continuity when P7’s move to S1.

Below is the animoto I created using the slides of my presentation I gave on Eportfolios at the Scottish Learning Festival 2011.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqkzSsEcWVg

Formative Assessment – Part two⤴

from @ wexucate.com

Our work with talk partners has been very successful so far, the children were able to come up with some very good success criteria which we’ve typed up and put on the wall so they are an easy visual reminder (see photo below).

Using the lollysticks to choose children to share their answers is also proving very productive. It has allowed me to observe very quickly the children who either need to put more effort into their discussions or require some support. All the partnerships are proving to be very successful.

The next task for the talk partners was to revisit work we’d done previously on fixed and growth mindset. Each pair was given a pile of statements which they had to discuss then sort into the headings fixed and growth mindsets. Once this was done each pair had to get a different coloured pencil and tick the statements that related to how they tackled learning situations. They then discussed with their partners why they had ticked each statement and ways they could overcome having a fixed mindset. Since introducing fixed and growth mindsets in my classroom the results have been very rewarding. Most of the children have a very positive attitude towards tackling new problems and don’t feel so embarrassed or negative when they get things wrong.

The final task was to establish the requirements for learning.

“In order to ensure effective engagement, reflection, dialogue and appropriate guidance, we need to create, with pupils, the best environment for those elements and therefore for effective learning to take place” Clarke (2008)

First the children discussed what helps them learn then what stops them from learning. From these discussions the children produced a set of success criteria for “What does a successful learner do?”. These have been typed up and displayed prominently in the classroom so they can be easily referred back to during any task or activity. These criteria also make a good behaviour management tool as children can be reminded quickly how they can be successful.

In part three of Formative Assessment I will be looking at asking worthwhile questions.

Reading / Video that helped me

DVD – The Power of Formative Assessment – Shirley Clarke

Clarke, S (2008) Active Learning through Formative Assessment, Hodder Education

Formative Assessment – Part One⤴

from @ wexucate.com

Although I have been using some aspects of formative assessment in my class for a number for years, with the removal of national tests and assessment being key to our SDP (school development plan) I am planning to review my practice and focus on several areas over the next months to make improvements.

My first step was to watch the Shirley Clarke DVD, The Power of Formative Assessment. Although all of the examples in the DVD are at primary level I thoroughly recommend that all educators would benefit from watching it as a lot of the techniques could be adapted for older learners. What I really like about it is that it shows in practice lots of the ideas and techniques Clarke recommends using in her book Active Learning through Formative Assessment. One of the key techniques demonstrated in the DVD is the use of Talk Partners. I frequently used the Aifl (Assessment is for learning) strategy “Think Pair Share” and a lot of the activities I plan in class involve working in groups or with a partner. However Talk Partners is a much more structured method where the same partners are kept for a week or a fortnight with the pupils both self and peer assessing their effectiveness as a talk partner.

Clarke (2008) recommends randomly paired talk partners as

“Pupils appreciate the fairness factor and get to appreciate the rich variety of social and learning experiences”

I plan to do this using the lollypop stick method as used in the DVD which has also been used by Dylan Williams, I will continue to use the lollypop sticks during all discussions or question and answer sessions. This will hopefully ensure that all my pupils will engage with learning activities and will give those more hesitant to join in the ability to have a voice.

The first “discussion” the talk partners will have, will be to discuss the success criteria for being a good talk partner i.e. what is good talk and good listening. These success criteria will then be used at the end of a fortnight for the pupils to self and peer assess if they had been good talk partners and what they need to improve on when working with their next partners. The partners will then be swopped and at the end of the next fortnight they will evaluate if improvements have been made.

Reading / Video that helped me

DVD – The Power of Formative Assessment – Shirley Clarke

Clarke, S (2008) Active Learning through Formative Assessment, Hodder Education