Fantastic Fairytales - using Photostory 3

Over the past few weeks my fellow students and I have been slaving away on our group forum to decide upon the Six Principles of Assessment that we all agree on.  We have finally achieved this outcome - and I have written a couple of posts about my own personal views, that also incorporate the views of my fellow students.

This Blog now focuses on Part 2 of my assessment for Assessment and Reporting where we need to create an entire Assessment Package.  Until now I had no idea how talented those assessment writers must be.  Everything has to link together, connect to the curriculum frameworks and pedagogy, incorporate assessable elements, provide opportunities to assess FOR learning, be interactive in nature, flexible and adaptable and the list goes on .......I'm getting a headache just thinking about it all, hence I have decided to take a break and upload my Photostory Exemplar to this site so my lecturer can access it for my assignment.  Fingers crossed it works.

Let's hope she doesn't laugh at my attempts to narrate my story 'in character'... here goes.

My Six Principles of Assessment

Following are a list of six Principles of Assessment that I believe to be the most important in the Primary Classroom.  

1) Be fair and equitable for all learners by:
a) catering to the diverse range of students in the classroom and being mindful of individual needs, for example, disabilities, learning disorders, cultural beliefs, language barriers etc.
b) make adjustments or modifications to suit individual students when needed.
c) share 'success' criteria by clearly outlining what it is that students are expected to achieve and checking to make sure students understand what is required, (e.g. thumbs up/down, traffic lights, 'think-aloud', share, discuss and provide examples.)

2. Be interactive in nature, with a focus on:
a) discussions
b) quality questions
c) effective individualised feedback

Quality Questions should:
- be strategic and identify key questions for your lesson – planned in
  advance
- use a mix of open-ended questions that require higher-order thinking,
  and closed questions that required a set answer (refer to Blooms
  Taxonomy).
- leave sufficient wait time for students to answer
- use prompts or other questions to clarify
- use incorrect responses as a tool to develop ideas, probe thinking within
  a supportive learning environment
- give all students an opportunity to answer and experience success
- encourage students to ask questions
- encourage students to ‘think’ for themselves
- enable and value all student contributions
- find out what students know and can do so that teaching can be
  adapted/adjusted

Effective Individualised Feedback:
- provides information about what has been done
- targets learning, links to improvement
- promotes students' ‘thinking’ about their learning
- evaluates the quality of action or task performed
- comment only feedback most of the time
- marks and grades – some of the time
- gives guidance on how to improve, i.e. models desired outcomes
- is specific – not vague
- allows time for students to make improvements
- values student work
- maintains and builds confidence and self-esteem


3. Teach and Incorporate Peer and Self Assessment, and student and teacher Reflective Practices
The use of self assessment helps to build student knowledge of how to self-assess, teaches students to learn from their own mistakes, helps improve self-esteem, self awareness and self worth, involves honesty from the students and assists to build a trusting relationship between teacher and student.

By incorporating Peer Assessment students not only learn from their discussions with peers, but they also learn to critically evaluate others’ work, and in the process, reflect on their own. They also learn how to give and receive warm and cool feedback using appropriate language.


To be able to 'self-assess' students need:
- an understanding of what constitutes high quality work (e.g. examples shown, discussed, explained)
- evaluative skills to compare their work with a higher standard (e.g. using a graphic organiser or checklist)
- a set of strategies they can use to modify their own work (e.g. using an editing checklist for written work)

Examples of Teacher Reflection:
- was my teaching effective?
- what needs improving?
- what else do students need to learn?

Examples of Student Reflection:
- what did we learn today and how well?
- what else do we need to learn?
- what are my strengths and weaknesses as a learner?

4. Be authentic and engaging
a) create assessments that students’ relate to and understand
b) provide opportunities for assessment to be real-life and purposeful

5. Valid and Reliable
a) does the task assess what has been explicitly taught in the classroom?
b) does the task generate evidence of learning that is required of the curriculum intent?
c) do assessment criteria link to the reporting framework? (QCAR)
d) does the task (or modified assessment) provide opportunities for
    different kinds of learners to demonstrate their achievement?
e) are the questions and layout user-friendly and unambiguous?

6. Make Judgements and Celebrate Success by:
a) recording and reporting on student achievement
b) creating opportunities for students to celebrate and showcase their learning:
    - personally - by reflecting on their own achievements
    - in front of peers during an assembly
    - as part of a classroom or school event for their parents/friends
      (e.g. art show)
    - or out in the community, (e.g. a shopping centre display)

References:

Black, P. and Wiliam, D. (2001), ‘Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards through Classroom Assessment’, Kings College London School of Education.

Carless, D. (2007), University of Hong Kong, 'Conceptualizing Pre-Emptive Formative Assessment', Assessment in Education, Vol.14, No. 2, July 2007, pp. 171-184

Davis, S (2011), ‘EDED20459: Assessment & Reporting, online courseware, CQ University, Rockhampton, QLD, extracted from http://moodle.cqu.edu.au/course/view.php?id=17306


Davis & Dargusch, as cited in Lynch & Knight (2010)

Krause, K.L., Bochner,S., Duchesne, S. & McMaugh, A. (2010) ‘Educational Psychology for Learning and Teaching’ (3rd Ed), Cengage Learning Australia.

Lynch, D. & Knight, B.A. (2010) ‘The Theory and Practice of Learning Management: A Text for the student of Learning Management’, Pearson Originals, Australia.

What about Self Assessment?

Until I read the article 'Inside the Black Box' (Black and Wiliam, 2001) I really hadn't considered self-assessment as an important component of primary school assessment. However, now that I reflect on that, I think it is obvious just how important a component 'self-assessment' really is.

Most primary school students would undertake elements of self assessment automatically, without even realising they are doing it. For example, each time they raise their hand to answer a question, they may be gauging their fellow students' response/s to compare it to the response they had in their own mind.  Did I think the same thing? Was I right or wrong?, How was I right or wrong? Why didn't I understand that? Do I need to ask a question?

According to Black and Wiliam (2001, p.7), "pupils can only assess themselves when they have a sufficiently clear picture of the targets that their learning is meant to attain".

Similarly, when we are completing our university assignments, we like to know what the expectations are so we can achieve them. Personally, I begin to feel anxious and a little overwhelmed if I don’t have a good understanding of what is expected. I then ask questions or seek to clarify by other means (i.e. read through the forum questions and responses) until I do have a clear understanding of expectations. The same applies to young students, however their age can often mean that they don’t know how to seek clarification or lack the confidence to ask questions – so they need to be given clear guidelines from the outset and then taught how to ask questions to clarify their understanding.

From personal experience I have seen that providing students with clear guidelines about what is expected really helps to ease stress, frustration and anxiety in the students, as well as increase the likelihood of good outcomes.

My son, who is in year 5 and likes to do well at school, has come home this year on several occasions feeling very concerned and anxious that he doesn’t understand a project or homework requirement. I have encouraged him to go back to the teacher and ask him to re-explain or clarify what is required. On one occasion I had to write a note on my son’s behalf as he was being made to feel like a nuisance in class whenever he asked a question to clarify his understanding. I have made a mental note to maintain my patience and clarify task requirements for my students in the future.

In the end, my son felt happier and confident to complete his project because he knew what he was expected to do and he achieved a good result.

As we develop our set of six 'Assessment Principles' I think that clear guidelines or 'criteria for success' for all student tasks needs to be taken into account, along with the incorporation of student self-assessment.

ICTs are making this teaching caper kind of fun!

Last week I implemented a lesson at my school on Narrative Writing.  I enjoyed the lesson and I think the students did too! 

I created this PowerPoint to use during the lesson and it worked quite well.  The information came from a great article by Figg, S. (2002), 'Understanding Narrative Writing: Practical Strategies to Support Teachers. Extracted from http://wwwfp.education.tas.gov.au/english/narrative.htm.

During my lesson it was really interesting to note that many students could not recall the information from the PowerPoint when it came time to design a graphic organiser about it!  Goes to show that all this stuff we've been learning about is really important, i.e. In order to learn and retain new information students need to 'do something' with it! 

To overcome this dilemma, I reviewed the PowerPoint presentation, discussed it as a group, incorporating some examples and then assisted students to create their graphic organisers.  From here they used their graphic organiser as a tool to write a piece of narrative. 

PowerPoint on Narrative

View more presentations from Natalie.

I also used a short You Tube video to stimulate the students' narrative writing.  This video was suggested by a fellow student, Megan Sommerfield, in one of her forum postings. The students really enjoyed it and it was a great way to get the students imaginations working.  Some of the writing that came out as a result was quite impressive. Thanks for the idea Megan.