Filling in the blanks...

While creating an action plan for my IB PYP online PD on Assessments, I came up with the following questions that I need to find more information about in order to complete my goals. 

These are the questions I came up with, as I move through this Assessments course, I hope to learn more about assessments in order to answer the questions that I have come up with. 

Questions: 

• Can assessment tasks be differentiated for students with various needs? 
  Yes, assessment tasks can be differentiated for students with various needs, however the rubric to grade them on would be consistent. 
• Can assessment tasks be differentiated for students with diagnosed needs? 
  This is similar to the above question
• What are some ways assessments have been conducted by others? 
• How can students be encouraged to reach their creative potential? 
• What are various platforms that are available for note taking? 
• What questions must we ask ourselves about our students so that our anecdotal notes are more concise as opposed to a reporting of a student’s day?  

PYP Assessment Action Plan 2018/19

The Inquiry into assessment action plan provides prompts to structure your thinking. Remember that this is only a six week course and your goal/action and evidence need to be achievable in a short period of time. You might also like to consider how your goal supports your school goals and action plans.
What do you hope to achieve? (connect to standard C4)
What do you want to achieve from this workshop? What goals, visions or targets are you working towards?	Your Thoughts	Online Facilitator feedback
	How to maximize student performance in assessment tasks by providing them with the opportunity to explore a vast range of multimedia and presenting tools in order to cater to the needs of students of various abilities.  I would also like to add the goal of finding a way to record anecdotal notes so that they are uniform across the school and accessible to all teachers concerned with the care of the students.  I have chosen this because I have noticed that students are often presented with a very closed ended task in terms of how they can present their summative assessments. I would like to give them a range of options to choose from. I chose my second goal because it is an area of weakness in my current practice, I would like to strengthen it while also turning it into a uniform practice across the school so that there is consistency in reporting.
What are your questions?
What do you need to understand to achieve your goal? What are your questions, concerns, obstacles around your goal?	Your Thoughts	Online Facilitator feedback
	Questions I have and things I need to understand.  Can assessment tasks be differentiated for students with various needs? What I have learnt here is that you can differentiate tasks based on criteria and process. Tasks differentiated based on criteria can be as simple as having tasks for higher achieving students and tasks for the rest of the class. Students can pick where they begin their tasks from and then be challenged accordingly. Tasks that are differentiated based on product would enable students to pick their method of presenting their information, however as teachers we must be aware of whether this is what we are grading the students on.  What should also be noted here is that differentiating tasks also depends on the comfortability of the teacher and how s/he is comfortable differentiating. Whether this is by content, product or levelling.  Can assessment tasks be differentiated for students with diagnosed needs?  This is similar to the above. The rubric would not change in this case, however, the content, the process and the products can be modified in order for the student to be catered. It also depends on the SEN policy of the school.  What are some ways assessments have been conducted by others?  How can students be encouraged to reach their creative potential?  What are various platforms that are available for note taking?  So far SeeSaw and Evernote have been recommended. I ask you to take a look at my post in the Coffee Corner to help me with this. I have found this a rather challenging task as there aren't many options out there for note taking formats. I played around with Penzu, however also found this to be ineffective. Most of the tools I found also needed an upgrade that had to be paid for.  What questions must we ask ourselves about our students so that our anecdotal notes are more concise as opposed to a reporting of a student’s day?   I had set up a padlet to receive answers for these questions, however most of the people I contacted did not post on the Padlet. I am uncertain if this is because its school holidays and teachers what nothing to do with school at present. However I have found a tool from the University of Alberta that has ideas about how to keep track of your notes, and how to make them concise. The page is accessible on this LINK Obstacles that I may face Student acceptance and comfortability of delving into new ways to present.  How do we get students to explore different tools in order to expand their way of thinking?  Will the school management be receptive to having a uniform platform to record anecdotal notes?  Will the teachers at the school be able to accept a new way of recording information?
What strategies or action will you take to achieve your goal?
Strategies to meet the goal/ dream What action will you take to achieve your goal?	Your Thoughts	Online Facilitator feedback
	In order to achieve my goal at the course level, I will be proactive at reaching out to peers who have already been using various tools for note taking. I will also be looking at summative tasks in the OCC and seeing what modifications can be made to the current POI in order to expand the manner in which assessments are completed by students.  As I continue the course, there are modules on Summative Assessments and Formative Assessments that I have to complete in the following weeks, I will take a look at these modules and see what I can learn in regards to differentiating tasks, and rubrics for students with varying needs.   I would also like peers on this course to take a look at the blog once it is set up and play around with various applications and programs that I find in order to help me rate their effectiveness for anecdotal note taking. I would also like to set up a Padlet where I will ask my peers in this course to post questions they think are important when recording anecdotal notes pertaining to students.
What evidence (ongoing assessment) will show that you have made progress?
Evidence of achievement of, or progress towards, goal How best will you evaluate your progress? What evidence will show your advancement?	Your Thoughts I will be posting this assessment plan onto my blog and breaking down the questions that I have asked in the above sections. I will then try and answer these questions as I learn more information. I will ask the facilitators of this course, as well as colleagues I have previously worked with to provide feedback on the answers I come up with and to evaluate the effectiveness of the plan. I would like to continue the blog post-course and see if I can spend time finding various tools to find the most effective way to take notes.	Online Facilitator feedback
Final Reflections – where to from here? To begin with, I will be sharing the goals I have set for myself in this course with my coordinator when school starts. I will determine with her whether these are goals that we can work with over the course of the year. I will share the few platforms that I have found online, with my peers and suss out their thoughts on going on a uniform platform for taking anecdotal notes. If there are teachers that struggle with using technology, I would be willing to set up workshops to comfort them with the platforms and familiarize them with how they work. I am also thinking of moving the school towards a digital platform for portfolios. I will be sharing my padlet links with my new colleagues to see if they have any other options for note taking platforms and their assessment of those platforms. In order to strengthen my summative assessments, I will begin by spending some time with my coordinator to differentiate product, process and content in order to create summative assessment tasks that cater to different student abilities.  3,2,1 Reflection  Reflect on your own learning during the course using a 3-2-1 thinking tool: (3) important things that you have learned about assessment in the PYP. -  Summative assessment can be differentiated by process, content and product.  -  Success criteria for formative and summative assessments is most useful when created with the students. It allows the students to take more ownership of their learning.  - Formative assessment allows students to develop goals and reflect on their strengths and weaknesses. In doing so, students take ownership of their learning and create learning plans for themselves.  (2) actions you will take or have already taken as a result of your learning.  - I have begun to look at different applications that I can use to move portfolios onto an online platform in order to make them more accessible to students, as well as to reduce the amount of paper we use. Online portfolios will also make it easier for portfolios to be sent to other schools for students who are leaving, and thus allow easier sharing of information.  - Once I receive my class list and am made aware of the needs of the students in my classroom, I will hold a discussion with my coordinator to take a look at how summative assessment tasks can be modified for process, content and product depending on the needs of the students.  (1) question or challenge you anticipate as you continue to implement these ideas within your school. - How will teachers who struggle with technology, or are not comfortable experimenting with technology, react to transitioning to an online platform for portfolios as well as anecdotal note taking.

An Interview of a Prospective PYP Teacher.

Working on the assumption that the teacher in question has inquired about the IBPYP prior to coming into interview: 

1) Looking at the IB learner attributes, what do they mean to you? 

Answer: 

- How the interviewee relates to these attributes. 

- Which ones stand out to them. 

(upon prompting) - How they make an learner more cohesive. 

- Interviewee should reflect on how they are universal and applicable to learners everywhere. 

2) The PYP Curriculum, and the IB as a programme in general, encourage learning through inquiry. How do you feel about such a programme and how do you think this benefits the learner? 

Answer: 

- Mentions learning by doing. 

- Builds on foundation. 

- Expands the students knowledge in a  situation that is applicable to them. 

- Creates a more cohesive programme because involves working in a team to come up with something that is inclusive for everyone involved. 

3) Say you have a particular lesson plan that does not go well. How would you react? What would go through your mind? 

Answer: 

- Candidate discusses reflection. 

- What went wrong

- How can it be made better

(upon prompting) - Is motivated to look for help and discuss their ideas. 

- Discusses their feelings and how they would handle a lesson that didn't go well. 

4) What would inquiry based learning look like in your classroom? 

Answer: 

- Discusses experimentation

- Research

- Making connections 

- Most importantly, candidate discusses allowing students to increase their understanding by exploring their interests within boundaries. 

5) Are you a team player? If so, what makes you a team player? 

Answer: 

- Positive thoughts about working with people. 

(upon prompting) - Can discuss how they would approach problems with colleagues. 

(upon prompting) - Can discuss what they are like as a leader and as a team member. 

6) The PYP curriculum centres around the written curriculum, the taught curriculum and the assessed curriculum. At the centre of this is the learner constructing meaning. How do you feel these different aspects of the curriculum help learners to construct meaning. 

Answer: 

- Interviewee discusses how the written curriculum focuses the taught curriculum. 

- Discussion of how assessment can inform whether goals are being reached within the taught curriculum

- Discussion of how assessment and reflection informs their own teaching, not only the students' achievement. 

- Refinement of own teaching practices. 

Reflecting on Planning and Collaborating

I have filled out this bone diagram based on how I feel we're presently working at in the pre-school I teach at. 

Just to put it into context, we have 4 groups of between 6-9 students. The groups are organized according to ages at the beginning of the year, with some mixing occurring while monitoring student ability over the year. Each of the 4 teachers in the class have a group, and we rotate the group we're working with each week. The school I'm working at at present is not an IB school and therefore the PYP curriculum is not implemented there. I shall be working with the PYP curriculum as of August. Therefore not all practices are applicable (I have an N/A there). 

If I were to rate how we're working at each practice: 

1) Collaborative planning and reflection addresses the requirements of the programme(s). 3

2) Collaborative planning and reflection takes place regularly and systematically.  1.5 

3) Collaborative planning and reflection addresses vertical and horizontal articulation. N/A

4) Collaborative planning and reflection ensures that all teachers have an overview of students' learning experiences. 2.5 

5) Collaborative planning and reflection is based on agreed expectations for student learning. 1

6) Collaborative planning and reflection incorporates differentiation for students' learning needs and styles. 1

7) Collaborative planning and reflection is informed by assessment of student work and learning. 2

8) Collaborative planning and reflection recognizes that all teachers are responsible for language development of students. 3

9) Collaborative planning and reflection addresses the IB learner profile attributes. N/A

At my present pre-school, the two things I think need to be worked on the most in order to encourage student learning are:

      1) Parental Ignorance or familial problems.

       2) Lack of communication between the teachers.

Parental ignorance and familial problems are a huge deterrent in my current workplace. This is largely due to parents working long and extended hours and students not being able to spend enough quality time with their families. This is hindering students’ progress because their main sources of interaction are their nannies. These nannies are largely non-English speakers and cannot engross in productive conversation with the students. There is therefore no continuation from what students are learning in school and what they are doing at home. Many parents are ignorant of what their children are learning in school, they don’t follow up with teachers and often do not have the time to attend any parent-teacher-student interactive sessions.

There is also a lack of communication between the teachers. While we discuss what needs to be done the following week, we do not discuss how to better the learning environment for particular students. The groups are largely age and ability based, however no differentiation takes place for students because the work we do is largely centred around worksheets and workbooks that are required to be complete before the end of a term. Students therefore zoom through the books without really understanding. Progress is monitored based on progression in the workbooks as opposed to making certain that students are leaving with a strong foundation.

A Summative Assessment.

Where we are in Place and Time. 

Below is a descriptor of this unit of inquiry catered towards 10 - 11 year olds. 

The summative assessment I have devised based on the GRASP model is: 

Goal: Your task is to write a story about a family's migration either nationally or internationally. Your tasks include writing a story of 5 chapters and should centre around the reasons why the family had to migrate. 

Role: You are an author of a short novel about a family's migration to a real or imaginary place. 

Audience: 10- 11 year olds. 

Situation: You need to identify the reasons why a family needs to migrate to a foreign place and the challenges faced. Maps and pictures should be included. 

Product/Performance and Purpose: You will create a 5 chapter story that discusses why a family migrated to a real or imaginary place of your choice, the story should focus around the reasons why they had to migrate, and the impact they had on the place they migrated to. 

Standards and Criteria for Success: 

Your story should contain

- 5 or more chapters. 

- A minimum of 3 real-life reasons why the family had to move. 

- The impact of their migration on the place they emigrate to. 

- Maps and Images. 

- Use of correct punctuation, grammar and vocabulary. 

Assessment in the PYP

Here's a link to a short presentation made on assessment in the PYP. 

Assessment in the PYP

What is Assessment?

You can see my initial thoughts on assessment through the regular text. I have modified each of my ideas, and these modifications are the bolded ones. 


I don't believe my thinking has changed in any particular manner after doing the readings. I have however extended what I already knew and seen the connections between the different aspects of assessment and how they inform and extend the summative assessment aspect. 

I have learnt that formative assessment is more than brief note-taking. Observations and checklists are a part of formative assessment, these all also help inform the summative assessment. Especially when you look at the "what we have learned" aspect of the KWL chart. This can vastly help inform the teacher as to what the student has learned at the end of the unit. Furthermore, small tasks that can be seen as formative assessment can be gathered together to form a portfolio that expresses the students' journey through the unit. This portfolio can be used as summative assessment as well. 

Students also need to reflect on their journey, and inform the teacher in order to inform their understanding, but also to inform the teacher's practice so that changes can be made. 

There are a lot of similarities between my thinking and others' thinking. However, what I also learnt from others mind-maps was that formative assessment is more than just the teacher assessing the student, it is also the student assessing their understanding, and what they are learning. 

It was helpful to have my prior knowledge activated because I got to extend my schema and modify it in some cases.