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.
|
