Michele sent me this a few weeks ago and I should have gotten it up here sooner but better late than never:
Ben,
Nathan has been blogging on our shared space about a great end-of-year project that others might want to see. He has even scanned in copies of kids’ work so that people like me can see how to set it up:
http://mjtprs.wordpress.com
[ed. note: scroll down on that link to “CYOA: Putting it all together, posted on May 31, 2011 by Nathan“. There is a lot of very cool other stuff happening on that site as well]
Michele continues:
I really like the Robert Harrell discussion going on right now. I think it is exactly where we need to be going with grading. Where and how we’re going to get that information, and how often, is still a question in my mind. I’d really prefer to do simple Ben quizzes, because honestly, how we mark grades doesn’t affect what the kids learn. But since we’re in a system that likes to see the data, what Robert is developing could truly be the answer.
My response: I agree. I feel that there is a really big gold nugget in that discussion that is buried in there somewhere and if we keep sifting through the words we can find it. I hope Robert’s summer, which I think starts next week, isn’t too taken up by it, but our intuitions on this (Michele and Frank and Nathan and the others of us on this blog who agree with Robert’s premise) may be right.
I know one thing. I got tripped up in a job interview yesterday by an assistant principal whose real message in asking me (one of those questions housed in Educationese) about data was to see if I could speak Educationese, which I can’t. And to show me that she could. I do speak the language of formative assessment, however, and, instead of housing conversations about assessment in terms of data, I want to be relatively free of that sort of thing and interest myself rather in Robert’s initiative. In my opinion, he is pointing the arrow directly where it should be pointing – at the ACTFL skill areas (the interpretive, interpersonal, and representation skills).
Thus, Michele, I couldn’t agree with you more when you say this above:
…because honestly, how we mark grades doesn’t affect what the kids learn….