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Authentic Assessment – Ben – 22
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28 thoughts on “Authentic Assessment – Ben – 22”
Yeah, we can do better than “understand” and “recognize a few memorized words and phrases” (targets). We can communicate.
Yes. I’ve long thought that ACTFL was selling beginners short. In my district the expectation is intermediate mid after two years. That’s not very ambitious if using ACTFL targets.
A very strong percentage of DPS kids finish out after two years at IL. NH is cake for them. Some of those kids score higher than IL. Word.
I’m glad that in California, we do not have a strong drive to follow ACTFL. Too much blah, blah, blah for me. It creeps in though, with the use of “can do statements” Who are we kidding here?
I’m not gonna lie, I’ve seen “ACTFL” (a professional organization I am supposed to know about?) on this blog, but never seen it anywhere else or had any desire to investigate further. I could look into their standards if I needed to…do I? I get the feeling my time is better spent here with you lovelies.
Follow your feeling, Claire.
May the fourth be with you. Trust your feelings Claire.
Claire said:
…we can do better than “understand” and “recognize a few memorized words and phrases” (targets). We can communicate…..
I deeply appreciate that point about going beyond understanding/recognizing and actually communicating. Isn’t that the standard? That is where I see this discussion going now. It’s got to cool down and we can then set the table for a nice year or two of redefining and clarifying what measurable functions we are looking for, and identifying what observable tasks we hope to encourage during instruction.
“got to cool down”
Yes, I need to cool it. But it’s so exciting! When I said before that portfolio assessment could “fix what was broken” I wasn’t kidding.
You guys are in for a treat. When you look your more traditional colleagues in the eye after explaining how to assess for real and call them out for their BS assessments, it’s going to be big. You’ll ask them “So what are you doing with your data? How are you using it to modify your instruction? Because I’m using it to find ability-appropriate texts and modify how fast or slow I speak and build a lesson around words I know they know to stay in bounds.”
I want to be a fly on the wall at your next data meetings. When you point out the basics: that formative assessments are tools to help students. Not to shame students, not just to have a grade to put in the grade book, but to actually teach and communicate with students. This Fall, it’s going to be clear who the new data experts are.
I’m so excited for you guys. I feel like I just gave a super-model a makeover. You were already hot, you just needed a little umpf.
You’ll see: the divas have arrived.
You were singing Lana’s “Summertime Sadness” but this Fall, you’ll be singing Etta’s “At Last.”
“…Because I’m using it to find ability-appropriate texts and modify how fast or slow I speak and build a lesson around words I know they know to stay in bounds.”
Yes. The “ability-appropriate texts” opens questions. I remember seeing Ben’s pringle man video (or was it choco monkey?) and he had a text with many new words for the students. So he had to explain/translate.
I had never though about my rate of speech. I know that I have changed my speed but only when I was “in the moment” — when we had an experimental block schedule that will be implemented next year. I am curious about the data. Could there be a job (real life skills) for a student to show us in real time that we are going too fast?
So many questions come to mind. I personally do not think things need to cool down. Maybe simmer and reduce. Then things can cool down (the meat can relax as carnivorous Jacques Pepin would say) and we can reflect. Sorry, I’ve been watching too many cooking shows on public access tv during the weekend.
The totally nonspecific and lame descriptors (that Ben shared in his post) are a pseudo ACTFL ‘under the radar’ safety net. Who couldn’t claim all 3 of ’em with those qualifiers?
When I landed in Turkey for my honeymoon with nothing but a phrasebook, I could do those things!
One big difference for us is that we’re working w/EXTENDED language – ever longer chunks of conversation/text. It’s unrehearsed, it’s responsive to the situation (Contextualized) and functional – serves a purpose.
My kids prolly still cannot ‘talk about themselves’ much as so many similar rubrics value, but they can comprehend, responding either nonverbally or via short answer. The existing rubrics or Can-Do’s like Ben’s are clearly not enlightened by SLA theory since they do not prioritize comprehending more than a sentence or two from ‘everyday life’
“My kids prolly still cannot ‘talk about themselves’ much as so many similar rubrics value, but they can comprehend, responding either nonverbally or via short answer. The existing rubrics or Can-Do’s like Ben’s are clearly not enlightened by SLA theory since they do not prioritize comprehending more than a sentence or two from ‘everyday life’”
That’s an excellent point. Our Scope and Sequences should be redesigned to be heavy on receptive language, lighter on productive until you get up to the more advanced levels.
My belief is that those descriptors are so generic that they allowed ACTFL to enable traditional teachers to continue their malpractice for three decades since they originally appeared in the 1980s. ACTFL thus became a tool of the textbook companies. So much for being a leadership organization.
And yet my school uses these descriptors and/or a textbook table of contents to infuse their curriculum docs. And that is the back story on why I had that fight with that curriculum director who told me I “did not know or care how my students were doing in my class” after I had simply looked at those two options and spread out my hands and said, “I don’t even know what these things mean.”
And bam, I was down on the ground. Now, three weeks later, I feel so much more educated and able to tell that guy things like what Claire said earlier – this is really good stuff here to use with ppl in our buildings [bold letters mine]:
“When you look your more traditional colleagues in the eye after explaining how to assess for real and call them out for their BS assessments, it’s going to be big. You’ll ask them “So what are you doing with your data? How are you using it to modify your instruction? Because I’m using it to find ability-appropriate texts and modify how fast or slow I speak and build a lesson around words I know they know to stay in bounds.”
If I were teaching next year I would memorize those four boys up there. Those are some snappy things to say!
Yes – Claire’s statement affords us real ways to document extending the language the Ss know; to laser identify and address them WHERE THEY ARE – individually!!! Has anyone tried this real-time documentation through anecdotal notes on a student chart?
Another quick n dirty in the moment authentic assessment is to tally the words in a retell… I’ve done it surreptitiously on a post-it – sometimes I’m unprepared for the qty of output and ask them to repeat it, pen in hand – hiding behind computer screen…
on the ‘data’ sheet I’d date it & write ’11-word oral response!’
Put that in their multiple choice pipe and smoke it!
I AM SUPER FIRED UP ABOUT THIS!!! And the timing is uncanny! Holy moly!
I have not read the article yet. Looking forward to that tonight as my “after school activity!!!”
Was not sure where to share this, but just yesterday I had to submit my “data” from my second semester SLO. Don’t ask. I had no idea I was supposed to do one 2nd semester. But hey I am in “Peter” from “Office Space” mode these days (if you have not seen OS…Peter goes to a hypnotist bc he is stressed, hypnotist induces relaxation then has a heart attack, so Peter is stuck in the hypnosis of relaxation…then the rest of the movie gets really great!).
Yeah. So I go to school all chill and nothing bothers me. Not even when the kids won’t stop talking during our nonnegotiable interaction time. So I give them all a 1 on the rubric and move on to reading activity with comprehension questions and they are all over it! Heh. When I got the email about the SLO I was like hm. ok. I have a spreadsheet with numbers on it. And I dug up the descriptive part of the “learning objective” that I wrote in the fall. Reading through it, I was kinda pumped bc I put in a good amount of reality (hours) within the “data turd” framework. The best part was the post-assessment / data reflection where I got to warn them of the coming tidal wave. I wrote that part yesterday on the heels of reading a buncha stuff so great timing!
I’ll send the document to Ben. It’s not super tight and articulate like some of y’all on here, but it is a good start for me. The actual “assessment” I did as a benchmark was pretty bogus, especially my documentation, but I had a lot going on this year. It was fun writing up the rationale and stuff. Feels like I got to launch one over the bow!
Principal is super supportive although he still doesn’t quite “get it” but hey it’s a process. And he is all hands on deck with the BS of reaccreditation and common rubrics and curriculum. Here is something he wrote on my final evaluation report (which was a great report I am super excited). It is helpful to me that he wrote this bc it tells me where I need to become crystal clear:
“It is unclear how students are assessed on their performance in this format of instruction – however the feedback she provides for oral communication is immediate and constructive.”
So he sees my “immediate and constructive feedback” but somehow that is not assessment. Should I mention in my upcoming meeting that IS the assessment? I say yes. Before the meeting I will have read this article and maybe print out some nuggets of wisdom from you all.
And this:
“It is important to make learning goals clear to students so the focus doesn’t appear to be the completion of activities.”
I know I’m supposed to provide “learning goals” and I mostly do not. I understand this a bit better from BVP bc he is always talking about communicative tasks vs activities and the big key is having a purpose that is not connected to language (i.e., finding out something about ppl and the world around us). So I need to come up with that. I’m a bit obtuse with this stuff. But I don’t really ever think that I am targeting or focusing on language at all. My whole focus is on finding out about the kids or about some story we can get engaged in (or that the kids think I am “getting off track”).
I’m not disagreeing with the observation, but wonder what the “problem” is if as he states “the focus is on the completion of activities.” So say we are talking about the prom. Maybe the learning goals is something like “Traditions and values” ???? My interpretation of this problem is that I need an overarching purpose to the communicative task, so maybe framing a larger context for the activity / discussion?
***Big question I have is that I would like to ask the “big question” (what is the rationale behind common templates for curriculum? and specifically what is the rationale / where is the research behind common templates for SLA? I want to ask this question like next week because we are going to get hot and heavy with the reaccreditation BS and even though it is likely they will make me use the template and I can pretend I am vertically aligned or whatever BUT shouldn’t I ask this? Shouldn’t I give them a one page synopsis about this tidal wave? Feels like I oughta ask at least? But maybe there is more wisdom in “ask for forgiveness?” ***
Suggestions?
jen you wrote:
I’m not disagreeing with the observation, but wonder what the “problem” is if as he states “the focus is on the completion of activities.” So say we are talking about the prom. Maybe the learning goals is something like “Traditions and values” ???? My interpretation of this problem is that I need an overarching purpose to the communicative task, so maybe framing a larger context for the activity / discussion?
I think that you hit the nail on the head. Always confirm with admin about the stuff they write. It should be done in a post eval conference. That way you dont work double and find out that there is a communication gap.
Listen to the Fresno Star. The young buck already sounds like a district WL coordinator, the kind there will be once Krashen gets traction.
Your comment jen reveals how you are caught between worlds. The old way of planning and showing demonstrable outcomes from planned instruction is a kind of summative thing and they are trying to hoist that on you while you are running in the opposite direction fast, as in:
… I don’t really ever think that I am targeting or focusing on language at all. My whole focus is on finding out about the kids or about some story we can get engaged in …
I think you need to not say to the principal that the formative work you are doing IS the assessment approach you use. I have seen that line actually cause admins eyebrows to alternately go up and down without them knowing it as the “Doesn’t conpute! Doesn’t compute! buzzer goes off.
I say lay low. I am fearful that this discussion is getting some of us too feisty and ready to reframe the entire discussion away from benchmark assessment into something we haven’t even invented or defined properly yet. I wouldn’t change the discussion for the world but that is why our group is private. That is why I am calling for NEXT year to be the year of testing a new kind of authentic assessment. In my view, the less discussion off this blog we have right now on matters of assessment with colleagues, the better. They ain’t ready, and jobs can be lost when we challenge people at the wrong times. Hey, I think that in view of my recent two months in my school I get to say that, right? Just give them what they want. And in small helpings. We need more time in the classroom to see where jGR/ISR and free writes and retells and such things will look like a year from now, as power tools in the new assessment game, which they are not yet right now.
“It is unclear how students are assessed on their performance in this format of instruction – however the feedback she provides for oral communication is immediate and constructive.”
You may say that the feedback isn’t meant to “correct” but rather to assess how students are communicating or performing while in class. This is because correction has nothing to do with acquiring the language.
“It is important to make learning goals clear to students so the focus doesn’t appear to be the completion of activities.”
You can say that the learning goal was: to find out 5 facts about a student. Whatever the main take away is from the lesson. Admin just wants a focus thing to put on their docs.
You know what? My Lv2 students probably do not “get it” about my class. They are like: “why are we doing the same thing?” They do activities just to do them but may not see the purpose.
Admin also writes stuff to just write stuff (some are nice enough to let you know)
I’m not sure about rationale. It’s probably about money and grown up people stuff. It’s about justifying some BS. Remember language is too complex and abstract to be taught as a subject. something like that.
You’re right that “feedback” is a by-product of assessment…so you clearly had some kind of assessment going on. Like Steven shared, administrators often ask that teachers assess every child, every day. Perhaps this observer needs to know how you were assessing all students, not just those to whom you gave feedback in class. If he wants assessments on paper give him a rubric. I bet it will be a great one. 😉
Oops, I meant to post my reply to jen
… but hi Steven!
Steven! Thank you!!! So helpful and simple: “Admin just wants a focus thing to put on their docs.”
And…this hit very close to home (class).
“My Lv2 students probably do not “get it” about my class. They are like: “why are we doing the same thing?” They do activities just to do them but may not see the purpose.”
Yes, absolutely! I started this week with some full on SLA nuggets of wisdom. “Principle 1: The Nature of Language” I figure might as well get the students on board with why we do what we do. Even though I “explain” and “illustrate” and tell personal stories, there is something about them hearing from another source. Plus I love playing the BVP opening dance mix theme.
There is so much on the blog right now I do not know where to post this, but today I had the kids do the quick quiz in their minds, so it was just a group effort. AND THE QUIZ WRITERS READ THE QUIZ IN FRENCH AND SPANISH!!! It was just a beautiful moment, when I just casually asked hey you think you are ready for that? And they (well three out of four) said sure thing and then read in front of the class like it was no biggie. So proud.
I have done these “mental quizzes” or “invisible quizzes” before but today the kids really loved it that one of them was leading it. They read each question twice, once with no one talking and then after a pause of a few seconds’ processing time, once more after which the class says the answer together. Maybe this could turn into a more community-oriented ritual but still provide closure. I would do that in the past when we ran out of time to get out the pencils and paper. But I might just try to figure out how to use this as my only end-of-class ritual in the future. I could do what Claire said and spot-assess kids for listening and responding? Like on the rubric, where it says something like “Respond to questions in the Language” I could randomly listen in on kids each day till I have a tally for everyone answering once or twice, then enter the grades when they are all accounted for as a class. But then everyone would get As. In my world having all As in your class is not a big deal. Anyway there will be Bs and some Cs from jGR’s influencce…
Do you guys do the thing where you have this relationship-building way for kids to get their jGR points back like writing you a card or a note about how good French class is? Or telling you something positive about their week/day? I do and so it is almost a pleasure to take their points away because I know we will get closer in the end. (Of course I learned the hard way that you can’t be all cray with taking the points away, unless you are also actively helping the kid to earn points back…I got these three kids into a hole in February and it was a mess getting us back on track.)
Whoa Tina, there’s a lot going on there in that reply.
Mental quizzes with non forced output. Awesome Possum.
“Respond to questions in the language” rubric. Good idea the way you can randomly sample kids and input that grade once you have them all filled-in.
I have been having trouble forgiving my level 2 kids. They are not at fault. I expect much more from them. Today, I gave some grammar work/book work to a student who blurted that the IC form (basically the jGR but self-evaluation) “was stupid”. The class held itself together after that.
I feel slightly sorry for not establishing a better relationship with the class. There is was much raucous at the beginning of class that I had to clean house. The process was not thorough, I am just surviving. Little by little, the students and myself are warming up. That said, I don’t mind giving them their grade based on jGR, test and homework. I always try and let them know that they can talk to me about their grade and what to make up.
Clearly Claire’s brilliant authentic assessment tour de force has struck a chord as many of us slog toward the last reporting session of the year.
What’s currently in place in many districts and buildings is a lame inherited status quo, uninspired mumbo-jumbo of vague ACTFL-ese eduspeak. Adminz who aren’t in the know cling to it like flies to shit. (Ladylike, I know).
We need to walk them through:
1. How language acquisition is different from conceptual practicing & learning, so that:
2. Assessment looks different, particularly for the novice levels, which must necessarily focus on the positive behaviors that support acquisition;
3. Rates of acquisition normally vary, but we will demonstrate that all are progressing;
4. Comprehension, which can be demonstrated through many observable teacher strategies/student behaviors, is the centerpiece of any best-practice language class.
5. I’m really into numbered lists lately.
This is awesome Alisa. A list for walking admin through the way it works in life. A re-humanization training because language acquisition is an inherent ability in humans.
I just looked again at my printout of Claire’s gorgeous Modified WIDA document including the BICS Benchmarks and Scope & Sequence for Entering, Emerging, Developing and Expanding.
I think it has A LOT of what we need!!
Claire can you resend to Ben, and Ben can you put a hard link in the primers?
Or maybe under Resources in the rubrics category?