Jen sums up: Off the top of my head…can I just define “formative” as everything I do daily? And then “summative” is where I see them trending at the end of each quarter? Would that make sense in my system? The problem with this, for how I see most kids now, is that if everything […]
Jen continues her reflection on Claire’s original articles: In summary at some point I will be accused of “grade inflation.” But I have the advantage of being the only Spanish teacher at the high school, and in fact in the whole district bc the middle school only has French. So I will keep doing this
In the previous articles jen described how she assesses and grades. In this one she describes how she gathers data: Data: we are required to submit our “benchmark data” at each quarter. This one cracks me up. First quarter I was shivering in my cowboy boots bc it seemed so daunting. Confession: my “benchmark assessments”
In the previous article jen described how she assesses. In this one she describes how she grades: Grading: most kids pass bc they demonstrate understanding in some way. even tho my CI classes are messy and contaminated with too much english. kids who fail are the kids who do not come to class. kids who
Jen continues: I’m curious what others do. I will be perfectly honest below about my current “assessment system”, “grading system” and my “data reporting.” Assessment: is pretty much what Claire describes, although having her describe it gives me more confidence to state what I do without fear. Whenever anyone asks “but how do you assess”
Jen responds to Claire in a comment which I divided up and made into four posts (easier to read): Wow! This whole series of articles 1-7 has gotten me even more fired up. I have not read all the comments yet, and will do that, but one of my burning questions is how to translate
I would just like to share some of the more hard hitting points from Claire’s comments on how we assess. I feel that, in spite of all I have done in forty years of teaching, I am just beginning to learn what best practices in assessment even means. My take-aways from what Claire wrote: (1)
Nathaniel responded with a simple comment to Claire. Russ has commented, as have others. There is interest. I can attest that this is new here. Yes, we had a great four year long discussion with jGR/ISR. It changed a lot of what we do but was always mitigated, dragged down. jGR/ISR is used a lot
Here is something Claire put together on portfolios: https://youtu.be/eb45v60-vHg
How to Play the Game: 1. Learn assessment terminology (never say [Blaine’s term] “breakdown” again – just don’t!). 2. Never say “I don’t assess.” 3. Always say “My assessments, like my instruction are research-proven and based on well-supported SLA theories of comprehensible input.” 4. Don’t test ever again. You could, like make your test just
This collection of observations on how we assess by Claire includes a nice little set of comments on “other teachers”: …or don’t fill out the rubrics anywhere but your heads. The purpose of the rubrics is to elevate what we do to something amazing this day and age – real, authentic assessments…. …don’t you see
…just with the time you would have written tests, don’t do that and instead fill out one rubric noticing how one student writes or speaks or responds nonverbally. Or don’t…. …don’t ever diminish the “noticing” that we do by saying we “don’t assess.” We do assess. It just looks different. Our assessment is harder to
