Here is a question I got from Lori:
Ben,
I just found out that all teachers at our school have a new requirement for next year:
…all teachers must prove that the students improve or learn over the course of their class. What will be your year-end summative assessment to show student growth/learning? (example: pre and post test)….
I imagine that some blog members are already required to do this and I wondered what such a pre/post test might look like. I appreciate any input at all. Thanks.
Lori
My response:
We do this in Denver Public Schools. They are called “Student Growth Objectives” (SGOs)and we get paid extra if we meet them. We have to do two per year. We do a pre test, attach a goal statement to it, and then try to reach that goal in a post test.
Since input (authentic learning) is hard to measure (it occcurs in the unmeasurable domain of the unconscious mind), the easiest goals are measurable goals and that means measuring gains in the output areas of writing and speaking.
Here is my 1st SGO for this currently ending academic year:
First 2011-2012 Objective
Status: Approved Decision: Pending Organization: Abraham Lincoln High School Role: Classroom Teacher Rationale: This objective supports the unified improvement plan goals. Population: Students enrolled in periods 8, 9, and 10 French level 1 classes Interval of Time: One school year Assessment: Teacher-Made Assessment Expected Growth: 80% of students enrolled in periods 8, 9, and 10 French 1 classes will score between 4 and 6 points as per the DPS World Language Writing Rubric by April, 2012. Baseline: Student results on DPS World Language Fall writing assessment. 100% of students scored a 0 on the fall pretest. Learning Content: Students will acquire a variety of phrases and structures in order to express themselves in oral and written communication. Strategies: Comprehensible Input, TPRS, embedded readings, reading of short novels, interactive communication in French.
I did not connect the post test evaluation to the DPS World Language Writing Assessment. It is easier not to. There is more flexibility and the results are more immediately measured.
In this writing objective, since all my classes this year are level one, I had a baseline of zero sentences. My students couldn’t write at all on the pre-test, which should be given as close to day 1 as possible for obvious reasons no matter what the level.
I used the DPS writing rubric, an excellent assessment tool, which ranges from 0 to 12 possible sentences. It may be on our DPS website. So if a kid can write twelve or more sentences about a prompt – a series of pictures with a beginning, middle and end – then, by counting the number of clauses and evaluating the flow of the story that they write (some kids use elegant transition words bc they heard them so much in stories), they would score at 12 on the assessment. However, if you notice my own goal, I kept it low – between 4 and 6 sentences for 80% of my students. Very do-able.
We just graded the writing samples yesterday – an all day affair where 100 WL teachers, every one in the district, gets together and reads and grades thousands of writing samples. I graded Reuben’s – they were the best, better than what 90% of current fifth year AP kids not trained with CI could do. I know this bc I have been in both worlds and I know that it sounds like hyperbole but it’s not. They wrote beautifully bc they heard so much language this year. Those are the poor kids in Reuben’s school. The white ones in the George Washington IB program (nationally famous) couldn’t do as well. Embarrassing for them, great for us.
All the CI trained kids in DPS all wrote organically – it was noticeable since we know which teachers use CI and which don’t. The CI kids’ grammar was actually better than the traditionally trained kids, but with the difference that their writing made sense. The bumpers were on the front and rear of the car, where they should be. The engine was in the engine compartement. The non-CI trained kids’ work looked sadly unlike a car at all. The bumpers were tied to the roof, the engine was laying in the street. The steering wheel was sticking out the back of the car. It was clear that these kids had no base in the sound of the language to use to express an idea in writing. Those glaringly deficient kids couldn’t express an idea in L2 bc they had not heard the language enough during the year – they had only studied the parts of the car as per what La said a few days ago.
Here is my second SGO:
Second 2011-2012 Objective
Status: Approved Decision: Pending Organization: Abraham Lincoln High School Role: Classroom Teacher Rationale: This objective supports the district goals. Population: 80% of the students attending period 9 French level 1 classes will score a 2 on the DPS World Language Speaking assessment by April 2012. Interval of Time: One school year Assessment: Teacher-Made Assessment Expected Growth: 80% of students will score 2 on the spring 2012 WL speaking assessment. Baseline: Results of the DPS WL fall 2011 speaking assessment. Learning Content: Students will learn a variety of vocabulary and structures in order to communicate in French. Strategies: Comprehensible Input methods
This SGO is easier than the first bc we have a kickass rubric where if you can just say one sentence about a three panel prompt (“There was a boy” is something any CI trained kid can say in their sleep) then you get a 2. Basically on this rubric the challenge is to get a 3 or 4. In a nutshell:
- 0: no effort to speak
- 1: one word spoken
- 2: one sentence spoken
- 3: student was able to articulate a simple story with a beginning, middle and end but with lack of fluidity.
- 4: student was able to articulate a simple story with a beginning, middle and end, expressed fluidly with command over the language.