"Grading Smarter, Not Harder": Testing & Retesting

Testing & Retesting

How can you ensure that an assessment reflects student knowledge?

Let's begin with retesting and the problems with traditional classroom testing systems.  According to Dueck, the following have been identified as problems with the testing system we are familiar with:

• flawed-tests cannot be revisited.
• little resemblance to reality
• test are a snapshot in time
• outcomes affected by unrelated variables
• low socioeconomic conditions are related more so with negative emotional factors
• negatively affect high-performing students as well.
• Traditional testing approaches discourage mastery

We should approach teaching more like coaching.  Whether you are a dancer, an athlete, an artist, or musician, constant practice leads to mastery.

• embrace and celebrate mastery through repeated effort
• put systems in place to support and celebrate student mastery in the classroom.

Traditional approach ignores the learning that occurs during testing

• learning is active, not static.
• students should be given the chance to identify the mistakes made on tests, and re-test, and learn why they made the mistake

Potential Retesting Problems

• Students may need to complete a 2nd test in its entirety
• This can be discouraging to them
• a waste of time for student and teacher
• tiring amount of paper for the teacher
• Retests take up valuable Class Time
• completing the curriculum on time becomes an issue
• Retests can provide data of little value
• did learning really improve?
• Retests may not reflect authentic learning

Using Graphic Novels, Comics, and Manga in the Classroom event

Using Graphic Novels, Comics and Manga in the Classroom

                         Saturday, May 19, 2018 from 01:00 pm to 05:00 pm

For event details click here>>

Thank you Arlene for the heads up on this event.

Weekly Question

Weekly Question:    

After reading the review on "Grading Smarter, Not Harder; Unit Plans" (part 1),   What are the four types of targets to include in unit plans?

To enter for a chance to win some new dry-erase markers:
1.  Follow this blog.
2.  Answer the following question in the comments section below.

Friday, April 27 10pm will be the deadline.

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"Grading Smarter, Not Harder": Unit Plan & Learning Targets (A module breakdown); Part 2

Part 2

Using learning targets efficiently requires us to form what Susan M. Brookhart and Connie M. Moss call a learning target parade.   
Learning targets from a sequence of lessons will add up to a larger unit goal, or state standard.  Daily learning targets include a description with words, pictures, demonstrations, or experiences.

All learning targets must adhere to the following criteria:
1.  Describe for the students exactly what they are going to learn by the end of the day's lesson.
2.  Written in a language the students can understand.
3.  Written in the point of view of a student who has not mastered the knowledge or skill of the day's lesson.
4.  Embodied in a performance of understanding--what the student will do, make, so, or write during the lesson -- that translates the description into action.   Performance of understanding helps students get where they need to be in order to achieve the learning target, as well as giving them evidence of how well they are doing.
5.  Include student criteria for success, or look fors, in a language that describes mastery of the learning target, not a score or grade.

Learning targets describe learning, not activities.

"Grading Smarter, Not Harder": Unit Plan & Learning Targets (A module breakdown); Part 1

Part 1

For my first weekly breakdown of Myron Dueck's "Grading Smarter, Not Harder" online workshop, we will be looking at learning targets.  The role of learning targets in a unit plan is to offer a positive transfer, linking prior knowledge to the ultimate academic goal for the unit.  An important key in ensuring students are learning and retaining the skills and concepts taught to them is letting them know what is coming up in their learning.  Surprises put the students at a disadvantage.  There are three strategies preparing students for the road ahead.
First, offering student-friendly unit plans.  An effective unit plan identifies which type of targets students will meet:

Solar System Exploration by NASA

Explore the planets, dwarf planets and moons of our solar system with NASA's Solar System Exploration.  Interactive displays take students, and teachers, on a trip to each celestial body in our solar system to learn specific features of each.  A great resource for a project, test prep, or just fun exploration.  This will help students studying Earth Science and Space in the upper elementary and middle school grades.

You can find a link to NASA's Solar System Exploration on the Staff Resources Padlet.

Search YouTube videos in the classroom without the distractions of ads and other video on the screen with this website, Tube.

Animated History resource

The following site is a great resource for animations and interactive interface for teaching history and social studies.  There are several activities and animations for teaching the American Revolution, including battles, for fifth grade lessons.

Jungle Jeopardy: An Ecosystem Game

Jungle Jeopardy, a PBS Kids site, is geared for students in kindergarten thru fourth grade.  In this interactive game students are to create a balance in a rain forest ecosystem, keeping alive each animal over a period of 12 days.   Students learn about different species of plants and animals in a rain forest and how they depend on each other.  Experiment with changing one resource at a time (variables) and how the affect the whole system.


You can find a link on our Staff Resource Padlet as well.

Article review: The Magic of Writing Stuff Down

The following article, from Educational Leaders (April 2018) discusses the research behind taking notes and its positive effects on academic achievement.  With the onslaught of technology and laptops in the classroom over the last few years, many have thought using devices will aid in note-taking.  Over the last 20 years, research has shown the old adage is still true, the pen is mighter...!
Retention of information is closely correlated to students taking notes by hand. 

For more information and tips, please check out the article by Byran Goodwin.
                                                                       

"Grading Smarter, Not Harder": A professional review and talking points

Over the next 5-6 weeks I will be sharing reviews and information from an online P.D. course based on the book, "Grading Smarter, Not Harder" by Myron Dueck.  During my studies and projects for the N.J. E.X.C.E.L. my interest has been sparked by the current research and publications of assessments and grade reporting, and how it is changing.  Thomas R. Guskey's "On Your Mark" is an interesting, and easy, read.  He challenges the conventional ways we have been grading and report in school over the last 100 years.

Below are topics I will be reviewing and sharing as discussion points from the course:
Week 1:  Unit Plan and Learning Targets
Week 2:  Issues with Traditional, one-shot unit test structure, development of reassessment structure
Week 3:  Separating Behaviors and Academics when reporting
Week 4:  Purpose of Homework (practice, reinforcement, and preparation)
Week 5:  Creativity and Student Ownership

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Article Review: Giving Students the Right Kind of Writing Practice

The authors of the following article (Gallagher and Kittle) discuss the importance of the right kind of writing practice.  They firmly believe the only way to ensure a student improves their writing over time is through practice, and enough of it.  The kind of practice is offered to students makes all the difference.  All too often the practice we give kids in school to write actually may hinder their improvement, and turn them off to writing altogether.  The rote standard practice of writing five paragraphs formula stunts their ability to develop their own voice and "denies them the crucial experience of organizing their thinking." (Gallagher and Kittle, 2018). 
Their answer to what the proper kind of practice looks like in the classroom is creating a unit of writing for a particular genre in loops.  Looping during units presents an opportunity of progress through skills necessary to become stronger writers.   Student's volume of writing will increase, leads to deeper understanding, and increases a student's confidence as a writer.  The article takes you through a sample narrative writing unit.  The first lap focuses on short memories as the writer stays and focuses on one specific moment in time.  Students read lots of mentor texts with the teacher, the teach models and writes with them.  This only takes one week.  During the second lap (one week) students still don't write an entire, but write only about a moment in a story (perhaps just a half a page long).  Still studying numerous mentor texts.  We study and write along side them.  Lap three (three weeks) students are asked to create a series of scenes to tell a story.  Students study the shape of stories and our focus is to look at the skills to build on what they learned during the first two laps.  Focus on endings and look at how expert story tellers craft their stories.  The fourth lap (three weeks) allows the teacher to differentiate instruction for those students who are still struggling with crafting several scenes.  Others who are more advanced begin telling stories "through the lens of multiple narrators", a higher level of complexity. 


I recommend this article to everybody, and perhaps this could help us to organize a scope and sequence, or curriculum map for our writing program.  Let me know what you think.  Could this work in you classroom? 

                                                               

(the article is also available on the Staff Resource Padlet, found here >>> )

Padlet: An Online Staff Resource

The following Padlet has been created as a resource for E.P.C.S. staff members.  Available to all staff will be documents, information packets, research, articles, forms, and whatever else you think would be valuable to us.  Please send me items you would like to share with the rest of us and I will update on a weekly basis.  Some of the items on there already I have come across in my classes, researching, and looking for information for the classes I have been teaching.

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