The conference on assessment either confirmed some ideas that I was trying to work on in my teaching or reminded me that there are things that I need to do better on.
Confirmed
- Zeroes--Doug Reeves calls assigning zeroes toxic. I now have more confidence than ever to continue not assigning zeroes.
- Averaging only--I will continue to look at progress and the most recent evidence to compute student scores. This is made more difficult by an electronic grade book that only averages but I will go back to paper if I have to.
- Formative assessment--the most important thing to focus on.
Reminded
- Assess means to "sit beside." I need to work on giving even more timely feedback to my students. I will work on making contact with each student at least once during a 90 minute period. During this contact I will try to really ascertain whether they are getting it or not.
- Randomization. Student participation needs to be random. This lets kids know that they can be called on at any time so they stay more involved. I will finally buy the Popsicle sticks that I have been meaning to get, and put each students name on one of them. This is how I will draw their names randomly.
- Hands down except to ask a question. No one can raise their hands. I will pull the Popsicle stick and call on them.
- Pass on a question. I have always allowed students a pass. But I will change this policy so that my response will be, "OK, but I'll come back to you at the end." This means that they need to stay engaged and listening to the others because I will come back to them and say, "What did you think was the best answer of those three and why?"
- Non-fiction writing. I knew that writing was important but I did not know of its profound effect on all subject areas. Thank you Doug Reeves for this one! Even in physics and math (and science) an increase in non-fiction writing about the subject increases student scores. I do a lot of non-fiction writing but I will improve upon what I do and make it more systematic. The first thing I am going to do is to have students write about the most important thing that they learned in our class during the first semester. They will post these on the wall outside of our room. We will do this on Monday. A second thing that I would like to work on is a blog of student work. This may begin as a paper newsletter but I hope I will be able to morph it into a publication at some point.
- Graphing of student performance. I do a little of this now but I need to improve what I do and make it, again, more systematic. I will create a one page sheet for each competency and begin having students graph their performance.
School Wide
- At the Beyond ABC conference in 2006 we were told that one thing that we should change immediately is progress reports. If they include a number they are not progress reports. Reports with a number are fine by the way--they just aren't progress reports. I will work harder than ever to finally make real progress reports a reality again at Concord High School. I have great respect for the progress report committee of last year (I have to my wife was on it) but their findings are in opposition to the research. I feel that we do not need to discuss this one. A leader should simply explain the following: 1. We give students an achievement report every day through our online system Parent Connect, 2. This means that we do not need to print off a special "paper" achievement report at a given time, 3. What we do need is an official day where teachers are encouraged to sit beside students and discuss progress. NOT the grade, but progress. How is the student doing in relation to meeting the competencies? How is the student doing in relation to the Habits of Mind?, 4. We value this progress conversation so much that we are setting aside 4 days per year and we want you to use these days to sit and converse with students about how they are doing.
- 101 point grading system. I will work to continue to educate teachers, students and parents about the fallacy of the reliability of the 101 point system. If the AP board thinks that 5 levels are OK then we don't need to continue to do 101.
- 1-5 scale. I will work to continue to educate people on the logic and the reduced subjectivity of the 1-5 scale.
I should have this all accomplished by the end of the week. Maybe 2 weeks.
