collaboration

Analyzing Authentic Assessments

~ mrsprairie ~ Leave a comment

As we continue to practice aligning assessments to standards, it’s important to not only reflect on student data but to plan for improving results for all learners. Framing our conversation (aka using a protocol) about student data will help us focus on the learning targets and how the assessment actually provided evidence of mastery of the targeted standards.

Steps for Framing a Team Conversation

Within one week of giving a common assessment, set aside 30 minutes of your team’s common planning time (teachers will need to mark their class’s assessments before the team meeting). If you are a one-person team, then ask a critical friend, an administrator, or an instructional coach to join you for some analysis fun!

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I hope that my colleagues know that I am always eager to join a conversation about learning!

As a team, consider the following questions, from In Praise of American Educators, to determine the validity of the assessment, its alignment to the standards, and how the data will be used to improve results for all students. Your team may decide that other questions should be added to frame the conversation. Add those, too.

 

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The reproducible below is found in the book above.

 

Possible questions to consider, from DuFour’s book:

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Once the team feels that they have a better understanding of the students’ current learning of the targeted standards, then consider what these results mean to the next unit of study as well as how this unit will be revised for next year. Those reflective notes should be added to the unit documentation as well as the assessment. The ATLAS UbD template is a perfect spot to add strategies for differentiation and notes about the unit.

 

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This is our template for Stage 3 in ATLAS. Some teams also use Google Docs for Stage 3.

 

Finally, check out Solution Tree’s free resources for tools to help your team work collaboratively and with purpose, information about upcoming webinars, and a video library from the experts in learning.

Have a great week!

Ginny

Reaching Reluctant Writers

~ mrsprairie ~ 1 Comment

How do we inspire kids to be writers when they just don’t want to? This is the case for lots of kids. English Language Learners, perfectionists, those with insufficient experience or knowledge of a subject, those who prefer to tell stories rather than write them… the list is endless. Some kids (and adults) just don’t want to write.

Teachers can easily Google strategies to help reluctant writers- and find a plethora of resources to guide their lessons. The surest way to inspire writers is to be one… and share your ideas, your struggles, your stories. When I show a student the way I have used a certain strategy, in my own notebook, it shows them that I am in this with them- not teacher to student… but writer to writer. That is deep.

My Writer's Notebook. I need to fancy it up with pictures and ideas for stories!
My Writer’s Notebook. I need to fancy it up with pictures and ideas for stories!

This morning, I was asked to model a lesson in a sixth grade ELL class. The students participated in a Week without Walls experience last week, and their teacher, Mrs. Garrick, wanted them to write about it. Knowing that these two students were reluctant writers, I decided to show them a strategy that took the overwhelming pressure of staring at a blank page of many lines, and turned it into a fun way to hold on to memories.

The Model: I attended the EARCOS Leadership Conference last week in Bangkok. Looking back on my notes, I chunked my learning around 5 topics. I have 5 fingers, so I thought that if I traced my hand in my writer’s notebook, then not only do I have a place to brainstorm, but I have taken up some space, and won’t have to write as much (this is my middle school thinking). Genius!

Modeling the strategy
Modeling the strategy- trace the hand
Modeling the strategy- brainstorm the topics
Modeling the strategy- brainstorm the topics

Interactive Writing/Shared Writing: After I modeled my topics and journal entry, I asked the students to think about how they could divide their writing into topics. Since the subject was their Week Without Walls trip, they considered these topics-

  1. What was the best part of the week?
  2. What was the worst part of the week?
  3. What was most fun or most embarrassing?
  4. What did I learn?
  5. How did I make new friends or show leadership during the week?
Sharing ideas about topics
Sharing ideas about topics

Independent Writing: Hands were traced, ideas for each topic were jotted in the fingers on the page, and the writing began. They wrote topic by topic until they wrote to the very end of the page. “Now what?” they asked. “Turn the page and keep going,” we smiled.

"This was the best day of writing! It was so much fun! Look how much I wrote; can I finish it at home?"
“This was the best day of writing! It was so much fun! Look at how much I wrote; can I finish it at home?”

Sharing Time: I was barely able to get them to stop writing before the lunch bell sounded. My question was simple- what was different about today’s workshop, than other days? With smiles from ear to ear, they exclaimed…

“This was fun!”

“The topics made it easy to know what to write next!”

“The hand in the middle of the page meant that I didn’t have to write as much (even though they actually wrote more than any other workshop this year).”

This made us grin from ear to ear. Today we reached the most reluctant of writers.

My journal entry.
My journal entry.

Thank you, Mrs. Garrick, for sharing your wonderful students with me. I love spending time writing with you all and learning with you all.

Mrs. Garrick- fellow teacher, fellow learner, fellow writer.
Mrs. Garrick- fellow teacher, fellow learner, fellow writer.