Understanding by Design Day 4

The room The team The topic

 Start where your students are.  Know where your students are going.  Expect to get your students to their goal.  Support your students along the way.  Use feedback to help you and your students get better.  Focus on quality rather than quantity.  Never work harder than your students. How to plan rigorous instruction: Mastering the principles of great teaching, Robyn R. Jackson, 2011

Our Day  What are High Quality Assessment Events?  How does the tool focus the event?  How does assessment drive instruction?  How do we measure personal and social development in all subject areas?  How do unpacked outcomes help?

 Our understanding of the curriculum  Our understanding of planning processes  Our ability to use criteria as the basis of planning  Our advanced skills in observing students  Our comfort with trusting ourselves  Our ability to analyze student thinking and development to see new levels of complexity  Our ability to practice new skills and try new ideas  Our experience that leads us to trusting students and ourselves to make curriculum meaningful  Our understanding of making learning visible

 We are ready to refine...

 Computer use  Positive intentions  Taking risks  Listening to all (parking lot process)

 Goal: Analyze the assessment evidence you have brought with you today with a group of your colleagues

 Locate yourself at the designated table for the subject area representing the student work you have brought with you today.

 To practice using rubrics in many contexts (math, ELA, phys. ed, etc.).  To look at options for measuring growth (a variety of assessment events).  To think about consistency – is it possible?

Using a rubric in multiple contexts

 Go to Curriculum Corner and pull up the rubric you could use to assess your assessment event.  As a group, discuss where each student would lie on the continuum of learning on the rubric, after examining the work together.  Each person in your group will need time to share at least some of their assessment evidence.

 How consistent were your group members in deciding the level on the continuum?  Does the assessment event fit the criteria as defined within the rubric (tool)? Does this experience match the criteria?  Does this assessment event seem more formative or summative? How do you know?  What are other possible ways to assess this same criteria?

A metaphor

ExceedingMeeting independently Mostly meeting with assistance Not yet meeting

 Checklists  Highlighting  Clarifying criteria (within criteria)  See handout

 Choose one the following 4 cities as the place you’d go tomorrow if you could and write it on your strip of paper: ◦ Paris ◦ Beijing ◦ Chicago ◦ Rio de Janeiro  Find other people who chose the same as you. Form a group – if there are more than three of you in a group, divide into two or more groups of 2-3 people.

 Health posters  Assessing with the rubric  Entering data into StudentsAchieve  Determining feedback and instruction to follow  Decisions, decisions. Summatively assess again? Redo?

Two responses to the same outcome

 What if we were assessing this project in ELA instead?

 So how would this look in the program?  How do I decide if this is summative or formative?  How can the program help me monitor growth?

 How will tomorrow’s Learning Experiences address the concerns? How could instruction look?  What feedback do you need to give?  What conversations do you still need to have? What essential question aren’t answered fully?  What learning experiences would you follow up with? What resources do you still need to consult with these students?

 How do we decide on the time we invest in an assessment event? (Ex. Exam vs. Project; Poster vs. Reflection)  Which assessment event makes the most sense given the value of our time together and the ways a student will need to show their learning?

 Strong content – to elicit the right performance from students  Clarity – clear instructions and awareness of criteria  Feasibility – practical given the available time and materials  Fairness and accuracy – all students have a chance to be successful, no bias  Sampling – addresses the depth and breadth of the outcome with just enough tasks

 “Best answer” multiple choice  Persuasive writing assignments  Invention tasks  Decision making  Explain your answers  Error analysis  Learning portfolio  Capstone experiences  Performance tasks  Project application

 Return to your table grouping from this morning.  Look at the samples you brought: ◦ What feedback would you give your students? ◦ What conversations/ essential questions still need to be explored? ◦ What learning experiences and resources will follow (this could mean revisiting the outcome or moving onto the next – this exemplar will impact both scenarios)? ◦ Does the assessment event meet the criteria for a summative assessment? If not, how will the summative look?

1. Mrs. White, a Grade 8 teacher, who describes herself as not much of a digital expert, recognizes that her students would benefit from utilizing digital tools to examine the health outcome concerning Impact of Violence. 2. Students have already covered some Digital Citizenship and “information literacy” issues to assist them accessing and processing info from the web. They also are very familiar with a variety of tools from previous users, mind map, Prezi, Voicethread. 3. She approaches her Digital Learning Consultant for her school, “Thad Swidzinski” and exclaims, “ I’d really like to try to incorporate some digital tools to help my students in health class.” After brief discussion, Thad resists the initial temptation to run away quickly from Katie, and provides the following solution. Book a set of Netbooks for a solid week for health class. 4. Thad will come in on the first day to help students and Katie set up a Google site (wiki) to contain artifacts (sites, blogs, videos, twitter feeds), and also to provide comments on the wikis 5. So the next day, after setting up the Google site, Katie and Thad co-teach and walk students through the rubric and get them to break it down before they do their research.

 How might this manifest itself differently in various subject areas?  How can we provide students the opportunity to explore above and beyond when they are ready to do so?  How do we measure exceeding?  How do we ensure students are clear about how this translates to percentages (in grades 9-12)?

 To enhance the depth of learning for all students, which includes considering how students can continue to push and explore (exceed expectations). To plan for ways to invite students to exceed expectations. To attend to the renewed curricular expectations.  To ensure all our students are afforded the same opportunities as students across the province to receive scholarships, be accepted into programs, etc. In other words, our students cannot be disadvantaged because we ask them to think more deeply.

 We want students to get into post secondary institutions  And...  We want them to do well once they are there!

 What does the criteria of the PSD look like in various subjects?  When and how would you measure these criteria in subjects? What are the specific times and places where these criteria are relevant?

 Design assessment events to connect directly to the criteria.  Examine unpacked outcomes and rubrics and work on Learning Plans.  Connect with Digital Learning people!  Continue to assess the work you brought and plan responsive instruction.  Look for supports on Curriculum Corner – explore!!