1. Reflective Assessment in Computing Instruction
Doug Peterson
Greater Essex County District School Board, Windsor, Ontario
J. Philip East
University of Northern Iowa
Greet audience and introduce us
Discussion time should be available but feel free to comment and question
as we go
Questions/comments before we start?

2. Overview Background An example (Philip) Another example (Doug)
Reflective practice
Assessment
An example (Philip)
Another example (Doug)
Recording assessment results & reflecting
Discussion (reflection on session)
I will provide some background information (briefly I hope :-)
Then I will provide an example of reflective assessment from my experience
Next, Doug, will provide an additional example from his experience
Then, he will address recording assessments of student learning and a tool
that facilitates that activity
Finally, we will have the official time for questions and discussion
Again, even though there is a question/comment time, feel free to ask
questions or make comments during the presentation

3. Reflective Practice (a model)
Pollard, Andrew. "The Process of Reflective Teaching." rtWeb. 20 Feb
Teaching is cyclic -- we think, plan, prepare materials, “teach” (act), and
then maybe collect, analyze, and evaluate data in deciding what to do
next (or next time)
Reflective teaching involves thinking about what to do next (time)
to improve our teaching or student learning
Planning and reflection are similar but not the same -- we all plan what
we will teach but we do not all (or always) reflect on our teaching and
students’ learning. Reflection is an explicit consideration of how we
plan and teach in an effort to do it better -- like thinking about thinking.

4. Reflective Practice (informally)
Considering/Questioning/Wondering
What you do
How to do better
About your teaching
About student learning
Reading/talking about teaching
By yourself or (preferably) with others
One thing at a time
An informal notion of reflective practice is probably sufficient for most
of us
Informally, reflection merely means you think about what you do and
how you might change something to do it better
Can question, think, read, talk, etc. to do reflection
Much reflection can be on your own, but the perspectives that
others bring to the situation can be very helpful. They will think of
things you do not
I encourage the use of a narrow focus. Full consideration of most any
instructional practice/artifact will touch much of what a teacher does
Today, we are considering reflection in assessment, so a few ideas about
assessment are pertinent

5. Assessment Ideas Assessment is a big idea
Can assess students, teacher activity (“teaching”), assignment,
instructional “approach”, instructional “philosophy” (of a school),
teachers …
Can be formative (to see whether/how to change practice) or to assess
student mis-understanding (and, presumably, to correct it)
or can be summative (to tell if or perhaps how well goals were met,
e.g., “grade” students, judge an assignment or lesson, see whether the
teacher/school/district is “effective”
Can be formal (highly planned) or informal (ad hoc, seat of pants)
Can occur after or (sometimes) during the teaching
Though not included on this slide, it is important to consider what is being
assessed, e.g., spreadsheet (features, use, design, PBL, …)
Perhaps assessment should guide instruction, e.g., decide on goals, plan
assessment, develop instruction/assignment/…, “do” it collecting data,
analyze data, assess success (& how to do better next time)

6. Example 1 (Philip) Computer Skills & Concepts (fluency course)
“Design” projects (web, spreadsheet, issue paper)
Web project goals
Experience design, implement, test & debug
Gain insight into why Web errors occur
My reflection …
Documents
Assignment
Rubric
Presentation notes
this example started with “grading” of a project in one of my courses
describe the assignment context
reflection started with realization that students were not really doing much
beyond HTML, I wanted interesting, “designed” projects requiring HTML
design/”programming”, not just simple putting things together
so, I needed to include that in my assignment and grade students on it
[briefly show/discuss assignment, as it exists now]
for consistency and to provide a feedback device, I created a grading rubric
[briefly show/discuss rubric, as it exists now]

7. Experience Iterations Assessment reflection changed instruction
Included assessment ideas in description
Worked to improve assessment ideas
Added “design” requirement
Urged design and discussed plans
(next) Design discussion & instruction
Assessment reflection changed instruction
Reflection & philosophy (think broadly)
My reflection did not end with the changes just mentioned--it continues
[indicate actions taken]
Important idea is that reflection on a simple student assessment can have
a much broader impact
In my case, reflecting on assessing this one project has led to a changes in
assessment and instruction including consideration of my philosophy of
teaching
Reflection is important to improving one’s teaching and to
knowing/understanding teaching practice
Next, Doug will provide some different insights concerning
reflective assessment

8. Example 2 (Doug) A general summative assessment rubric
See
Use of the rubric
Influence of the rubric
Discussion

9. Recording / Reflecting?
The goal at the end is to assign a value to the assessment
What is a “value”?
Is it cast in stone?
What is the purpose of accumulating the values?
Markbook example

10. For more reading… http://www.rtweb.info/

11. Questions?
Comments?
Discussion?