Planning Assessments

When you first enter the field of teaching, the word "assessment" may have a very precise and inflexible meaning to you: An exam, or a test. As we study the structure of Standards, designing Pacing Guides, Units, and individual lessons, it becomes very necessary to examine and reconsider the idea of an "assessment" as an absolute, and start to implement the term in a more fluid concepts.

This is where formative assessments become a completely different aspect to how teaching, and learning, take place. Of course, it is reasonable to suggest and understand that someone being given a set of instructions will not produce intended work without first "forming" an appropriate and correct practice through a series of informal performance measures. This is where the "formative" part comes in.

Formative assessments challenge teachers to assess students without emphasizing the delivery of a grade. In schools and administrations where grades alone are the de facto standard that measures learning, and sometimes by extension a teacher's performance, an undue emphasis on the specific number or letter of grades can very realistically dictate how certain performance standards are addressed in the classroom. The key is to take the weight of the term "assessment" out of Formative Assessments.

This is not to say that formative assessments lack meaning. This is only to clarify that formative assessments are not meant to be tied directly to a grade. In getting students from concept to production, we as teachers need to have many graded steps along the way. A formative assessment, then, becomes merely another tool in the box to gauge student understanding and responsiveness, and adjust accordingly. As such, formative assessments can take many shapes.

Allow me to frame my approach. The standard I have chosen to examine for this Unit and Module remains the Common Core State Standard ELA- Literacy W.8.8:

Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, using search terms effectively; assess the credibility and accuracy of each source; and quote or paraphrase the data and conclusions of others while avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation.

Having unpacked an analysed the myriad objectives revealed by this standard, it is difficult for me to assign three formative assessments to only one standard. This is because, again, I'm not correctly "unpacking" the term formative assessment, but also I am approaching the standard from a built-int and differentiated view of an ESL/EFL teacher.

In the introductory phase (Lesson 1) of the Unit, I set for students a formative assessment that included completing a Digital Scavenger Hunt, worksheet, and exchange of information. Those activities, each on their own, could reasonably be categorized as formative assessments. At each stage, students are asked to identify, record, and relate their findings. What lacks is a decisive focus on the activities as formative, which is notable not only because student proficiency is needed in all areas of this assessment in order to enter the next stage,  but also because the stages of the assessment require proficiency in more than one skill area pertaining to my particular classroom: Comprehension in English, Recording/Writing in English, and Speaking in English.

So let's examine the next step in what I have termed "Research Unit." In specific terms, this objective is:

Students will be able to identify the validity of information found on the internet.

 In the ESL/EFL classroom, this objective branches into a few others pertaining to specific language skills in Reading, Writing, and Speaking that I have mentioned above. Therefore, my implementation of formative assessments based on this objective are going to inevitably skew towards those lingual skills and eventually culminate in assessments across those areas. In this type of situation, formative assessments must be delivered consistently, with purpose, and with a multi-faceted focus. Teaching English literacy across all curricular skills requires this level of coordination, and as such my assessments need to be encompassing, while at the same time focused.

To being, let's make some assumptions of the ESL/EFL classroom:

1. Students have demonstrated proficiency in understanding the term "google," etymologically and in context, as a noun and a verb.

2. Students have demonstrated the ability to collaborate, identify, and articulate their findings in a rudimentary Digital Scavenger Hunt. This, in and of itself, is three formative assessments: A. Reading-- Demonstrate the ability to locate and comprehend information on the internet; B. Writing-- Record information on a worksheet; and, C. Listening & Speaking-- Relate information to others to complete missing information.

3. Students are now progressing to the 2nd stage of the Research Unit.


ACTIVITY: The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus

In this activity, students will be prompted to study ad legitimize the existence of the Northwest Tree Octopus--famously, the internet site is a hoax: http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/.

There's a lot of content on the hoax webpage in terms of reading--for example, use of scientific terms and their meaning in context, examination of persona and voice in "Blog," "News," and "FAQs," In order to appropriately fit this activity into an ESL/EFL classroom, one would need to identify and expand student reading comprehension proficiency.

Formative Assessment #1:

Answer the following questions about the webpage using information found:

1. What is the tree octopus's natural habitat?
2. Why is it "endangered"?
3. When have people reported seeing this creature?
4. What is the most recent "News" the website has to offer?
5. Why does the website have a gift shop?
6. What is the "look" and "feel" of the website? 

The first formative assessment seeks to gauge student comprehension of the information they've found. It is very likely at this stage that students will discover the website contains questionable /joke information; however, some students may struggle to interpret the information, and others may find it difficult to describe why they believe the information is not true.

This assessment can be conducted in many ways:

1. Large group discussion 
     --Set questions as a discovery task; corroborate evidence of activity in inquiry-based learning.
2. Table group quiz 
     --Set an amount of time that table groups can work on the research questions together; have set questions they need to identify before them.
     --Can also be something like a Kahoot! quiz, which focuses on MCQ format and is a good practice run for periodic exams.


3. Intensive Study  
     --Best for less verbal/lower proficiency students: Conduct the exploration of the Tree Octopus Webpage, and record answers individually or in pairs (for individual submission). This assessment supposes that students will need more time to comprehend information contained on the webpage, and may contain additional steps:
               --Targeted vocabulary/ words in context/ explanation 
               --Vocabulary word study: Find the word, examine its context, and determine its part of speech. Use the word in your own example sentence.
                            --Again, something like Kahoot! quiz could reinforce correct reading of new vocabulary words and their context.
                --Proceed to Table Group Quiz in subsequent class session.


Formative Assessment #2

At this stage, students will be asked to  conduct independent research as to why they believe the website is true, or false. This will provoke students to seek secondary sources that corroborate their information.

Note: High-performers would have found this already by exploring the "News" links on the webpage; less proficient students will benefit from the process.

This assessment beckons students to return to Google: a quick Google search about the Northwest Tree Octopus will at least yield a Wikipedia page about the hoax. Also, there is at least one NPR "snippet" about the page's popularity as satire. This prompts several different possible explorations:

1. The contents of a Wikipedia page, with special attention to its reference practices and works cited section.

2. How other webpages (Wikipedia, NPR) are credible and how they cite their sources.

Assessment:

#1: Exit ticket: Students describe how they discovered that the webpage was a hoax, and why/how they used different sources to prove it.

#2 Students complete another Digital Scavenger Hunt in subsequent sessions which asks them to find information on the internet, and then defend their sources according to the tree octopus page example.

What's become important to me to remember about formative assessments is that they can take many shapes, and may be immensely mutable according to individual student, and even perhaps class, need. The emphasis, then, on planning for them is to realize and account for branching assessments that may be needed, points that may need to be re-taught, and adjustments or contingency in your lesson plans to accommodate for diverse needs.

Understanding and Applying Standards

In Unit 1 of  TEACH-NOW Module 5, we've been tasked with understanding and applying overarching standards that will drive our development of curriculum and learning activities in the classroom. Standards are, while mandated, are very necessary component of determining appropriate approaches to learning--the key in managing and applying the standards lies in being able to connect them with specific student output that demonstrates learning has taken place.

My approach to this Unit's content has been to select Common Core State Standards that are relevant to my teaching at this moment. Unpacking those standards, that is, driving to the very heart of the intended performance and learning indicators, is designed to direct an educator's study of applicable standards in order to apply these standards meaningfully in context. From there, the idea of Backwards Mapping helps educators draw lines to the language of the standard and what students are actually doing in their classroom.

The choice of Common Core State Standards for this Unit has helped me apply some standards to the seemingly random input nature of Communicative-based language instruction. Although my school has determined a mission and a coherent set of values and expectations for student achievement, what lacks is a specific structure of standards guiding curriculum. Required material is approached from a basis of content and what should be known, but not a lot of direction is supplied in terms of what students will do with the knowledge they are required to understand, replicate, and produce.

In a typical Unit from our academic English textbook, a variety of language structures and goals are contained under an umbrella of keyword content--a sort of unifying concept behind the language goals for that particular Unit. Listening, Reading, Writing, Speaking, Grammar, and Vocabulary are all taught concurrently, though the skills in the textbook build on previous Unit competencies, they can at times remain isolated from one another. As the teacher, it's therefore my job to attempt to thread the content to a reasonable demonstration of skills and the desired output for the Unit--usually in measurable written and speaking tasks.

Working with the Common Core State Standard to Research and Build Knowledge: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.8.8  as well as the Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.8.6 has given me insight into how to perform backwards mapping to meet overarching sets of standards. We're often thinking in terms of what we want students to do--if anything, I frequently start from a desired project, written assignment, or other kind of output to have something interesting to do in class that can engage learners and help them apply what they are studying.

In that sense, it was refreshing to learn that Backwards Mapping is sort of, kind of, what I've already been trying to practice--however without the specific terminology and method, and without that guiding light of standard to which I can connect student activity.

Of the materials studied this Unit, I remain very interested in exploring more of Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe's Understanding By Design. In reviewing and working with design templates, I found myself really excited by the possibilities of integrating dozens of learning experiences and assessment into curriculum and keeping that engagement front and center. Designing and implementing more sophisticated lessons is what my teaching practice needs to become more relevant for myself, my students, and their learning experiences beyond my classroom. 

A challenge that has been revealed to me over the course of the Unit was how to manage my activity independently, selecting CC State Standards that are not in place in my particular teaching position at present. There's no requirement for me to do this, but in encountering the challenges of instilling certain understandings and practices in my students--particularly the use of information, and the language skill of paraphrase--into meaningful work.

My students are almost exclusively English Language Learners--some higher-level students are remarkably fluent in the language, but in the teaching of academic concepts of research, cross-curricular literacy, and presentation/speaking convention, you can find very easily in even the most fluent students a big gap in realizing what these concepts mean.

This adds another layer to incorporating applicable standards into my classroom learning activities--that of differentiation to meet myriad layers of ELL understanding and higher-order thinking in this area among my students. I expect applying a ELA-Literacy standard to an ELL classroom is going to have a few more steps than you may see in a native-speaking classroom-- steps that integrate with each other in the areas of Reading Comprehension & Analysis, Vocabulary Development, Cultural understanding of decorum (especially in Presentation-style speaking and using appropriate body language), which can also apply to the culturally-centric notion of Digital Citizenship.

In writing the above paragraph, I realized that those things I've mentioned above are most likely also present in a classroom of young native-English speakers as well. I think the key to understanding my position is developing relevant materials within the sphere of each standard that differentiate to my particular group of students-- beginning with the focus of ELL/ESL/EFL, and further differentiating from there based on student need. 

Overall, I think I have a lot to benefit from in Units such as these--pulling down the standard, magnifying it, breaking it down, and working backwards from tasks to develop the meaningful content I can apply, is the real meat and potatoes of teaching, to me. I've been working backwards already to meet the language objectives of the text I teach, which leads to several manifestations of testing environments, but what was different this time was really exploring the objectives and practices that speak to the greater standards and their "Big Ideas." Big ideas are good! It's having the tools to get from idea to reality that is really important in delivering, again, a meaningful and applicable learning experience, and even to "level up" our own skills as educators.

Standards and Backwards Mapping

Overview

When choosing a standard to unpack and work with over the course of this Unit and Module, I faced several applicable choices. While I will speak a little bit more to my impressions of incorporating Common Core State Standards into my courses and curriculum in the conclusions of this post, for study and development I have decided to choose an ELA/Literacy standard focusing on Research to Build and Present Knowledge:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.8.8

Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, using search terms effectively; assess the credibility and accuracy of each source; and quote or paraphrase the data and conclusions of others while avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation.

I will apply this standard to 8th Grade English Language Arts as the main part of a competency Unit in Information Gathering and Using Research. I expect that Unit would be taught concurrently with other applicable standards in the areas of Reading: Craft and Structure, and Speaking: Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas.

I chose this standard to develop for Module 5 as it relates directly to my current work in English as a Second Language, and the vision of my current school to instill a level of academic preparation in its students to pursue University opportunities abroad in English-speaking countries. As such, students are often very unfamiliar with the standards surrounding proper use of information for academic purposes in English-speaking countries and education systems. Understanding plagiarism and paraphrase is a much higher-order thinking skill in the English subject area than students are used to dealing with: Learning the language by rote and having few opportunities to experiment with fluency and communication outside of school does not often provide enough opportunities for students to understand the importance of using information responsibly and striving to remain original when producing academic work.

Additionally, this standards supplies good foundation-work in research practices to be expanded in other subject fields, particularly the Sciences. Instilling the understanding of how to use information properly from a lingual standpoint will be utilized and integrated as students move into higher levels and perform more intense academic-based research intended to gain admission into high education institutions on an international level.

Student Proficiency 

By the end of the Information-Gathering and Research Unit, Students will be proficient in the following areas:

1. Students can use internet search to find and gather information needed for work on various topics.
2. Students can identify and select appropriate source information for their research.
3. Students can properly quote, paraphrase, and cite source information in their work.

Assessment

• Two-tiered Digital Information Scavenger Hunt: 
1. Find information related to a topic and relate that information to others.
2. Find information related to a topic, and defend your source.
• Paraphrasing Quiz: Identification, and Production
• Written Assessment: Article about a Special Dish from another culture/country.
• Students perform research about a Special Dish, noting the significance of the dish in the following areas:
• Presence in cultural/traditional celebrations
• History and development of the dish
• Special or ceremonial preparation

Activities/ Learning Experiences 

1. Digital Information Scavenger Hunt #1

• Primary/ Formative Assessment: Students use a list of topics to find detailed information about, noting the website on which they discovered the information and the search terms they used to find the website.

2. The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus (http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/)

• Reinforces the standard of proficiency in identifying and selecting credible and accurate sources of information.
• Students explore the internet to experience false websites, websites that contain questionable/inaccurate information, and websites that are valid sources of information.
• Outcome: Prove or disprove the existence of the Tree Octopus.
• Guiding Question: How do you discover and determine the validity of information on the internet?
• Students complete a series of steps designed to uncover the truth of the Tree Octopus-- that it a hoax webpage.

3. Digital Information Scavenger Hunt #2

•  Students use a list of topics to find detailed information about, either proving or disproving the information and building a defense for their source of information.
• Students categorize source information in three ways: False/Hoax/Scam, Clickbait/Gossip/Tabloid, and Credible/Journalistic/Academic.
• Formative Assessment: Information Exchange and Peer evaluation: Students defend findings and source information. 

4. Using quotes & Understanding paraphrase

• Students explore different types of inspirational/funny/witty quotes their source.
• Activity: Students paraphrase quotes in a variety of different ways, using a roundtable differentiation/variation activity that builds on information given in a previous response.
• Students apply foundations of paraphrase to different sources of information.
• Assessment: Quiz to identify correctly paraphrased material, and produce an acceptable paraphrase materials.

Other Standards Relevant to the Unit

In developing this Unit for Module 5, other skill competencies and their attendant standards have been revealed as useful connections to draw to the proficiencies outlined above.

Specifically, the following from 8th grade Reading: Craft and Structure and Speaking: Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas, respectively:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.8.6Determine an author's point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how the author acknowledges and responds to conflicting evidence or viewpoints.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.8.5

Integrate multimedia and visual displays into presentations to clarify information, strengthen claims and evidence, and add interest.

Working backwards from the Reading standard, students will integrate comprehension skills to understand material contained in internet sources, as well as their perspectives and purpose.

Applying the same method to the Speaking/ Presentation standard, students can utilize their understanding of selecting and using source information to build and present ideas, generate interest in chosen topics, and present their knowledge from a base of accurate information.

Integrating both of these standards into the Information Gathering and Using Research Unit can reinforce literacy across different types of reading materials, particularly electronic/internet-based materials, and move students forward into utilizing information to develop presentation and speaking competencies. The end result would be students that understand how to interpret different types of texts, identify their usefulness as sources of information, and interpret that information for the purpose of building a presentation.

Sources:

1. Common Core State Standards Initiative. Retrieved from: http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy.

2. ACSDAuthor Jay McTighe: The Greatest Lesson Learned (2014 Jan 27) [Video File] Retrieved: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUtzbJtS1aY

3. Wiggins, Grant (2005- Sept). Understanding by Design: Overview of UBD and the Design Template. [PDF document] Retrieved:  http://www.grantwiggins.org/documents/UbDQuikvue1005.pdf

4. The Glossary of Education Reform (2013, Dec 13). Backward Design [Weblog comment] Retrieved: http://edglossary.org/backward-design/

Applying Classroom Rules and Procedures

As any well-seasoned teacher will tell you, having rules simply posted on your classroom wall is not going to embed much of an incentive for students to follow them on their own volition. A large part of teaching is managing your classroom environment so that you can accomplish your educational and professional goals with your classes.

I've been guilty of this, still in my first few years of teaching. Well, there's a sign on the wall, why aren't they getting it? A healthy part of growing and developing involves testing your boundaries, taking risks, and launching silent or overt protests to your restrictions--and my students have proven to be no exception.

This year, I took a healthy look at my classroom rules, tried to make them succinct as possible, and also tried to very broadly outline positive and negative consequences that could be experienced for each rule. To chart them all would be exhaustive for this activity, but I have chosen what I consider to be one of the most prominent rules of the room: No Electronics Without Permission.

I have chosen to highlight positive and negative student interactions with this rule because I found myself designing many more activities dependent on, or at least with the option to use, technology to develop student work. As such, my students very often find themselves with the ability to use electronics in my class--and also, with many opportunities to take liberty with the rule. It's difficult for a plugged-in young person to discriminate between appropriate and inappropriate classroom behaviors--and sometimes even if they can, they will implement a game of cat-and-mouse. I've already found a few rather gaping holes in my policy--relying too heavily on a smartphone to complete class work, for one--so the intricacies of this rule are always in flux.

The challenge with pinpointing and implementing positive reinforcement for appropriate interactions with classroom rules remains the human tendency to only be vigilant for, point out, and remember the infractions. Using electronics without permission in classes comes with a whole set of reporting procedures that every student at my school is eager to avoid. Negative interactions with this rule are therefore very easy to prescribe consequences toward.

For example, students will often try to sneak a few rounds in of whatever game they please while using their electronics to complete classwork--especially if they are fast-finishers. This is typically pretty easy to spot--they've completed the work as quickly and carelessly as possible, so they can re-costume their avatar or launch virtual battles with other students in the class, and it almost always culminates in several surrounding students crowding around one device, abandoning their own work, to see the action in progress.

In response to these instances, I step in immediately and confiscate the device. I have a daily behavior/classwork checklist that I use for all students, and this infraction gets noted on that list. Once class has ended, the student and I have a brief conversation about why the device was taken, and how it cannot be used for the remainder of the week to complete classwork. Usually this stops the problem, because the student knows I have taken notice of them, and they also know the next step--confiscation of the device again, but this time the student must go to the behavior "Supervisors" as they're known in my school for retrieval. This results in a larger consequence for the student, as if they have visited the Supervisors too many times on the same offense, parents will be notified.

I've never had to take the issue much farther than just revoking electronics privileges for certain students in the class. Yet, I haven't put much thought into tracking positive behaviors--there again, because I make little marks and ticks for students causing concern, leaving the well-behaved set blank, with no distinguishing plan for their behavior.

I imagine a flowchart for implementing positive and negative consequences regarding the Electronics Rule as thus:



ACKNOWLEDGING POSITIVE BEHAVIORS
At the beginning of this year, I formed small group "committees" in my classes to help me identify and implement positive rewards for following classroom rules and displaying good behavior. The results of this have been mixed, but I can say that appealing for student buy-in to this process has created what I feel a higher level of enthusiasm for class activities, as now they are able to see a "light," as it were, in terms of how I will incentivize their positive interactions with my rules.

Myself, I do not like token economies. As a subject teacher, I handle too many classes to make the system consistent and efficient. Many of my classes have an economy system implemented by their homeroom teachers--and as the educator that spend the most time building their class culture and reinforcing their behavior in the school at-large, I think it is a more appropriate system for them.  In truth, I encounter a lot of competition between students in my classes, and a token economy system would only serve to breed discontent, in my eyes. My class sizes are rather large, so giving a list of choices for class incentives, and appealing to the class to reach a consensus, builds our own community with a kind of democratic tone.

Building positive incentives around the above rule regarding electronics can be tricky at times, because I'd like to eventually see equal consideration and priority given by students to all classroom rules. Using an electronic device in class, in and of itself, is its own reward for many students, so how can I expand the incentives shown above to encompass other, perhaps less savory rules, in my class?

I think the biggest challenge for me, moving forward, will be to stay aware of positive student interactions with all classroom rules, and having a clear plan on how to approach the discussion of incentives. Reflecting on this, I feel as though many of my classes have been doing well, and that they probably don't know how much I appreciate their work if I've been focused solely on corralling the trouble-makers. So striking the balance, and giving incentives for students with good behavior, would in itself make an example to others about how their behavior in my classroom matters.