DLC - Less Assessment More Engagement
In Class
Why and how do you measure success?
Overview
- undeniably important means to understand both the learner and the learning process
- Key skill to continually assess and adapt practice accordingly - particularly 21st Century
- Way the learner acts is often ignored
How might teachers plan to assess and plan to be agile in their approach to teaching?
How might teachers consider the wide and varied sources of information about the learning process and better gauge the effect of their actions on learning?
How might we evaluate our own practice to ensure we are actively collecting the information we need to enhance our learning and how does this information differ from the data used to classify learners?
Class Notes
Assessment in the 21st Century
- Today's teaching and learning don't assess for 21st Century competencies
- Typically do not assess their strategies for expert decision making when no standard approach seems applicable.
- Students’ abilities to transfer their understandings to real world situations are not assessed, nor are capabilities related to various aspects of teamwork.
- Abilities to effectively utilize various forms of mediated interaction are typically not assessed.
Formative Assessment
- Formative assessment supports the constructivist theory of learning and connectivism.
- In a constructivist manner, learners are accountable for their learning and the creation of knowledge, through open-ended questioning, cooperative situations, discussions, meaningful context and quizzes.
- Connectivism alos applies since collaborations through technology promote human contact, and at the same time provide human content.
Choosing an Online Tool for Formative Assessment
- Poll Everywhere - Students can submit answers via computer or mobile device to a question
- Kahoot - is a game-based polling activity.
- Socrative - A more robust question-and-answer experience is found at Socrative (
- NearPod - offers interactive question slides that can contain polls, quizzes, and open-ended questions.
- Plickers - the teacher downloads/prints the Plickers cards, unique to each student, which can be mounted on card stock and laminated. The student, upon hearing a question, holds a card upright to indicate his or her answer.
- TodaysMeet (Collaboration)
- Padlet (Collaborative canvas)
- Xmind (Mindmapping),ForAllRubrics (Rubric creation)
- PollDaddy, Formative (Real-time FA), MovieMaker (video assessments)
- ThinkBinder (Collaboration)
- Google Docs(Collaboration)
Evaluating Educational Apps
Harry Walker is the Principal of Sandy Plains Elementary School in Baltimore County, Maryland. He has crafted a rubric to evaluate the quality and effectiveness of an app in terms of how it may impact on student achievement. His criteria include curriculum connection, authenticity, feedback, differentiation, user friendliness, and student motivation.
RISE model for Meaningful Feedback
http://www.risemodel.com/
Emily Wray's
RISE model encourages teachers to provide feedback that is not simply informative, but moves students toward improvement.
Engagement and Flow
- Shernoff defines engagement as a heightened, simultaneous experience of concentration, interest, and enjoyment in the task at hand.
- That definition is based completely in the experiences of students, so that engagement may be considered as a learning experience, one to be valued in its own right.
- This definition is rooted in Csikszentmihalyi’s (1990) conceptualisation of 'flow experience.' Flow is an optimal state of cognitive and emotional engagement, so absorbing that one may lose track of time and awareness of the self.
- Although the nature of schoolwork can vary, the ideal state of engagement could maybe be an active attentiveness and problem solving or the fashioning of products that promotes learning and the development of new skills, an ideal that flow experiences encapsulate.
Research tends to converge on the observation that meaningful engagement is composed of two independent processes;
- academic intensity and a positive emotional response.
- New immersive technologies also show promising signs of enhancing student engagement to learn in the future. Indeed, there are many routes to engaging youth; creating meaningful engagement requires attention to a variety of contextual, instructional, developmental, and interpersonal factors beyond the preoccupation with narrowly defined educational “outcomes.”
Research has shown that the positive development of youth occurs through a constellation of resources that provide physical safety and security, developmentally appropriate structure and expectations for behavior, emotional and moral support, and opportunities to make a contribution to one’s community (Eccles and Gootman 2002).
Recommended readings:
Gootman, J. A., & Eccles, J. (Eds.). (2002). Community programs to promote youth development. National Academies Press.
Shernoff, D. (Ed. 2013). Optimal Learning Environments to Promote Student Engagement (Advancing Responsible Adolescent Development). Dordrecht: Springer.
Portal Videos
https://app.themindlab.com/media/13700/view
Knewton.com is the world’s most powerful adaptive learning engine. Knewton.com figures out what each student knows and how each student learns best, to pinpoint the type of content, level of difficulty, and which media format each student needs.
https://app.themindlab.com/media/13701/view
Learning about Learning
- If teachers use these formative assessment practices consistently then student achievement will rise substantially.
- students learn at double the rate - 1 years learning in 6 months
- we learn about teaching by being students
- it is what happens day after day.
- asking teachers to change what has been successful in order to be more successful
Assessment and Grading in the Differentiated Classroom
Rick Wormeli
- Have to weigh Formative versus Summative Assessment (which is really Post Learning)
- Teachers spend most of their time creating their Summative Assessment
- Formative Assessment is the ongoing assessment, the checkpoints
- Best form of FA involves Descriptive Feedback
- WHAT was the Goal - original intent?
- WHERE are you in relation to it?
- WHAT are we going to do to close that gap?
- Then the student can revise his efforts in light of that Descriptive Feedback
- Then be assessed and accredited anew with maybe some new learning.
- In a lesson should be both Formal Formative Assessment and informal
- Lots of checks for understanding and students getting feedback
How did Formative Assessment inform your teaching?
Preparing for a Renaissance in Assessment
The authors argue that current assessment methods are no longer working, and new technologies will transform assessment and testing in education. It itemises steps in a "Framework for Action" that the authors suggest should be taken for policymakers, schools, school-system leaders, and other key players to prepare for the assessment renaissance. The
Open Ideas website has a summary of the report and an interview with the authors.
Authors: Peter Hill and Michael Barber, Pearson Publishing
Published: 2014
- Think long-term - we don’t know when the renaissance will arrive but we need to be prepared by investing in the capacity to bring it about
Build partnerships - we need to build partnerships between teachers and governments, and everyone working in education and technology
Create the infrastructure - having high quality technological infrastructure at all levels in the system, including at individual schools level, is critical
Develop teacher capacity - invest in developing teachers’ familiarity with both technology and sophisticated assessment
Allow variation in implementation - encourage schools and teachers to innovate with a framework for implementation and learn from the most successful examples
Adopt a delivery approach - make it a priority, plan ahead, ensure routine check-ins with all key players and make clear who is responsible
Communicate consistently - from government and leading educators working together and from school leaders to parents
Apply the change knowledge - our starting point needs to be our knowledge base of what it takes to achieve successful, system-wide change including building a shared vision and learning from pioneers
A Comprehensive Evaluation Rubric for
Assessing Instructional Apps
Domain A - Instruction
Rigor - measures the Thinking Skills
21st Century Skills - analyzes type of skills needed
Connection to future learning - does it prepare the learner for literacy and numeracy tasks
Value of Errors - investigates how an app allows learners to learn from their mistakes
Feedback to Teacher - evaluates if and how an app allows teachers to monitor their learner's progress
Level of Learning Material - evaluates if an app’s material is appropriate for its
target group of learners, and “learning material” is defined as the content or activities learners
engage to acquire a skill or gain understanding of a topic
Cooperative Learning - evaluates if an app provides learners the opportunity to
work on group projects together.
Accommodation of individual differences - investigates whether an app is designed
to accommodate a wide range of learners
Domain: Design
Ability to save progess - explores if an app allows learners to save their progress
and then resume their activities at a later time.
Platform Integration - analyzes if an app connects its content to different platforms
Screen Design - if an app’s text, graphics, videos, sound, and speech are
well organized.
Ease of Use - assesses if an app is intuitive and user-friendly,
Navigation - looks at how learners move through an app’s content and options.
Goal Orientation - is concerned with learners’ ability to understand and
gain knowledge by the way an app presents information to them
Domain: Engagement
Learner Control - if an app allows learners to select the level they engage
its content or paths they follow through interactive material
Interactivity - addresses whether an app creates an engaging instructional experience
for learners based on how they actively interact with the app
Pace - explores if an app allows learners to completely control the rate at which
they move through the content, a
Personal Preferences - analyzes whether an app allows learners to personalize it
by setting individual preferences,
Interest - analyzes if an app will likely appeal to its target audience. I
Aesthetics - evaluates an app’s graphics and interface.
Utility - considers if learners are likely to view the skills developed and
knowledge offered by an app as being important to their academic, professional, and personal
lives.
This film introduces the thinking behind connected learning, which builds on the basics to make learning more relevant. It connects learning to people's interests, to real life, real work, real communities, and to the demands and opportunities of the digital age.
The film asks:
‘What might be the consequence of reframing education around the experience of the student?’
‘Might curiosity have always sat at the heart of an extraordinary education?’
‘How might our imagination bring the experience of education to life?’
The interview subject is Connie Yowell, the director of education for the MacArthur Foundation who leads the foundation's Digital Media and Learning initiative (
macfound.org/programs/learning/).
LDC Multicultural & International views on Education
Overview
What can we learn from other education systems?
- Finland has become a target of international education pilgrimage.
- Small Nordic nation is leading the Western world in many education rankings.
- Most have relaxed & informal relationships between teachers and students
- Team work across the school is fundamental
- lighter workload - primary is 4-5 45 minutes lessons
- no external standardised test
- teachers have autonomy
- 5 year degree finishing with a thesis
- high knowledge and expertise in educational research
- separate department in the Uni
- 10-15% practical experience
- Empowering environment where both are empowered to do their best
How do we define success?
- The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a worldwide study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in member and non-member nations of 15-year-old school pupils' scholastic performance in mathematics, science, and reading.
- Sir Ken Robinson criticised PISA for “squeezing out” other more creative subjects and creating an anxiety around education that was “grotesque”.
- OECD has responded by announcing that Pearson has been chosen to develop the PISA 2018 Student Assessment 21st Century Framework.
- Paul Tough emphasizes that character traits, not cognitive skills measured by IQ tests, lead to success.
Does teaching require cultural intelligence?
- teaching requires Emotional and Social Intelligence
- we should also focus on our Cultural intelligence.
Classroom Notes
Academics from around the world express deep concern about the impact of Pisa tests and call for a halt to the next round of testing.
“PISA… has caused a shift of attention to short-term fixes designed to help a country quickly climb the rankings, despite research showing that enduring changes in education practice take decades, not a few years to come to fruition.”
“...by emphasizing a narrow range of measurable aspects of education, PISA takes attention away from the less measurable or immeasurable educational objectives.”
Although PISA tests are developed further all the time and they do assess an unprecedented range of learning outcomes and their contexts, including student performance measures, measures of social and emotional dimensions, student attitudes and motivations, equity issues, and parental support.
Hauora - Well-being - Key to Success?
Hauora- Hauora is a Māori philosophy of health unique to New Zealand. It comprises taha tinana, taha hinengaro, taha whanau, and taha wairua. Could Hauora be one of the key concepts on defining what well-being and success is? It encompasses the physical, mental and emotional, social, and spiritual dimensions of health. The concept is recognised by the World Health Organisation.
Taha tinana - Physical well-being - the physical body, its growth, development, and ability to move, and ways of caring for it
Taha hinengaro - Mental and emotional well-being - coherent thinking processes, acknowledging and expressing thoughts and feelings and responding constructively
Taha whanau - Social well-being - family relationships, friendships, and other interpersonal relationships; feelings of belonging, compassion, and caring; and social support
Taha wairua - Spiritual well-being - the values and beliefs that determine the way people live, the search for meaning and purpose in life, and personal identity and self-awareness (For some individuals and communities, spiritual well- being is linked to a particular religion; for others, it is not.)
Cultural Intelligence / Competence
Stuart (2004) defines cultural competency as “the ability to understand and constructively relate to the uniqueness of each [individual] in light of the diverse cultures that influence each person’s perspective”. Reich and Reich (2006) have added that individuals must continually strive to become more culturally competent through continually gaining knowledge about particular “experiences and patterns of another culture”. Hence, for a person to become more culturally competent, s/he must gain a significant understanding and appreciation for cultural differences relative to their personal identities, values, and beliefs (Wachtler & Troein, 2003). Inherent in these descriptions is the notion that cultural competency is an evolving, accumulating process; an individual may never achieve complete cultural competency.
Recommended readings:
Stuart, R. (2004). Twelve practical suggestions for achieving multicultural competence. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 35, 3-9.
Reich, S., & Reich, J. (2006). Cultural competence in interdisciplinary collaborations: A method for respecting diversity in research partnerships. American Journal of Community Psychology, 38, 51-62.
Wachtler, C., & Troein, M. (2003). A hidden curriculum: Mapping cultural competency in a medical programme. Medical Education, 37, 861-868.
Berry, B., Byrd, A. & Wieder, A. (2013). Teacherpreneurs: innovative teachers who lead but don't leave. San Francisco, CA:Jossey-Bass.
(See especially Chapter 9 (page 165) - Finnish(ing) Lessons for Teacherpreneurs)
Jokinen, T. (2005). Global leadership competencies: a review and discussion, Journal of European Industrial Training, 29(3), 199-216.
Handbook of Cultural Intelligence : Theory, Measurement, and Applications
Armonk, NY, USA: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 2008. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 17 July 2015.
By: Ang, Soon, and Van Dyne, Linn, eds.
Description: As organizations globalize and the workforce becomes more diverse, it is increasingly important to understand why some individuals function more effectively than others in culturally diverse situations (erez & earley, 1993; Gelfand, erez, & Aycan, 2007; triandis, 1994). Responding to this need, earley and Ang (2003) drew on sternberg and Detterman’s (1986) multidimensional perspective of intelligence to develop a conceptual model of cultural intelligence (cQ)—defined as the capability of an individual to function effectively in situations characterized by cultural diversity. cQ research aims to provide insight into the age-old sojourner problem of why some people thrive in culturally diverse settings, but others do not.
- countries are invented
- limiting language when we talk about coming from a country - privileging of a fiction - the singular country over reality of the human experience
- Colin Machon - "All experience is local, all identity is experience"
- the questions asks us to shift our focus to where Real Life occurs
- You can take away Passports but you can't take away my experiences
- Countries represent Power
Where are you a local - 3 step test
Rituals
- What do I do each day: drink my coffee; take off my shoes;
Relationships
- People who shape your weekly emotional experiences
Restrictions
- where are you able to live - economic limitations or liberations
Finland's Education Success by Eudtopia
Pashi Salberg - Director General Center for International Mobility and Cooperation
https://app.themindlab.com/media/13533/view
- lot of emphasis on early detection of difficulties or problems students having
- other countries tend to address once they have emerged and are too visible
- Finnish educators believe that 90% of students can succeed in regular classrooms if they get the emotional, academic, or health and medical help they need.
- Classroom teacher works closely with special teacher
- early moment - first intervention
- special teacher comes into classroom asap and joins subject teacher
- Works in class, then special class and ILP
- Each school has Student Welfare Team: Principal, Special teacher, Psychologist, Classroom teacher, Nurse - meet weekly
https://app.themindlab.com/media/13534/view
Pasi Sahlberg has worked as teacher, teacher-educator, policy advisor and director in Finland and served the World Bank and the European Commission as an education specialist. He sits down for a one on one conversation with Cheryl Jackson.
- Book Finnish Lessson
- Open to new learning as Educators
- Said no to Standardised testing
- Last 25 years - 1970s reforms
- Good teachers - University Masters Based - comparable to having a law degree
- They are able to select from High School Graduates
- Schools have autonomy and minimal outside testing
- Goal - is to provide equal education opportunities for all students. They are tested/compared to their capabilities
In Class
- Watched Tayla's video
- Global Empathy Rising http://globallives.org/
- Task - Whanaungatanga
- What kind of Asian are you?
- PISA - why do we in NZ care?
- Kahoot game
- the true size truesize.com
Engagement
Behavioural
participation in learning and classroom acitivities
Emotional Engagement
students feel an emotional bond with the school, its teacher and their peers
Cognitive Engagement
a student's psychological investment in their own learning.
Group Task
How would you define an education system's success? What is a success on a personal level?
Reccomended Book - How Children Succeed by Paul Trough
