WHAT’S IMPORTANT WHEN WE ASSESS?
Triangulation of assessment
• listen to our students,• observe them,• and … review their
products
IN SUPPORT OF ALL OUR LEARNERS …
• Create a common language
• Establish essentials ~ a group of educators surround themselves with lots of reading, connecting, and talking
COMMON LANGUAGE
• What we’ve found …
• When we choose a few really good assessment tools, we can establish a common language across a district.
• Get more detailed information ONLY from
those students who appear outside of widely-
held expectations.
WHAT’S IMPORTANT WHEN WE ASSESS READING?
• Big picture ~ Are our students making sense of
text?
• Do our youngest students have the language
they need to talk about the pictures they see?
• What strategies are our students using? Which
ones are missing?
COMMON LANGUAGE
• Our Assessments:• establishing common
assessments and getting to know them really well.
• DART (District Assessment Reading Team)
• EPRA (Early Primary Reading Assessment)
• IRA ~ Island Reading Assessment
• First Steps in Math• DMA• Side by side/one on
one
COMMON LANGUAGE
• Do our students
understand the main
ideas and some details
when they read?
• No? What do we do next?
STORIES RATHER THAN NUMBERS
• We have learned to value the narrative element of our assessments over the numbers.
• Qualitative rather than quantitative
GATHERING ASSESSMENT TEAMS…
• At the school level ~ classroom teachers, learning support teacher(s), administrators
• We gathered a district team too• District curriculum support teachers ( We have 3),• District Aboriginal support teachers (We have 2).
• A district team of 5 simply asked, “Who wants help with formative classroom assessments?”
• We combined our teams.
ASSESSMENTS IN CLASSES
• Were completely voluntary.
• Nothing was mandated.
• We offered choice.
• We offered our time for each school
AFTER ASSESSMENT CONVERSATIONS
• Those teachers who participated in these assessments are invited to an, “after-assessment conversation.”
• An afternoon or morning release is provided for teachers to talk about their assessments.
AFTER ASSESSMENT CONVERSATIONS
• Using Judy and Linda’s Spiral of Inquiry …• We posed questions:
What’s going on for our learners?
How do we know?
Why does it matter?
AFTER ASSESSMENT CONVERSATIONS
• What are you noticing?
• What trends are you seeing(strengths and areas needing attention)?
• Are the same trends existing across the grades?
• We share ideas,
• We problem-solve,
• We talk about resources,
• We chat about the Learning Resource kits that support this work.
A VALUABLE BYPRODUCT…
• Having common assessments have helped us develop a common language.
• And we feel this is a great benefit to our most vulnerable learners.
• It helps, in part, to bring them to a place of calm.
OFFERING THE GIFT OF TIME TO COLLABORATE
During these release meetings, we develop a plan.
We’re not collecting numbers.
We talk about our next steps.
EFFICIENT USE OF TIME
The assessments we’ve chosen, give us a lot of information in a short period of time.
We are able to find trends, brainstorm ways to explicitly teach these needed skills,
and later review how we’ve done.
CREATING BALANCE …
There are lots of other assessments out there that are time-intensive.
But …Do we need to know a benchmark level for every primary child?
• What if we give them a topic that’s not of interest?
• What is we give them a topic of passion?• Do we need to compile data abut
phonological awareness for students who are already reading?
THE SOFTER SIDE OF ASSESSMENT
• Make it joyful,
• Create a fit with what’s already happening,
• Nurture our learners forward by carefully considering next steps through conversation with a team!
LRC kits align with our assessments…
Draw pictures and create labels to show what you know
ALIGNING ASSESSMENT WITH RESOURCES …
Concept Map ~ Draw pictures and create labels to show what you know
When vulnerable children revisit these same skills, they gather confidence and expertise.
IN ONE CLASS …
• … during the reading conference we asked this question:• “You know yourself best as a reader
and thinker. What do you think would be a good step to become even better?
• In one grade 5/6 class many students told us they needed to work on oral fluency.
• So … we planned a team project!