Reflection #9

1.)           One way to find out what students already know about what we are trying to teach them is to assess them through formative assessment.  This is often done before you start a new project/unit as an informative tool for us to guide our instruction and make certain students are ready to handle the tasks.  An example of a formative assessment beforehand can be as simple as a class discussion or a KWL chart where you tell students that we are only brainstorming at this point in order to assess their readiness level for the project.  Often we give students quizzes or tests, but they do not have to be formal tests that are graded, rather they are only a tool to see what students know about the content which will be given to students again at the end of the project to see what they have learned as a graded quiz/test, similar to our Profiler Pro Evaluation.  The strategies each teacher may use to assess student's readiness levels depends on what we are trying to teach them and our teaching styles.

2.)           Using "anchors" such as a KWL chart is a wonderful resource to know where your students are starting out and how they have grown in the end as they are working towards their learning goals.  All students are different and have different starting points, therefore we need to be cognizant that each students growth may differ as well.  As teachers, our responsibility is to understand that it is all about each student's individual growth.  Anchors are a great tool to guide assessment because they allow us to observe prior knowledge and what students have learned in the end.   

3.)           There are many different ways to track what our students will be learning throughout their projects.  Therefore, it is most important to offer various styles of assessments.  Rubrics are a great way to assess students and help them understand the criteria by which their work will be evaluated.  Another great way to assess what students have learned is to use an online grade book that allows for ongoing feedback and meaningful data about the skills and abilities of a student from several categories, rather than taking away from a letter grade because an assignment is turned in late.  Another way is to write, illustrate, and publish a book, or you can have students write a report on their topic to promote their writing skills to assess their knowledge.  Videotaping interviews with students at the end of a project allows for students to share their reflections about how their project helped them learn.  You can have students make presentations about their topic to improve social skills and have them even evaluated by a panel of experts.  If student's projects/presentations are excellent you can have them even enter a contest or submit their work for publication to connect with their community and receive additional assessment and/or recognition.  Sometimes, we even need to allow students to create something on their own to show off what they have learned.   

4.)           This chapter directly relates to our project and us because it shares great information on how we need to design the assessment for our project that will be used to grade our students, in order to help our them meet their maximum growth as individual learners.  It further helps us understand that when we design assessment for our students we need to take into consideration the individual grading needs of students' assignments and final projects.  In order to guide our instruction on creating a Weather Forecast/Broadcast for our students, we need to use a form of assessment, preferably informal that allows us to understand what students already know about weather.  Anchors will be a great resource for this.  In fact, our project in the setting the stage phase incorporates anchors, such as KWL-activities.  Students are assessed by how well they will design and present a weather forecast on their own based on what they have learned and with the help of a rubric.  This can be a final formal assessment.