29: Responsive Teaching: Assessment Principles

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1 – Consider Photo Albums versus Snapshots: Use multiple pieces of evidence to assess students’ progress towards curricular goals.  General strategies include:
  • Use multiple assessments including:
    • select response format,
    • short answer,
    • performance assessments (extended written products, visual products, oral performances, demonstrations),
    • long-term authentic projects,
    • portfolios,
    • reflective journals,
    • learning logs,
    • informal observations enhanced by checklists of key look-fors,
    • self-assessments,
    • peer reviews
  • Observe the maxim: students are ignorant until proven otherwise
2 – Match the Measures with the Goals: Use different types of assessments to address 3 different types of curricular goals:
  • Declarative knowledge (what students know and understand)
    • Use traditional assessments (multiple choice, fill in the blank)
  • Procedural knowledge (skills)
    • Use performance assessments for procedural knowledge
  • Dispositions (habits and attitudes of mind).
    • Use evidence gathered over time to assess dispositions
  • Of the 6 Facets of Understanding the most important are:
    • Explain – put things in own words, justify, show work
    • Apply – use what’s known in new situations
Inauthentic assessments:
  • Fill in the blank
  • Select an answer from given choices
  • Recall questions at end of chapter
  • Solve contrived problems
  • Practice decontextualized skills
Authentic assessments:
  • Conduct research using primary sources
  • Debate controversial issues
  • Conduct a scientific investigation
  • Solve real world word problems
  • Interpret literature or data
  • Do purposeful writing for an audience
GRASPS:
  • G: real world goal
  • R: meaningful role for a student
  • A: authentic or simulated audience
  • S: situation involving real world applications
  • P: culminating products and performances
  • S: performance standards for judging success
3 – Form Follows Function: way assessments are used should match goals for gathering assessment data.  Different purposes and strategies include:
  • Summative: aimed to evaluate understanding over a long period of time
    • given toward end of unit
    • summative test, performance tasks, culminating projects
  • Diagnostic: pre-assess student misconceptions and skills related to upcoming learning goals
    • given at start of unit
    • quiz, knowledge survey, interest learning preference checks, checks for misconceptions
  • Formative: refine instruction to bridge the gap between student needs and learning goals
    • given throughout the unit
    • quizzes, oral questions, observations, think-alouds, concept maps, portfolio reviews, rubric check-ins, draft reviews, rehearsals

 

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Due to measurement error, single assessment snapshots tend to be unreliable.  Visualizing evidence of understanding helps keep lessons aligned to learning goals.  Using multiple assessments favors students with varied learning profiles.  Select response formats favor students with good recall, not necessarily good understanding.  Teachers need good data to develop adaptive lessons that meet student needs.  Recognizing and using multiple purposes for assessment can help one interpret the data effectively and use lessons learned to develop better learning tasks.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Analyze standards in order to determine what types of knowledge (declarative, procedural, disposition) are needed to be successful
  • Research, select, and create assessment tools strategies that match the types of knowledge that tie with upcoming learning goals
  • Research and develop pre-assessment tools that can determine students’ levels of related skills, student misconceptions, and student interests
  • Gather and interpret pre-assessment data.  Use interpretations to refine upcoming learning activities.
  • Use GRASPS principles to design authentic assessment opporunities
Early Implementation Steps
  • Implement formative assessments throughout the project and use their interpretation to fine-tune instruction
  • Prepare students throughout the project for upcoming summative assessments at end of the project
  • Use combination of inauthentic and authentic assessment practices to assess learning at early and more advanced stages
  • Use multiple assessment types to check if students are progressing towards learning goals
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Develop practices and routines that engage students in effective self- and peer- assessment
  • Develop systems for gathering and tracking assessment learning data over time

 

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28: Responsive Teaching: Essential Skills & Attitudes 2 of 2

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Develop Classroom Management Routines That Contribute to Success:
  • co-develop a system with routines that train students to self-manage themselves
  • General Strategies:
    • Have clear vision of outcomes of classroom management
    • Establish high expectations for smooth operation of classroom routines
    • Study routines to make sure they work
    • Have students reflect on routines and roles
    • Enlist students in facilitating routines whenever possible
    • Ensure that all students are involved in making the classroom culture work
Help Students Become Effective Partners in Their Own Success
  • Help students recognize their strengths, interests and challenges
  • Help students set and reach goals that take into account their interests, strengths and challenges
  • General Strategies:
    • Help students understand and see the benefits in their differences.
    • Nurture awareness of students’ strengths and the benefits of enhancing these.
    • Help students understand their weakness and how to remediate them.
    • Guide students in vocabulary related to metacognition and goal setting.
    • Ask students to reflect on their own growth and brainstorm next steps related to growth.  For more ideas, see this article on the power of mistakes and struggle.
    • Support students in setting and achieving personal goals.
Develop Flexible Classroom Teaching Routines:
  • Play with classroom logistics in order to enhance learning
  • General Strategies:
    • Allow for students’ different pacings
    • Gather basic and supplementary materials that appeal to students varied interests, cultures, lexile levels, etc.
    • Teach in a variety of ways
    • Ensure that grades reflect Growth as well as relative standing in the class
Expand a Repertoire of Instructional Strategies
  • Use multiple modes to teach content
  • General Strategies:
    • Use variety of strategies for teaching content and managing student work time
    • Use strategy that connect to students’ learning modes, interests, and readiness levels
    • Guide students to work with instructional approaches appropriately
    • Help students reflect on what strategies work for them and why
Reflect on Individual Progress with an Eye toward Curricular Goals & Personal Growth
  • Measure and reflect on student progress towards learning targets
  • General Strategies:
    • Use pre-assessments to help prepare common and individualized learning tasks
    • Use ongoing formative assessment to ensure as close a match as possible between learning activities and student needs
    • Track student growth relative to learning targets
    • Engage students in setting academic goals and achieving these
    • Reflect on individual and group growth in order to improve instruction
    • Help parents understand students’ growth relative to curricular goals
For more essential skills and attitudes go to: 28: Responsive Teaching: Essential Skills & Attitudes 1 of 2

 

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Co-developing classroom logistics with students can make them more aware of the rationale and benefits of these logistics.  This process will also empower students to feel like their opinions are valued.  Helping students set and achieve goals helps them become lifelong learners.  Better student self knowledge helps them to make choices that improve their learning and increase their independence.  Flexible classroom routines help different learners learn differently.  Improving logistics can make it possible to teach in multiple modes simultaneously.  Expanding strategy repertoires make it more likely to engage and reach all learners.  Reflecting on individual growth will help teachers and students develop individual growth plans needed for growth.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Research classroom routines and logistics that promote positive learning culture and allow for multiple modes of learning at one time.
  • Define clear culture outcomes that will frame all classroom management norms and routines.
  • Brainstorm norms and routines with students that can achieve clear culture goals.  For examples of good norms, read this article.
  • Research multiple activities that can address learning targets.
  • Research and create goal setting lesson plans and goal setting tools for students.
  • Develop prompts that get students to reflect on their progress towards goals and the strategies that they are using to make that progress
Early Implementation Steps
  • Facilitate activities that let students co-develop classroom norms and routines that achieve clear culture outcomes
  • Have students regularly set goals, reflect on their progress towards these goals, and brainstorm next steps
  • Implement multiple modes of activities to teach learning targets
  • Have students reflect on what types of activities help them learn best
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Teach students how to use the vocabulary of metacognition and goal setting to write reflections on their progress that can help them learn things that can improve their approaches to learning.  To learn more about thes learning strategies, go here.
  • Develop systems for keeping parents informed of individual students’ progress towards learning targets
  • Allow students to choose form a menu of learning tasks to achieve learning targets and reflect on whether or not their choice helped them to meet the target.  See differentiated curriculum charts.
  • Develop systems that teach students how to track their progress toward learning targets over time

 

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27: Responsive Teaching: Essential Skills & Attitudes 1 of 2

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Establish clarity about curricular essentials
  • identify skills and ideas that make up enduring understandings and enabling support skills
  • curriculum based on important concepts is more likely to be relevant and engaging to learners
  • work to ensure that all learners own powerful learning goals
  • General strategies:
    • Start unit with pre-assessments of upcoming learning targets and precursor skills
    • Use ongoing formative assessments to finetune assignments
    • Provide enrichment activities to advanced students that align to learning targets
    • Use common learning targets to communicate the power of the agenda and each students’ ability to contribute to it
    • Design curriculum around powerful ideas that reveal how the discipline works
    • Use flexible entry points to enduring understandings
    • Offer options to enduring understandings for different students to explore and access learning
Accept responsibility for learner success
  • accept the reality that if a student didn’t learn something important, it wasn’t taught well enough
  • believe that all students have potential and worth
  • General strategies:
    • Promote a classroom environment with shared teacher-student responsibility for learning
    • Do not let gender, low SES, race, past achievement etc, become excuses for shoddy work or for achieving less than what students can accomplish
    • Get to know each student to learn how to teach her more effectively
    • Track progress of student against key learning targets
    • Find alternative ways of teaching to ensure wider access to content
    • Send consistent messages to students that if something didn’t work today, we’ll try something new tomorrow
    • Provide support systems that model what quality work looks like and what it takes to produce quality work
Develop Communities of Respect
  • Create safe environments where all teachers and students are respected
  • General strategies:
    • Promote behaviors that support, not undermine, positive learning environments.  Read about principles of complex instruction (i.e. good grouping learning) in this article for more ideas.
    • Do not let a small group of students dominate classroom conversations
    • Call on ALL students during classroom conversations.  See here for more creative ideas to accomplish this.
    • Design tasks that enable all students to make meaningful contributions to the group.  For ideas on how to do this in math, check out this article on Rich Mathematical Tasks.
    • Ensure that varied perspectives and backgrounds emerge in important parts of work
    • Help students reflect on the quality of their contributions to the community
    • Seek out, respond to, and use students’ ideas on how to foster more respect in the classroom
Build Awareness of What Works for Each Student:
  • Act as hunter/gatherers of many learning strategies who value what each strategy may offer to students
  • General strategies:
    • Create opportunities to meet individually with students
    • Gather information on students’ interests, preferences, dreams, etc
    • Work to understand students’ strengths and challenges
    • Learn students’ learning profiles
    • Observe students in different contexts (alone, small group, large group) to see which contexts better facilitate learning
    • Create opportunities to learn from parents, community members and other teachers about students
For more essential skills and attitudes go to: 28: Responsive Teaching: Essential Skills & Attitudes 2 of 2

 

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Knowing the skills and attitudes that support responsive teaching can help teachers evaluate their own beliefs and skill sets in order to develop better attitudes and strategies.  The idea that ALL students can succeed is not new, but is easier said than done.  The more strategies one knows, the better one can prepare to meet the challenges of facilitating learning for students with varied interests, varied learning profiles, and varied levels of non-school support.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Analyze standards in upcoming project.  Categorize them into enduring understandings and key enabling skills.
  • Conduct activities that help students identify and share their preferred learning modes and interests
  • Research and gather resources for multiple ways to teach learning targets.
  • Brainstorm flexible entry points towards key understandings and towards products.  One strategy for this is differentiated curriculum charts.
  • Research and commit to a research model for evaluating lesson plan design & implementation
  • Implement and learn from a pre-assessment at the start of a project on upcoming learning targets and prerequisite skills
Early Implementation Steps
  • Allow students to choose from flexible entry points to key understandings and products
  • Implement lesson plans that appeal to multiple learning modes
  • Observe students in order to learn what activities and contexts enhance their learning
  • Record observations of students and of lesson plan details that can teach one how to fine tune lessons and improve later lesson plan designs
  • Create opportunities for students to learn in small groups within workshops that match their learning needs
  • Use regular formative assessments to give students’ feedback to improve their understanding and products and to fine tune lesson plans
  • Call on ALL students during classroom conversations
  • Track how student learning is approaching learning targets
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Let students choose from a menu of activities and assignments to learn new content and display mastery.  See differentiated curriculum charts.
  • Have students regularly journal on the strategies they are using to learn new concepts and what factors are enhancing and hindering their learning.
  • Provide enrichment activities to advanced students.
  • Call all parents to learn about students interests and quirks related to learning.
  • Design and implement group roles that assign meaningful tasks to all group members.  See this article for tips on teaching collaborative learning skills.
  • Seek out and implement student advice on how to improve classroom culture.

 

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26: Responsive Teaching

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Factors that create Student Variance:
  • Biological factors:
    • can cause students to learn in different modes on different timelines,
    • some learning parameters are malleable depends on context and level of support
  • Degree of privilege:
    • students who come from low SES face more school challenges
    • quality of students’ support and breadth of experience affects learning
  • Positioning for learning:
    • parents who value education influence student learning and cultivate soft skills (trust, confidence, positive interpersonal skills, emotional intelligence) that positively impact student learning
  • Preferences:
    • students’ interests vary across subjects and topics,
    • preferences affect how students take in knowledge,
    • students will relate to different teachers differently
Benefits of Responsive Teaching:
  • Positive student teacher relationships make it easier for students to take risks in the service of learning
  • Positive learning environments help students navigate through the successes and failures inherent in learning
  • Positive learning environments promote positive academic mindets such as  confidence, sense of contribution, autonomy, and accomplishment
  • Attending to students’ needs builds bridges between learners and important content
  • Adjusting pacing to meet students’ varied readiness helps students learn
  • Attending to students’ interests connects content to students’ curiosity
  • Attending to varied learning modes helps students use their preferred modes to learn more efficiently
Basic Responsive Teaching Approaches:
  • Find ways to get to know students better – call on students by name, using journaling to learning more about students’ feelings and interests
  • Use regular small group instruction
  • Teach to the high end of rigor – all learners benefit from learning complex ideas and complex thinking patterns
  • Use regular formative assessments to monitor understanding, give feedback, and fine-tune instruction
  • Teach in multiple ways
  • Allow working alone and with peers
  • Use clear rubrics that describe high quality work
  • Offer more ways to explore and express learning
  • Cultivate a taste for diversity – save problems in multiple ways, explore multiple points of view, etc.
  • Use basic reading strategies throughout the curriculum
Helpful Guiding Questions
  • Whom am I preparing to teach?
  • How can my knowledge of my students affect my curriculum design?
  • How can I help particular students find themselves in the world of what I am about to teach?
  • How might I teach in ways that best reveal the power of design to individuals?
  • How can I learn more about my students?
  • How can I ensure that all students have full access to the power of this design in accordance with their needs?

 

3-sowhatPBL contexts offer many opportunities to differentiate instruction: they already involve complex thinking and have many places for short group instruction.  Developing a deliberate and effective approach to responsive teaching can help ALL students be successful in projects.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Research and implement activities that will identify the variance in students’ interests, learning modes, communication styles, etc.
  • Research multiple ways to teach content
  • Develop clear rubrics that describe high quality work prior to starting projects
  • Try to develop project contexts that consider students’ interests
  • Research and implement activities and routines that develop and maintain a positive learning culture
  • Allow student voice and choice to influence their products
Early Implementation Steps
  • Use project self-pacing, to get students to naturally attend workshops in small groups that match their current need-to-knows
  • Teach content and solve problems in multiple ways
  • Use rubric check-ins and feedback during guided practice to give students regular, specific feedback that can help them improve their understanding and products
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Teach students about their preferred learning modes, their strengths and challenges, and ways to leverage these modes to learn more efficiently
  • Allow student choice to create variety in the problem solving modes and points of view they apply to create project products
  • Make regular attempts to get to know students deeper.  Use reflections on activities and projects to learn more about how these connect to students’ learning modes and interests, etc.

 

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