A Tricky Situation

Assessment is a tricky situation, especially in the current test driven environment.  So much standardized testing is required of our students that it is really difficult to think about assessment correctly.  I have always approached my instruction through backwards design.  What are my goals?  What do I want my students to be able to do (standards)?  I then design my assessment from those expectations.  My instruction is then designed around helping students gain the skills necessary to be successful with the assessment.  

Although I think test designers believe they are using similar philosophies with test creation, I do not think that is the case.  Sure, they are developed with the standards in mind, but because of the board ‘one-size fits all’ nature of these tests, they do not achieve the goal.  In the end, the tests force teachers to teach to these high stakes assessments.  Students are learning how to take a test as oppose to the skills that the test is attempting to assess. The test then somehow becomes more important than the learning.  

I believe in authentic assessment.  I feel that students need the opportunity to demonstrate their learning and understanding in different ways along with being able to continue their learning through the assessment process.  Learning should never stop.  The ‘test’ should not be the place where students just vomit up the information that they have memorized.  The assessment should be an opportunity to create and demonstrate how the content or material affects their lives or how they connect to the material.  Project-based learning is one of my primary forms of assessment.  The creation of a product gives students many ways to show their understanding of the concepts and skills that you are trying to teach.  It also gives them the opportunity to demonstrate those skills in different ways and at different levels. 

I also subscribe to the use of portfolios, especially in writing instruction.  Assessment cannot be the end point of learning.  I think that students feel if they do not pass a test, then they just move on and do better next time.  The problem with this idea is that the failing test communicates that they do not have a grasp of the material and that they do not need to move on, but rather spend more time with those skills.  Portfolios allow for this time for reflection and growth.  Through the portfolio process, students must reflect about the process along with targeting weakness and growing from them.  

More than Beowulf: Project-Base Learning

I subscribe heavily to project-based learning in my classroom. As a matter of fact, PBL sits at the center of my pedogogy.  I have found that PBL is the easiest way that I can infuse those real world learning experiences into my boxed-in world of standardized tests.  I am able to take curriculum that often times bores students and give them ways of expressing their learning that creates new and deeper learning.  The act of creating a product gives students many learning opportunities beyond the actual content.
     Project Based Learning changes how maybe traditionalist think about the classroom.  For example in the English classroom, a more 'traditionalist' approach would have students read a story then take a test over the content in the story.  The test would likely be presented in multiple choice that assesses comprehension and would have a writing component that attempts to have students think deeper or connect to the text.  I believe that this form of assessment forces teachers to focus on teaching the content, or the story, rather than teaching students the skills to think and connect to any text.  Students do not necessarily need to know what happened in every chapter of the Great Gatsby later in life, but if they can learn skills to think about what a text like this says about the American Dream, then deeper learning has happened.  Project Based Learning has allowed me the opportunity to get at those higher order skills.
   Just this week, I have students creating Powtoon animations that retell the middle sections of Beowulf.  The purpose of this project is for the students to demonstrate to me that they understand the plot sequence of the poem and that they have an understanding of the characters, but my choice to assess this way is more than seeing if they can understand Beowulf.  I firmly believe that my seniors could graduate without reading a word of Beowulf and be very successful in life.  With that realization in mind, I want to give them an opportunity to walk away with something more valueable. This Powtoon project gives my students the opportunity to learn a new piece of technology.  They have to learn how to collaborate effectively to accomplish a multi-step task.  They also have to learn how to create a plan to accomplish this task.  These are real world skills that they will take beyond Beowulf.
  All the positives aside, project-based learning is an ideal that takes a great deal of commitment on the teacher's part.  Giving a pop quiz over these sections of Beowulf this week would have been much easier for me as the teacher.  The project based approach takes a great deal of faciliting and planning, especially when dealing with class sizes of 30+.  It's simply more work, and often times, students can be resistant to it also.  They are trained to bubble tests and this approach requires them to think and work in new ways.  I have found that it takes constant reinforcement in the beginning for students to buy-in, but by the end of the year, they need less scaffolding and my work is less.  They are also able to create their own project ideas or develop spin off projects from my suggestions.  The road is long, but the products you receive are worth the effort.

Forced Somewhere In Between...

Level 3 - Infusion

At a Level 3 (Infusion), the instructional focus emphasizes student higher order thinking (e.g., Bloom Levels – analyzing, evaluating, creating; Webb’s Levels – short-term strategic thinking) and teacher-directed problems. Though specific learning activities may lack authenticity, the instructional emphasis is, nonetheless, placed on higher levels of cognitive processing and in-depth treatment of the content using a variety of thinking skill strategies (e.g., problem-solving, decision-making). The concept attainment, inductive thinking, and scientific inquiry models of teaching are the norm and guide the types of products generated by students.

Digital and/or environmental resources are used by students and/or the teacher to execute teacher-directed tasks that emphasize higher levels of student cognitive processing relating to the content under investigation.

Level 4a – Integration: Mechanical

At a Level 4a (Integration: Mechanical) students are engaged in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using the available digital and/or environmental resources; however, the teacher may experience classroom management (e.g., disciplinary problems) or school climate issues (lack of support from colleagues) that restrict full-scale integration. Heavy reliance is placed on prepackaged materials and/or outside resources (e.g., assistance from other colleagues) that aid the teacher in sustaining engaged student-directed learning. Emphasis is placed on the constructivist, problem-based models of teaching that require higher levels of student cognitive processing (e.g., Bloom Levels – analyzing, evaluating, creating; Webb’s Levels – short-term strategic thinking, extended strategic thinking) and in-depth examination of the content.

Student use of digital and/or environmental resources is inherent and motivated by the drive to answer student-generated questions that dictate the content, process, and/or products embedded in the learning experience.

Forced Somewhere in Between

When thinking about my classroom in comparison to the LoTi framework I would place myself somewhere in between Level 3 and Level 4 a.  I teach mainly American Literature to high school juniors.  The American Literature course comes with an extremely high stakes end of course exam.  Much of the year is spent preparing students for this test that carries implications not only for the student, but for the success of the school.  

I approach this somewhat complicated class from a project-based approach all the while keeping in mind that the standardized test looms in the background.  Students collaborate often and I use technology frequently to assist with this collaboration.  My school system is integrated with google and all students have a county managed google account.  This integration allows me to use Drive for not only collaboration, but also instant feedback, and ultimately create a paper-free classroom.  I manage a course wiki on google sites that allows students to not only access all course materials, but provides opportunities for them to collaborate together through the use of Google Drive.  My course site can be accessed at www.tinyurl.com/pitmanamericanlit.

Students are using and interacting with technology everyday in my classroom.  The technology does more than supports learning in my classroom, but helps my students learn differently.  Drive affords me the opportunity to provide feedback to students quicker and also gives them new collaboration opportunities.  Through Drive, I am able to have students create collaborative documents without ever leaving their desks through their mobile devices.  I use this often as we create vocabulary study sheets and even use the method in test prep with my students.  The course wiki houses the documents and students are able to refer back to them frequently.  

I feel that the way that I use technology in my classroom places me at level 4 or maybe even close to level 5 on the framework.  I do not use technology for the sake of using it, and I do believe that students are learning differently because of the way it is being used in my classroom.  My struggle with the framework is the requirement that students work with real-world problems that they develop.  When I first began my teaching career, I was very idealistic and bought into the idea and importance of real world connections.  My idealistic teacher-self still believes in this very perfect student-led learning, but the reality of today’s education system makes this idealistic world difficult to achieve.  The test driven education system forces me to a place that prevents such student-led instruction.  So much time has to be spent preparing for a standardized test that has little to do with the ‘real world’.  Unfortunately, instruction should be driven by the assessment, and the assessment that we are given does not encourage questions, collaboration, or authentic problem solving.  I work the create an authentic environment within the box that I am forced into, but given the current climate in education, I have to wonder if truly achieving anything above a 3 is really possible?         

Project Ideas

I would like to explore the idea of gamification with one of my units in American Literature.  I have had a great amount of success taking my classroom digital, but I would like to move forward with creating a even more blended environment,.  Through this process, I hope to create a unit that allows students to work and achieve somewhat at their own pace.

 I would like to create and host this "game" unit on my google course wiki.  My course wiki can be accessed at www.tinyurl.com/pitmanamericanlit.  This site hosts all my course content and provides ways for students to share and interact with each other.  I would like to take that capability further with this project.