Objectives, Activities, Assessments - Final Project Reflection

Done!

Here is the link to the final project.

I am very excited to use all the material I developed in this class. I will get the opportunity almost immediately, because we started the periodic table unit this week. In fact, students will be working on objective 1 tomorrow and taking the Testmoz quiz on Friday! The assessments that I will be using include Testmoz (online quiz), Powtoon (animated video), Screencastify (screenrecorder), and Creately (Venn diagram). I am also very excited that the objectives cover higher thinking skills.

The overall process that we went through for this course was very helpful: starting with the objectives, analyzing them for Bloom's taxonomy. and then choosing appropriate activities and assessments.  I will continue to follow this process in my own classroom.

I also bookmarked many of the projects so that I can use their expertise for choosing other assessment tools. So thanks to all my fellow classmates and I hope all goes well in your classes!

Cybercoaching, rubrics, and constructivism - week 6

Cybercoaching and Rubrics

Clip art by Dake 

I love the idea of teacher as coach and mentor.  When I give a test, I call it "game day".  I tell the students that we have been practicing up to this point (I am the coach) and now it is time for the real game (summative assessment)!  We say 1,2,3 go chem! It's a fun way to approach a test.

The readings this week, however, made me think of how I need to improve this coaching role. Naomi Jeffery Petersen's points out in her article, Cybercoaching: Rubrics, Feedback, and Metacognition, Oh My! (2005), that coaching is the giving of feedback to improve and develop skills before the final assessment.  This can be done through formative assessments. A key coaching component is then to adjust the instruction as needed after these assessments.  I had thought that I was doing formative assessments correctly, but I think they were more like mini summative assessments.  I assumed that after a quiz, the students were making adjustments themselves before the test.  I also was not requiring any proof that they had made any changes. This was more like the students were self coaching (or at least I hoped they were self coaching).  I realize that I need to change this.  The key now is how?  I am looking into adding some activities or specialized requirements after a quiz so that true improvements can occur.

What about my other types of assessments - projects, lab reports, etc.?  The article also emphasized the use of rubrics as a formative assessment.  I, once again, thought I was using them correctly.  I would give the students the rubric before the assignment.  It was helpful, for them, but again not truly formative or coaching.  I want to include using the rubric on a draft version first (which I had not done).  Then students can make adjustments and improvements before the final version is completed.  I am not sure how much time this would involve, so I may have to rely on peer assessment also, and some peer coaching.  Lots of things to think about!

Constructivism

Here I felt a little better about my teaching.  I love to give students problems in the lab especially where I do not give them any procedures.  Students have to rely on previous knowledge and then adapt it to the new learning challenge.  This is one of the key components in a constructivist approach.  The labs are active, rely on past knowledge, intentional, (sometimes very authentic) and cooperative - all attributes of meaningful learning as listed in Bill Brandon's article on Applying Instructional Systems Processes to Constructivist Learning Environments.  I just need to keep this in mind when I have my online activities too!

Bloom's Taxonomy and Rubrics - Week 5 Reflections

Bloom's Taxonomy

Bloom's Taxonomy is a familiar topic to me, but sadly not one that I use enough.  We have targets (objectives written to the student.  "I can describe.... " Instead of  "The student will describe..." ) that we put together as a department for each of our courses.  We have talked about including higher order thinking but we have never sat down to analyze our targets to see where they all fit.  I was surprised to see how many were in the lower level thinking skills. I would like to (when time permits!) re-examine each unit's targets and add some higher level ones if lacking.  I would also then add higher level activities and assessments to measure them. There are a lot of resources online.  I found these diagrams very helpful.

Note:  Top diagram from nlst6dh at this link and bottom diagram from Doug Belshaw at this link.

Rubrics

Rubrics are great for teachers and students.  As a teacher, it not only makes grading easier, it also helps process what you actually want out of the assignment.  Deciding the categories are criteria before the assignment is given is clarifying for both teachers and students.  I find the rubistar online rubric generator an excellent resource.  I don't know if I would be anxious to use rubrics without such help.  I have attached my rubric for a periodic table activity that I made with rubistar.

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Assessment is a learning experience! Week 4

I so resonated with this week's video and readings on performance assessment.  This is where I wish my school was headed.  I am always pushing for authentic performance assessments, while the school is interested in writing better multiple choice questions and having uniform paper and pencil test.  I have stuck with my convictions, and am still allowed to do my own finals and exams.  In order not to be seen as too revolutionary, this has often meant giving two tests - a lab performance-based test and the traditional multiple choice and short answer test.  As I stated in the Week 1 blog, I feel the performance based assessment is a learning experience.  I was delighted to hear the same phrase in the video on Comprehensive Assessment: An Overview by Edutopia.

In the related article by Roberta Furger, it states that"...you can't assess a student's deep understanding of a subject and their ability to apply a concept through a traditional paper-and-pencil, crank-out-the formulas kind of assessment.  I have argued with my colleagues that the best way to find out if a student can apply the chemistry problems is for them to perform experiments in a lab, similar to the ideas in the article - If you want to know if a student understands how to make a souffle - they need to make it! - not answer questions about it!  I was energized and envious about all the exciting projects students were doing in other classrooms, racing electric cars, designing buildings and dueling with robots!  This is the challenge to come up with authentic robust projects. As we also learned this week there are many online tools available for assessment, "Survey, quizzes and Test Builders, Reflection, Peer-to Peer Collaboration and Audio Video Production, as shown in our website.  However, I do not just want to change my assessments from paper and pencil to a video, unless producing the video has a deeper component to it.  I am struggling with how to make this all happen in my classroom (with school restraints) and with my numerous targets (objectives) that all need to be covered, but I am working on it!

The E-storm is brewing! Reflection on Week 3

At the beginning of the week I was unsure of what Dr. Bonk meant in his article on the Perfect E-Storm describing the effects of emerging technology, enormous learner demand, enhanced pedagogy and erased budgets until I felt the storm myself . This week as a teacher, my lesson using Chromebooks failed due to the students not being allowed (security prevention) to add an extension called Screencastify to their Chromebooks to create videos of their presentations - then as a student, I felt a little overwhelmed with the numerous technologies that I needed to learn or update (test generators, concept maps, Weebly web page, and e-portfolio).  Fortunately, the storm has subsided some in time for me to update my Blog!  Despite the Bonk article being old in technology years (2004), he did point to 30 emerging technologies that were for the most part still represent current technology.  We looked at a few of them this week - Online quizzes and exams, peer-to-peer collaboration, videos, and reflection.  I personally reviewed an online quiz program called Testmoz. It was very quick and easy to use and produced a very useful and visual report that could also be downloaded to excel.  It's major drawback is that you cannot add images or videos with your questions, but if you don't need them, I highly recommend the program. Here is a link to my more complete review.

Additionally, we learned about concept mapping and its use for designing a unit.  The map included objectives, activities and assessments.  When all put together, a teacher can better see the overview, connections, and variety of instruction/assessment included in their unit.  I started one for my periodic table unit, which I am teaching next! I used a program called creately.

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Reflection and Blogging - a perfect marriage - Week 2

This week in class we looked at the use of blogging as an online assessment - and thus the birth of this blog! My first inclination was to say - that won't work for me and my students. We read an article by Luehmann and MacBride about how two high school teachers were using classroom blogs.  I realized that some of what they were using the blogs for: sharing resources and developing a classroom community, I was accomplishing using my classroom's Google plus community page.  (I linked my parent community page to the right!)  Some of the teachers' additional uses for their blogs (responding to teacher prompts, engaging in online conversation, and student sharing what they learned before a test) I was excited about, but they for the most part could also be accomplished on our community page.  If fact, I was so excited about the later that I immediately posted a similar prompt on my page.

The one aspect that I did not feel could be accomplished with our community page was true reflection, where students honestly thought about their own learning process, during and after a unit. This would likely be more private (not typically a blog use) so students could speak of weaknesses without sharing with their classmates.  This type of reflection is also a key to students ownership of their own learning.  Students would reflect on the process, content, and method of their learning. (from Mr. Thayers blog on reflection).  I will have the students record their reflection in their own blogs and share with me.  I will keep you "posted" on how that goes!

Assessment for Learning - Week 1

What is the purpose of assessment -to measure learning (end of unit test, finals – assessment of learning) or to promote learning (feedback on how learning is progressing – assessment for learning)? In examining my own practice, I admit that I have predominantly focused on measuring learning. These types of tests are, according to Buhagiar’s article on classroom assessment, learning unfriendly (narrow time and content), curriculum unfriendly (test taking strategies not content strategies), teacher unfriendly (basis for their evaluation), and student unfriendly (labeling).

 Ouch! So how can I switch to adding (can’t avoid the measuring) more assessments for learning? These have often also been called formative assessments.  These types of assessments are on-going and low stakes where students can see how they are doing so they can make adjustments and changes in order to learn more and where teachers can alter their instruction based on student outcomes.  I have started to incorporate more on-going and low stakes assessments in the form of online quizzes and individual check in.  While I check in student work, I comment on how well they did the assignment and if necessary ask them to repeat certain sections before I give credit.  This part I feel has caused students to adjust their methods. My online quizzes, although low stakes, have not achieved the true purpose to promote learning.  I think I need to have the feedback more instantaneous, with answers given immediately (which they weren't) and then responsibilities when answers were missed (which there wasn't).  If student missed a question on chemical properties – I should have had them do some more work to better understand the concept or add an supplementary activity(change my teaching).  Another additional key to formative assessments is to have students involved in the process, so that they can judge their own learning and take more ownership of it.  This too I have been lacking.  A lot to work on this year!

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Finally, I do love one type of assessment I do.  I give lab finals at the end of the semester, students need to use all they have learned to solve a new problem.  I suggest this is a new type of assessment – not an assessment of learning or an assessment for learning but the assessment is the learning!  My students often remark that they learned more doing the final itself! My favorite assessment!

Welcome to my Blog!

Flipping, mastery, online assessments and me!

Hello and welcome to my blog!  I am Lisa Backus and I teach Chemistry and Honors Chemistry at Deerfield High School. This blog is part of a class I am taking dealing with online assessments.  I became interested in the topic when I started flipping my classroom.  Flipping is where you take any predominantly 1 sided instruction (like lecture or reading) that used to be done in the classroom and turn them into homework assignments, sometimes through the use of videos.  The old homework part is now done in the classroom and can be transformed from worksheets to interactive activities.  The idea is that class time is for student involvement not passively sitting to a lecture (although I didn't lecture often before either). I made a video for my parents to explain the concept of flipped mastery and I attached it for those who are interested.  I also added a mastery component.  This is where students must successfully finish targets before taking an assessment.  This is what drove my interest in online assessments. Students are finishing targets at different times.  Assessments need to be flexible, given at different times, evaluated quickly and if predominantly 1 sided, able to be done at home.  Online assessments are the perfect match for the classroom.  I hope to learn a lot.  You are welcome to come along on my journey!