Skip to main content

Less Physics Mo Problems

By
Why am I writing this personal entry? Well, it is not an attempt to gain any sympathy. It attempts to show what is possible if a clear intention and goal serve the learner's needs.  In May of 2022 just near the end of another fantastic school year, I do not remember what happened. But, I was unable to finish the school year and was unable to teach the following year.  Why? On May 21st, 2022, I fell down a flight of 16 stairs (luckily carpeted) from the 2nd to 1st story of our home.  I was found at the bottom of the stairs. I was found foaming at the mouth. This would lead to a 2-month hospital stay which included an induced coma because my seizures would not stop, several rounds of lumbar punctures, and relearning basic physical movements like something as simple as being able to roll in the hospital bed. Simply put, when I was admitted to the hospital, I was diagnosed as being “critically ill.” Please take a moment and read those words: critically ill. They are not terms...
Post a Comment

Feedback and Revision Cycles

Image
By


At a recent school PD session, it was announced that we will be revisiting grading practices in an effort to come to agreement on common practices as a staff.  I admire our administration for taking on this issue.  Grading practices are something that most staff don’t like having open conversations about, myself included.  I feel like I always need to be able to defend my position and I should be.  So, the point of this post is to help me frame my beliefs as it comes to opportunities for students to receive feedback and act on that feedback.
This diagram below is an attempt to summarize the process I allow students in my classroom when it comes to a particular learning outcome.




I recently revised my objective rubrics to follow a 0-4 scale based on Bloom’s Taxonomy verbs.
4
Synthesize multiple pieces
3
Analyze unique information
2
Apply understanding
1
Explain basics
The key to this process is providing students feedback and giving them the opportunity for reassessment.  The result of the reassessment could be scoring at a level 4.  Revision in my course is optional for all students who achieve any level.  So a student could revise if they are at a level 1, 2, or 3. Ultimately, there is no ceiling to their ability to demonstrate understanding.  This means that any student could achieve a level 4 upon revision. I can’t think of a good defense for not allowing students the opportunity for an opportunity to be reassessed.  Given that opportunity, there is no reason that they shouldn’t be allowed to score at the highest possible level.

Many will make arguments that “in the real world” students won’t be given multiple opportunities to be reassessed.  I would argue that “in the real world” important projects are worked on over long periods of time and undergo many cycles of feedback and revision before they are considered complete.  So it should be with something as important as a student’s understanding of content.  Others say that “in college” they will only get one chance at a test.  I would say to that, just because it is done that way, why do we have to model ourselves after it.  Can’t we provide the best opportunity for our students to gain understanding of our content?  
We have great technology tools at our disposal for allowing multiple submissions and providing these dynamic feedback and revision cycles.  Canvas LMS has provided me with a great tool to provide feedback on assignments and allow students to see the feedback and resubmit.  I am alerted when they submit and can provide new feedback to determine the level of mastery.

These are some of the questions that made me reevaluate the way I assess and grade student in my classroom.
  • What is the goal of your classroom?
  • How are you helping students achieve this goal?
  • Who is dictating the timeline for demonstrating mastery in your course?
  • If you had a summative assessment due on Tuesday, could a student still receive full points if they demonstrated advanced understanding on Friday?
  • Is the independent variable of your course time or objectives? Are you putting more importance on scoring understanding on a date or when the student has shown progress towards deeper understanding?
  • Do you only get one chance to demonstrate the ability to teach a lesson to your class?
  • How would you like to be assessed?  One and done or the ability to show progress based on feedback?



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Twitter Cards for Blogger

By
So, I’ve been seeing people with beautiful Twitter Cards in my Twitter Stream. They make it clear that there is a web page to visit and give a quick preview of what would be found. Something like the one below: I’ve been wondering how to get one of the cards to appear when I tweet out a link to my latest blog post.  Since I use Blogger, there is not a simple button to click to turn this on.  I had to find a way to paste new code into the HTML code of my blog.  It took some searching from multiple sites to get a completely functional.   This site though was quite helpful.  But, I’d like to walk you through my process and hopefully it helps a few out. There are a few types of Twitter Cards.  Two that at most frequently see are the basic summary card and the summary card with large image.  Below you can see the layout of each, but realize that they both have the same content pieces. This is going to look like a lot ...
14 comments
Read more

Personalized Learning Tasks and Roles

By
Yesterday, I read a great post by Jim Rickabaugh dealing with the roles of learner and teacher in a personalized learning environment by looking at tasks . The roles were set up on a continuum. This article timed perfectly with a reflection on part of Students at the Center by Allison Zmuda and Bena Kallick on idea generation and task development I had in mind. These two works are the focus of my reflection here. I think a key misunderstand teachers have when it comes to digging into personalizing learning is that for planning purposes, we no longer begin with standards but with student desires.  I believe like all good instruction, we need to start with the standards.  Think about it, standards are what we want all learners to know and be able to do as a result of passing through our educational system. That is why it is essential that we make sure that standards are representative of what we believe is important for learners to be informed and productive in th...
1 comment
Read more

Pear Deck 101 + Q&A

By
  Last week, I presented as a part of Pear Deck’s Pear Fair 2020. My presentation was Pear Deck 101 for Google Slides. During the presentation, there was a live chat. Many people said it went too fast for a 101 Session. Luckily, it was recorded so it can be rewatched.  Also, many said that they wanted to know how to build a Pear Deck first. I structured the presentation to show what Pear Deck was before showing how to make one. Perhaps that wasn’t the best structure. But, I’m going to stick with my philosophy of showing what something is before showing how to make it. The presentation, which can be watched below, was structured in several different sections What is Pear Deck? Providing an overview of the experience from the Teacher and Student perspectives. How do you build a Pear Deck in Google Slides? How do you start a Pear Deck presentation? How do you end a Pear Deck presentation? Here is the Slideshow I shared during the session bit.ly/pearfair101 Time really flew in...
2 comments
Read more