If you are strictly here to get a copy of my instructions for project and portfolio, here they are:
Project
Portfolio
*note that a lot more instructions were given verbally, along with more student examples for clarification
Here are examples for the summative interview prep as well
Interview focus
Sample interview questions (school name and school crest was removed, which is why the formatting looks strange)
I wrote this back in May 2013: [AnE] SBG - where I am and where I want to go
It gave an overview of some of my thinking back then, which are still mostly consistent with my current thinking. There is only maybe one exception which is clarifying how I feel about SBG. I am still in favour of the direction that sbg allows us to go. On the other hand, I came to realize that some people have begun to use SBG as some sort of end-all-be-all blanket shield for what they do. And so I think I'd rather emphasize the spirit and the direction of the assessment process that I want to ideally facilitate - instead of championing a term that seems to have included some misuses from people.
Let me try to summarize the ideas from two years ago:
Where I was:
- Focusing on expectations according to the curriculum
- Evaluation with levels as a qualitative descriptor of student understanding
- Emphasizing feedback for promoting student learning
Where I wanted to go:
- Completely project-based spiral curriculum
- Focus on mathematical processes (described by Ministry of Ontario as including: problem solving, reasoning & proving, reflecting, selecting tools & computational strategies, connecting, representing, communicating)
- Incorporate more alternative assessments
Did I reach my goals?
So... How did I do with these? Since then, I have experienced some setbacks which I alluded to in previous posts but never fully explored (and for many reasons I won't go into details here either). The biggest obstacles were different aspects of my personality. While I have a lot of opinions (which I often question) and questions (which I often have opinions for), I dislike trying to convince other teachers of a particular way of doing things. I've come to think that this is because: a) I prefer to listen and consider other views (while most of the time staying unconvinced), b) I believe that all teachers benefit from pedagogical approaches that celebrates their individuality, circumstances, and dynamic environments, and c) I hate conflict.
For a large variety of reasons, I haven't made much progress with respect to the three goals I made in the first few semesters after I wrote that post back in May 2013. I've made a lot more of those steps in the past semester with the grade 12 advanced functions course, which I've alluded to here and here.
For a variety of reasons such as culture, I failed to have activities/projects every single day. However, I was able to tie together the main ideas of the course through the concepts of equality, inequality, and identity, and we revisited all the strands several times within the course. This meant that students had multiple opportunities to revisit and thoroughly understand the four main content aspects of the course:
See details from the curriculum document here. I might elaborate a bit later on how I did this
While I had students work on a process portfolio back in 2012 - 2013 (which I realize now that I never elaborated on...), I was unable to continue that in the two following years due to a variety of reasons. The past semester, however, I was able to re-incorporate it with the contents of the course, as well as several other assessments - including the summative interview that my students have recently finished with.
And lastly, this past semester I was also able to incorporate a large variety of assessments which I will elaborate on below.
I will divide these up with respect the types they are, as well as indicate the functions that they served (for me, but maybe for students as well).
Observations
Due to the way that I've been running my classes (groups tackling problems), I have been fortunate with the number of opportunities to observe what students say and do. These include anything such as an activity with Desmos, what the students write on the boards (e.g. vertical surfaces) or in their notes, or what their manipulatives... but most importantly - what they say and do.
Formative functions: I would say that these primarily serve formative functions (although I would argue that everything we do should serve formative functions, otherwise why bother doing them?). It allowed me to act immediately according to what the student (or students) need at the time. Typically my action consists of immediate feedback (either posing more problems for students, or asking for clarifications...etc), but sometimes these also help me make decisions on what to consolidate with the whole class -- or what to do on the next days. Not to mention it also has the value of letting me better understand what the students are understanding.
Summative functions: This is more rare, and usually is paired with other types of assessments that I am using. Observations sometimes contribute to my understanding of what a particular student understands about a particular expectation. These are often straws that, together with other assessments, make the weight of information heavy enough for me to "sum up" students understanding at a point in time.
Quizzes/Tests
As much as I'd like to minimize the stress surrounding these types of timed assessments, I still exist in our current culture where they have been traditionally emphasized. I wrote a bit in some recent posts, but it's impossible to be comprehensive. The format would often include open questions so that students would have both the freedom of being able to demonstrate their learning and being able to access this written work from a variety of levels, and also the structure which has been provided through in class activities and the wording. Sometimes I may even build the process differently like this "ordered pair assessment" I described long ago. Below I will describe what else I do with a typically written piece of work.
Formative functions: I try to use quizzes/tests more formatively than otherwise. I will try to remember what I've done and list some. Within the last post, I described: "As a separate activity (sometimes related to the third one), I get them to take a look at what challenges the group faced and what their next steps are." At the time I didn't mention the specifics of what I did, I will try to elaborate a bit.
With quizzes/tests, after they finish, sometimes I would:
- Give it back to them right away, along with a blank version. Their goal was to collaborate to produce the best version among them
- Give a new version on the next day that consists only of incorrect solutions (typed). Their goal would be to either a) describe what went wrong and how they would fix it, or b)describe a question for which the solution would be completely correct. Usually b) is impossible because the solutions had each step typed out, and so the errors are within the processes.
- After a while they get to open their notes and finish it individually
- They get a chance to consult with others, no notes.
- With the quiz/test + their solutions, they identify how they have achieved the expectations that it was intended for.
- Let students have the opportunity of doing post-test interviews which was also described here. I will likely elaborate on how these interviews work in the future.
I think there were more, but I'll stop there for now.
Summative functions: This one is kind of boring. But, maybe surprisingly, I stand by my statement for observations in that these written ones are also "paired with other types of assessments." I consider these also as different kinds of straws that, together with others, allow me to sum up a students' understanding with respect to a specific concept at a specific point in time. The post-test interviews also functioned summatively.
Project
The project, along with the following two things -- portfolio, summative interview -- were all related to each other during this semester. So I will somewhat describe them together. But first, here is the instruction again free for download(note that more verbal instructions were given in class, along with examples). Students were basically directed to create a picture with Desmos using the different functions and concepts within the course. Here are some staff-picked examples as creative art. The format is fairly similar to what I described here except I've made several changes in order to accommodate for the contents and expectations of this particular course. Along with the picture, students also had an opportunity to produce an analysis. They may choose to focus on any expectation they'd like. No, seriously. Any one of them. (they actually also have an opportunity to elaborate on connecting to the portfolio...)
Formative functions: Students had a lot of in-class time to do this. The most valuable formative function that this served, was the amount of varied feedback they were getting - with respect to their understanding of functions. They were getting immediate feedback from Desmos because they are constantly trying to re-shape their functions to fit what they want. They were getting feedback from each other because they were discussing the different aspects of the functions. They were also getting feedback from me in the forms of questions, suggestions, noticing and wonderings.
Summative functions: The primary summative function was to be served in the summative interview. But also I have recently collected their final copies and will be matching their understanding (along with portfolio and their interview) to their work, as well as comparing them to what they have done during the term. All of that to help me better put together a picture of how each student has progressed and what they have come to understand.
Portfolio
Students also had time to work on their portfolio during class, although a lot more time was provided for the project than the portfolio. You can download the instructions here (note that more verbal instructions and examples were given). The focus of the portfolio, as I mentioned before, were the 7 mathematical processes outlined in the curriculum. Students were to demonstrate that they thoroughly understand the different aspects of these processes - using examples from any work that they've done. Yup, any work. They were free to include extensions in order to serve as examples for certain expectations that they've done. The students knew that their goal was to provide the best incidences where they've demonstrated, for example, their ability to connect different representations... or reflect... etc.
Formative functions: I've always maintained that the specific contents of high school mathematics is unimportant. There, I said it. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. How often would we use "factoring" in our day-to-day lives? Probably never. How often would we need to think critically about problems and solve them? Probably all the time. As such, the goal of this portfolio as an on-going assessment alongside their other work with the contents of mathematics, was to get students to think about these bigger ideas. The portfolio functioned primarily formatively as a way of building these experiences for the students.
Summative functions: Similar to the project, the portfolio functioned summatively along with everything else - although it has close ties with the summative interview.
"Summative" Interview
I've always wanted to do this. I was a bit jealous when Al was able to get there first. But of course, our circumstances are different, so I won't complain. While a variety of reasons prevented me from switching out the exam, I was able to do similar things with the "summative." The term has actually come to mean quite different things for different people, so I am not too fond of it as a noun, but that's okay. I am fairly certain that Al and I structured these interviews differently, but I wouldn't really know because I haven't had an opportunity to fully chat with him about it yet.
Okay, so this is how mine worked:
- Students submit their project + portfolio and at that time they sign up for several available days for their summative interview
- At the same time they also indicate which content expectation they would also like to focus on. Here is the sign up sheet, along with a sample sheet which I make notes on during the interview.
- I take a week to read each one of their project + portfolios and come up with questions for each student. The questions I come up with depend on a) what they've shown in their project + porfolio, and b) what they indicated was their focus for the interview. You can download the example questions here.
- On the day of the interview, the first student gets the interview questions, and s/he had 15 minutes to work independently. They may make any notes they'd like, and complete any calculations if necessary. During this time I get the rest of the class ready to do other activities. When their 15 minutes are up, I give the next student their interview questions, and then begin the interview with the previous student. (for which they get 10 minutes with 5 minutes flex time)... and it continues onwards until 5 minutes left in class and I consolidate what the rest of the class has done, and we finish up.
Formative functions: There is less opportunities for this to serve formative functions - primarily because it's meant to serve summative ones... But this is not to say that I still had a brief chat with each student after their interview indicating where they can make improvements.
Summative functions: Along with the rest of the work that students have done during the semester, this served as a good way of "summing up" their understanding of the processes.
Exam
Nothing special here... blah.
Ok and so here I should end this monster post.
I know that a lot of people are interested in how I set up the visual portfolio of student achievements similar to the one I did in the past. But I think I will stop it here and continue with the technical side of how I create the Google spreadsheet later on.
No comments:
Post a Comment