guest written by Justin Ballou

One of the tell-tale signs that spring has arrived here in New England is the beginning of baseball season. The idea of Spring Training, the warm nights that are on their way, and the games at your local stadium really define (at least for New England) the great warm months of the year.

Now, I am a big of a baseball fan, but one thing I do is keep up with the Red Sox. Where I’m from, it is almost an act of blasphemy to not be paying attention to the hometown favorite as they begin their march towards October. In this focus, Spring training and the buildup of opening day allows us to reflect on Americas past time. And hidden….deep down in the pits of the fundamentals of sports and events like these….are the life lessons that we must appreciate to make progress. So…I began to think….

Taking the pitcher for example, how many of the pitches that they make the week before opening day do we have counted for or against them on game day? Do we look at the rating of the pitcher based upon the 275 throws in the past 3 days, or the 7 fantastic, (or poor) innings on game day? Other sports like football, (with a quarterback rating…) golf, (with the final score on the match), etc….all of them are based upon the ability to be assessed only at the proper time.

Transfer this to the professional world, and we see a pattern emerge that is older than the organization of traditional formal education itself. Are surgeons bad surgeons if they make a mistake on the operating table? Or, do they have the ability to make mistakes, learn, and re-apply knowledge and skills until they have shown mastery in order to get their license? How about the pilot? Or even something as universally accepted in the United States as a driver’s license?

And lastly, at the end of the feedback loop process…. Do those surgeons, pilots, and drivers get a credential that limit what they can do because of how long it took or how many times we had to reapply?

Education should be no different. Students all learn at different levels and with different methods…..but our system, (which has not really adapted in the last 100 years or so) still does the same thing. Students walk out of a class and are given a grade….not on what they know or are able to do….but on every small step of the way. So, in actuality, a student could have mastered EVERY concept, and can perform ALL tasks at the end of a semester. But, due to an antiquated method of ensuring mastery, could technically be turned away from the next step because of the number that is besides their name. This number is not always accurate. And it is this number presently, which has some of the strongest influence on their future. Pretty scary, huh?

So what do we do? We need to start taking a look at how we grade and what the purpose of the grade actually is. As teachers, parents, and self-advocating students, do we not want an educational system that can verify the skills, knowledge, and abilities of the student population? And if a student has proven they can perform the tasks put forth, should they not get ALL of the credit they deserve, rather than an outdated and lacking average that often serves to misrepresent the true student?

What are your thoughts? Would love to hear them!

About the author: Justin Ballou is a high-school Social Studies teacher in New Hampshire. Besides teaching, he is active running an education startup called EduTech and enjoys spending time with his beautiful wife. With edtech and authentic learning as his go-to topics, you can reach him at jballouteaches@gmail.com to ask questions or leave comments and follow him on twitter (@nhjbteach).

guest written by Justin Ballou

Many times, I have heard this sentiment (It’s not like that in the real world!) echoed about education, teachers, and the environment of school altogether. So, it is only fitting to begin this blog post in one manner…

Pop Quiz

Ok… grab a piece of paper, and pen or pencil and let me know when you are ready.

Ok?

Good. What I would like you to do is think of a profession that we have in the United States or abroad. Any profession that you little heart desires. Got one? Ok….write it down and underline it.

Now below it, I want you to write 3 things that are necessary to be successful in that profession. I will give you a sec…

Have three? Ok……Looking at your profession, we are going to assume that you have doctor, (or some iteration of the medical profession, because, frankly, it comes up 4 out of 5 times I do this little quiz).

Now, keeping in mind that list of things below the profession you chose, imagine that you are laying on the table of your surgeon and have just been administered anesthesia. As you slowly count down from 100, you feel your eyes getting heavy, and senses becoming distorted. As you hold on to the last bit of consciousness that you have, you hear the surgeon say something along the lines of….

“So, in medical school, I was really good at the whole cutting part of the operation….can identify the parts of the body….but when it comes to sewing, I BOMBED! But, it is quite alright nurse, you see, I received a passing average….so I was able to obtain my medical license!”

Is this how it works in the real world? No. Of course not. When a professional or individual has been certified in their respected field, they have shown that they are capable in ALL components of their education. This way, we know that the surgeon can cut, identify organs, locate the problems, analyze  the situation, provide a solution, and sew the patient back up.

Seems accurate when you think about it, huh?

Then why do we settle for anything less when assessing our students? Our traditional model of teaching and assessment provides a general score. One that relates individual abilities on a mean that really doesn’t paint a picture of either the knowledge or skills that a student has when they walk out of the classroom.

As both a teacher and a citizen, this idea that we will settle for a 75%, (average in the hypothetical world) which could boil down to a student that can memorize enough terms to get a 90 in knowledge, but can leave with poor communication skills or higher order thinking skills boggles my mind!

If we are preparing our student population to become positive members of society with knowledge, skills in the higher order cognitive realms, (such as organization, evaluation, analysis,) and the ability to research valuable and legitimate information to act as evidence to support ideas, we need to start assessing ALL areas in which we can identify student strengths and weaknesses. If they do not make the grade in just ONE of those things, we need to do the responsible, (but difficult) task of keeping them there until they can show competence in the major components of the ultimate goal. Only then can we truly ensure that those that leave our classrooms and educational institutions are ready, willing, and able to be the best that they can be for society in general.

Looking back at your own profession, would you want someone that is helping you out to be missing one of those abilities you have listed? Probably not. So, like in the real world, we need to start doing this in school so that we know that when those young adults do receive that hallowed document that reads “diploma,” that it means something; that we certify that the student is ready to tackle whatever it is that is coming next for him or her.

About the author: Justin Ballou is a high-school Social Studies teacher in New Hampshire. Besides teaching, he is active running an education startup called EduTech and enjoys spending time with his beautiful wife. With edtech and authentic learning as his go-to topics, you can reach him at jballouteaches@gmail.com to ask questions or leave comments and follow him on twitter (@nhjbteach).

guest written by Steve Silvius of Three Ring

In their foundational work, “Inside the Black Box,” Black and Wiliam demonstrated how powerful the concept of formative assessment can be when implemented as a central part of teaching and learning. Sadly, as the term formative assessment spread, the concept was largely lost, diluted, or overlooked.  At this point, there may be no rehabilitating the terminology, but we will make a serious mistake if we abandon the concept as well—it’s importance, its challenges, and the values, approaches, and tools that make it possible.

In her recent report for the Council of Chief State School Officers, Margaret Heritage reminds the education world that formative assessment is a process, not a specific assessment.  That is, it makes sense to say, “We are engaging in formative assessment,” but not to say, “this quiz is a formative assessment.”  Indeed, Black et. al. make the important point that — properly understood — “all assessment is formative.”  If we believe in lifelong learning, there is no final exam.

The most powerful tool for better assessment is the portfolio.  A portfolio, whether of a class, teacher, student, or school is a recognition that assessment is a holistic endeavor.  Portfolios work because they embody the notion that intellectual activity is at the heart of teaching and learning and because they refuse to reduce a person’s complex intellectual activity to a simple letter or number.

I agree wholeheartedly with Debra Finger that narrative approaches to grading and the maintenance of portfolios, though sometimes painstaking, allow us to build the nuanced understanding of students that is essential for better teaching and learning.  And, I am deeply impressed by Lauren Scheller’s list of guidelines to implementing portfolios in the classroom, as well as her brilliantly perceptive observation that grading systems too often obscure the point of learning, creating a situation where students are confused about how to even calculate their grades, much less improve them.  Portfolios can change this because they are tools for assessment, for communication, for intervention, and for fostering ownership.

If we believe all this to be true, it is imperative to make authentic assessment as simple as possible to actually do.  I currently am working with a dedicated team to create a platform for digitizing student work that is easy to use, flexible, and powerful for instruction, assessment, and communication.  It is my hope that tools such as these will provide teachers and learners with ways to ensure that assessment serves pedagogy.

I hope that teachers and other stakeholders will use my our product, but more importantly, I hope that they will adopt the following values of good assessment and think deeply about the implications of these values in their work:

1.  Understanding. Authentic assessment requires a strong understanding of what student work in your content should look like, where your students are creating this type of work, and where they are falling short.  This must go deeper than numerical/letter labels and marks indicating right and wrong.  Digital portfolios are an ideal tool for capturing this rich data and getting behind the grades to what really matters—student intellectual activity.

2. Communication. Authentic assessment also requires us to communicate clearly about these qualitative aspects of student work.  Digital portfolios can provide teachers, with evidence to reference, space to give descriptive feedback, and the flexibility to withhold grades until later in the process—after students have had time to incorporate feedback into their learning and work.

3. Ownership: Finally, authentic assessment requires peer and self-assessment, so  students can take true ownership of their learning.  Done correctly, this takes a burden off teachers making it natural for every student to adapt pacing and learning to their individual needs.  Digital portfolios are perfect tools to enable this.  They provide students an opportunity to curate, share, examine, and reflect on their own work.  Unlike traditional portfolios, which might often be primarily about demonstrating your best work, digital portfolios make it easy to track progress, to engage with your best and your worst, and to see how far you have come.  This is true of teachers, as well as students.

These principles are at the heart of effective assessment processes. They are not always easy to adhere to (in fact, they are very difficult) but we believe they are powerful enough that we’ve designed our entire company to make them easier for teachers to achieve. Our hope is to reclaim the term “formative assessment” from the jargon rubbish bin to which it has been banished

About the author: Stephen Silvius (@stevesilvius) is a former Los Angeles high school mathematics teacher and education researcher.  His work at Oxford University examined issues around student voice in the discourse of secondary school mathematics classrooms.  He is currently the Chief Education Officer at Three Ring—an education startup dedicated to bringing teachers and students a simple platform for digitizing student work (@teamthreering).

guest written by Lauren Scheller

10% homework, 40% quizzes, 20% participation….. sound familiar?

The result seems to be students working to achieve a grade as close to 100% as they can, while being confused about how they can even calculate their own grades. Teachers want students to realize the power of a strong work ethic and develop intrinsic motivation necessary for deep learning, however, we often use an enigmatic grading system rather than meaningful feedback. The focus is on the grade achieved rather than the learning. This is problematic and all too common. Learning is not simply an end goal but a process as well.

I use portfolio assessments in my world language classroom according to the following general guidelines.

1.     Change the vocabulary to assessment and performance-based assessments. It more accurately describes what we, as teachers, should be doing.

2.     Start with the end in mind. The ultimate goal for our students is to develop a certain skill or content knowledge. Therefore, we need learning targets, both a mixture of skills and content, in relation to which we can assess a student’s current ability and progress towards their goal.

3.     Assessment needs to happen early and often. Students need feedback immediately to know where they stand and specifically where they can improve.

4.     We don’t need to “grade” everything. If the purpose is to give feedback, then everything does not need to be recorded. Nor is it practical to record grades as much as they could be given.

5.     Not all grades need to be numerical. What’s wrong with “meets standard, approaches standard, exceeds standard” with narrative to go with it?

6.     Informal assessments are as useful as formal assessments. They often take less time, and specific feedback can be given quickly and easily. They serve to guide instruction and student work.

7.     Grades should be disaggregated. What do you do if a student turns in a project that completed all the requirements and has acquired all the content but turns the project in one day late. Some teachers would take 50% off the total score. So instead of a 95, that student now has a 47. What does that tell the student when factored into the 20% category of projects? When a parent looks at the 45%, is it clear what the student could or could not do? Instead, have categories that represent specific skills: work ethic (turning assignments in on time and completion), collaboration, content, critical thinking, etc.

8.     Metacognition should be a part of all major assessments. Students need to reflect on the quality of their own work and the contributions they made to a project.

9.     Open-ended performance assessments that show what a student can do rather than what they can’t, perhaps given freedom to display their achievement of skills as content through the platform of their choosing.

10. Involve your students in the grading process. They can help to choose the wording of the rubrics or alter the categories. They can also peer and self-assess. Rubrics and feedback should be put in kid friendly terms, so they know what they can do to improve.

Here’s an example:

My French II students were doing a unit on French cinema. The goal was for students to gain an understanding of the place the cinema holds in French culture and how that differs in products, perspectives and practices of Americans. The main project was to create a whole class blog for the local community to encourage the viewing of French films from the library. The performance assessments were as follows. They had a conversation with a friend deciding what movie they wanted to see that night and why. They took a description about the movie Les Misérables (which we watched) that was very short and choppy and made it made it more complex using object pronouns. They chose their own French movie to watch and created a blog post about it, including brief synopsis, general opinion and recommendations. Each student then had to choose one other movie to watch based on the description of their peer and leave a comment to their review.

Each assessment was designed to show what a student was able to do with the language in order to elicit meaningful feedback. I also designed smaller assessments along the way to be informally assessed by peers or the teacher in order to check for progress.  All assessments used the same or similar rubrics with shared vocabulary. Each had component of proficiency, content and, if it was a group task, collaboration. The language of the rubrics were put in student-friendly terms, and modified based on student feedback. Each item that was formally or informally assessed was numbered and placed in the portfolio with a note from the students about the success they achieved and an area of improvement to focus on.

At several points along the way, we as a class stopped so the students could reflect generally on where they were in the process and write something longer than they did in the quicker checkpoints. This reflective process was also assessed using a rubric. These reflections can be used to create individualized work for students or serve as a general temperature check for the teacher in scaffolding the work. The half-year reflection point is especially useful for setting goals, and involving parents. With the use of rubrics, students stop discussion around topics like “getting As instead of Bs” and move to using specific language about their own proficiency and work style. This does have to be modeled in the beginning.

Portfolios give students an individualized targeted method of focusing on what they can do with the language. They analyze their own strengths and weaknesses with the help of the teacher and peers to continually improve on specific areas. They can be either housed in a paper folder in the class or digitally on-line. In my world language class, I prefer the digital version, so we can include speaking, writing, and tech-based assessments, like Voicethread, podcasts or blogs. The students are excited to have, virtually or physically, tangible evidence of their success.

My ultimate goal would be for reported “grades” to be a narrative and based on meeting a standard. This however is a larger school or district decision.  Therefore, when using a portfolio assessment, a teacher will have to decide for themselves what it would look like as translated into a numeric grade.

I hope we can all begin to contemplate the power of this type of assessment.

Think about when you were in school and received grades you did not understand, that did not in actuality assess what you knew or were able to do with the skills and content that were acquired. In most classes, grades are an end result. Learning should be the end result with grades a way to focus the students and give them direction on how to create an individualized implementation plan.

About the author: Lauren Scheller graduated from Rutgers with a double major in Biological Sciences and French. As an elementary and secondary science teacher, Lauren became the initiator and foremost authority in inquiry and project-based learning and differentiated instruction at her school. Upon transitioning to teaching French, Lauren’s student-centered approach contributed to the development of thematic-based unit plans with a focus on 21st century skill development and performance-based assessment. Check out Lauren’s blog and follow her on Twitter @Lauren_Scheller.

I’m not sure if you’ve noticed the pattern yet, but I’ve started collecting guest blog posts from all the interesting people that I meet in #edchat each week. We’ve already heard from Mike Vigilant and Justin Baumgartner. This week, I’m continuing the trend, but in a slightly different way.

Debra Finger, The Incidental Techie, writes this week’s contribution on her own blog, and instead of simply reposting the entire thing here I will post up a little teaser and then point you towards it. Hopefully by now you trust me when I say that this post is worth the couple minutes it should take you to read it.

Teacher Debra (to use her Twitter handle), writes this week about the student narrative, i.e. “what parents want to know that grades don’t tell them.” A student’s achievement and involvement in school is a complex thing, and the occasional report card doesn’t even come close to explaining it.

What does? Well, here’s an example from her school:

I am fortunate enough to work in a school that values the whole child and as such, twice a year tries to capture that child in the form of narrative reports about each child’s strengths, weaknesses and efforts in a particular curricular area, including a social emotional picture of each child. These narratives, though extremely time-consuming (did I mention these take weeks and weeks to write?) offer the parent or guardian what letter grades alone cannot: a lens through which they can see their child as the teacher sees him. These narratives can show the parent that after 7 hours a day, 5 days a week, 38 weeks a year this teacher knows that child as a person and a learner.

That was the teaser. But the post goes on from there to talk about other ways of showing parents what their child is doing: student portfolios. So please, by all means, go read it.

Next week’s guest post will come to us from another teacher (that I met in #edchat, of course) that has already been down the student portfolio path in her classroom. Look forward to it.