This week, I reflected on the process of designing for understanding and what that entails. When designing a learning unit, I read that it is helpful to design with the end in mind, meaning to think about what teachers want students to achieve and how that achievement will be evaluated. When designing assessments for a unit, it's important to ask essential questions about what these assessments will look like and how they will function in the classroom. Check out my thoughts on and experiences with assessment here:
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My students will do anything for a Jolly Rancher. This week, I found out why. Learning takes place in a variety of ways and the theories surrounding learning have been reimagined over time. From classical conditioning to behaviorism, these theories allow teachers, like me, to understand student behavior. Another factor that is impossible to ignore when considering learned behavior is the control that habits have over people’s daily lives. I found reading Charles Duhigg (2012)’s The Power of Habit extremely engaging. The personal examples allowed for a better understanding of the main characteristics of habits. Eugene, a man who had viral encephalitis and suffered brain damage, could not remember people’s names, but could easily find his way home on walks due to habits he had previously developed (Duhigg, 2012, p.11-18). This story really connected with me, as up until two years ago when he passed away, I was one of the main caretakers for my grandfather who had a stroke leaving him with hemiparesis. I always found his behavior and brain function to be quite intriguing, as he could easily remember simple routines. Hearing that habits may have been the reason he remembered these behaviors made a lot of sense and allowed me to connect further to how habits truly impact our behavior. When examining my own habits, I found something quite intriguing. According to Charles Duhigg (2012), “Researchers began finding that habit replacement worked pretty well for many people until the stresses of life...got too high...” (p.82). Being a teacher in this global pandemic, suddenly having no structure to the day, and being the representation for a group of teachers when developing a distance learning plan, the newer healthier habits that I had created for myself during the school year went away. I eventually reflected and found through a lot of conversations with friends that I was most frustrated by the fact that I wasn’t doing my usual routine and habits. By going back to my routines and following my standard daily habits like working out, eating breakfast, and working at normal times, I would be more positive and have more motivation. During this unit, it was also nice to get refreshed on the theories surrounding learning. I was interested to make some connections between myself as a learner, my students, and overall behavior. I acknowledge that I am extremely self-motivated to learn new things if they are of interest to me. I also appreciate recognition and praise for my achievements. Who doesn’t? When I think of my students, they seem less personally motivated to learn, especially if they are lacking basic needs or the content is not interesting. I know handing out Jolly Ranchers makes the class more engaging and makes students more motivated to perform. Therefore, I recognize it as positive reinforcement, but I felt conflicted calling it “conditioning” as it seemed like such a harsh word. It made me reconsider what kinds of behaviors I was reinforcing. Am I truly rewarding a student for positive behavior? Or am I giving it to them because they put in even the smallest effort? My school has a positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) system, so I think I might try to participate more in those endeavors instead of just rewarding tiny pieces of candy. My students have fallen into specific habits that allow them to function on a daily basis. These habits have been reinforced either positively or negatively for four years. They come to school, do their work, and get grades. “To change a habit, you must keep the old cue, and deliver the old reward, but insert a new routine” (Duhigg, 2012, p.63). If I can find a way to switch up the routine through movement and collaboration, I can easily see students being more engaged in their learning. Lastly, to use my learning and apply it, I suggested to my building leadership team that we recognize teachers in our building more often. This time away from school has been rough for all of us and that positive reinforcement might give some teachers the fuel they need to continue on. I do not think it is possible for more positivity and more praise to hinder growth and progress. ReferencesDuhigg, C. (2012). The power of habit. Random House.
In my eighth-grade Literature class, we write two large essays. And yes, I said we, because I write them too, to model the structure for the students. Before we start the essay, I give the students the rubric, which they refer back to constantly throughout the unit. While that is beneficial, I think increasing the amount of formative assessment within the unit would allow for more feedback, more self-reflection, and more information on what to reteach. Here is what I came up with:
Purpose
This assessment will correspond well with the Common Core State Standards that I teach. It aligns with standard 8.1.A., which is all about introducing a claim and reasons logically. This quick assessment gives me as a teacher a lot of feedback to know if reteaching is necessary or which students I need to target during our remediation time. This assessment also allows students to visualize how they are performing and if they are understanding the concept.
Description
When writing these essays, I spend a day or two on each component. One of the most challenging concepts for my students is the thesis, or in terms of their argumentative essay, the claim statement. It is important to note that the students are allowed the freedom to choose their topic and stance for their argumentative essay, so all of their claim statements are different. A basic, but well-structured claim would be written like: "Smoking cigarettes should be made illegal as it is unhealthy, expensive, and hazardous to others." This assessment will be given at the end of the hour. During the class period, I would have modeled drafting a claim statement using the topic for my own essay and providing multiple other examples. Then, I would have given students time to draft their statements.
Instructions
As we wrap up the day’s lesson, I will ask students to get their assigned Chromebook from the cart. I will then verbally and visually (on the projector) inform them to go to their Google Classroom, where I have sent them this form to fill out. I will make sure to tell them to take it seriously. They can use their notebooks to copy their statements and may put their computers away once they have submitted the survey. I will then walk around the room answering any questions and monitoring computer use.
Future Plans
While I love a good Google Form and the students have had many experiences filling them out, is there another website or resource that could make this more engaging? I also find, especially with open-ended questions, that reading the data in the spreadsheet becomes tedious and time-consuming. Thoughts?
Last year, my school district decided on yet another new initiative - common assessments among grade levels in a building. At a meeting with the middle school ELA teachers, it was determined that we had a common reading assessment (the NWEA) and a common writing assessment rubric (Write from Beginning and Beyond), but there wasn’t a common assessment for language skills and standards. Within minutes, a random grammar assessment was found online, agreed upon to be slightly altered per grade level, and administered at the beginning of the year and the end of the year to show growth. I knew the assessment was bad, so bad that I gave the pre-test on a day when many of my students were gone on a field trip. By the end of the year, thankfully, the initiative had faded, and the post-test was never proctored. View the assessment below: Well, why was it so bad?
This assessment also goes against most of what I believe in terms of assessment. In my previous blog post, I wrote that an assessment is beneficial. It is, probably with the condition that the assessment is based on content my students are actively grappling with. By proctoring a pre-test, students are less likely to receive any feedback, and teachers are less likely to use the information for data and lesson planning purposes. This test also desperately needs a new form. It is too long, too open-ended, and covers too many topics. It’s unengaging and could easily be substituted with a group activity, a presentation, a writing assignment, etc. My biggest issue with this assessment was that it was considered and chosen in minutes as an easy-out. It was not given the time to be crafted, meticulously revised, or even discussed. Clearly, that was reflected in my attitude toward it, and my students felt the same way. Lastly, when comparing it to what the current researchers are saying, it doesn’t bode well. According to Lorrie A. Shepard (2000), “many teachers rely on a traditional, pre-test-posttest design to document student progress, but then do not use information from the pretest in instruction” (p.11). This is accurate in my experience using this test, as I skimmed through the results, but never actually evaluated or used the data it provided. This two-test method is decades old and does not reflect the current style of constructivist learning going on in today’s classrooms. Shepard goes on to say that teachers may want to consider using more continual checks for understanding instead of this two-test approach. That would be more helpful, as students could accomplish one topic at a time and not need to contribute the excessive amount of recall that this assessment requires. ReferencesShepard, L. (2000). The role of assessment in a learning culture. Educational Researcher, 29(7), 4-14. Retrieved from https://journals-sagepub-com.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/doi/pdf/10.3102/0013189X029007004
Here are three things I believe about assessment:
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Jennifer StirlingThis is my #MAET journey! Thanks for reading! Archives
August 2020
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