Why Blog

I feel this quote fits in so many aspects of my life.  From my classroom to my home life to my friends to strangers I don't even know.  But most of all I feel it fits in my adventure into blogging.  
I read an article called Blogging: Who Should, and Why.  As I read the article, I used one the strategies that I teach my 3rd graders, when it comes to taking notes and that is to highlight important words and phrases that are important to you.  I would like to share with you my findings.  Blogs are for reflecting, finding your voice and receiving immediate feedback with a constant change of your audience.  
When I was first asked to start a blog I was very nervous about it.  I didn't feel confident to share my thoughts with the world.  The first thing the article stated was "the courage to publish."  That was me.  I had to find the courage to put my thoughts out there in the world wide web for everyone and anyone to see.  When you find the courage to write a blog, you find your voice.  Finding your voice is done by reflecting, sharing ideas and receiving that immediate feed back from others.  Maybe that is one of the reasons I was so nervous, I don't know what others are going to hear, what voice, through my writings.  This unknown is scary to me.  Through readings and my masters class, I am finding more and more out about how important it is to write your own reflections.   This is true for our students as well.  They need time through the day to reflect on their learning!  A blog is great place to reflect and receive others feedback! 

Happy blogging everyone! 

Planning for Learning

            Isn't that a true statement?  We as teachers, want our students to be able to think through problems, think for themselves, and think about what is yet to come!  We want them to become creators, the next Steve Jobs.  And we want them to love what they are doing, their neighbor and life itself!  
             I recently read chapter 9 called "Planning for Learning"  from the book Understanding by Design.   It was a chapter about what the learning activities need to be to help our students to understand the concepts that we are teaching.  The activities need to be both engaging and effective, interesting and relevant.  When considering what I am doing to help make my activities become both engaging and effective, I realized that I do a lot of what the book suggested: by stating clear goals, hooking my students by making the topic interesting, equipping them with necessary experiences and tools.   I love the ideas that the book gave on ways to hook our learners: by immersing them in puzzles, challenging them to solve a real-world problem and engaging them in a role play to explore relevant issues from different perspectives.  Another idea is starting with a mystery that they need to solve! 
      I need to concentrate on improving the reflection piece.  By giving them time to reflect on what they are learning and rethink through their work.  So much of my time is spent getting to that end product that I don't allow time for them to reflect on the process or even the work that was done.  Also having them reflect on their work, self assess.  This made me think of how I assess my work each day.  How a lesson went.  How I made a connection with a student.  How I help a student get to the "Ahhh moment!"  (I love those moments.)  So why don't I have my students do that? (My Ahhh moment!) 
       Also the chapter states that I should become the facilitator or coach instead of the teacher.  If any fellow learners are reading this, I would love to hear how you are the facilitator instead of the teacher in your classroom?  This idea is something that I just can't wrap my finger around!  
        I want to leave my reflection of this chapter with these two questions that stood out for me to help me remember what I need to consider when making my activities: 
         1.  What do learners need, given the desired results?
         2.  What is the best use of time spent in and out of the                            classroom, given the performance goals?   
*Always keeping in mind what the desired results and performance goals are! 

Kirchenwitz’s Top 10 List: “Thinking Like an Assessor”

After reading chapter 7 of Understanding by Design. I made this top 10 list of important things to consider when thinking of how and what to assess.

Kirchenwitz’s Top 10 List:

“Thinking Like an Assessor”

1.  The evidence needs to align with our goals.

2.   What kinds of evidence do we need to find hallmarks of our goals, including that of understand?   (ex. comparing/contrasting or summarizing)

3.  What specific characteristics in student responses, products, or performances should we examine to determine the extent to which the desired results were achieved?  (ex. criteria and rubrics)

4.  Effective teacher-assessors gather lots of evidence along the way: informal checks for understanding, observation and dialogues, tests and quizzes, academic prompts, performance tasks.  A simple tool is the “one minute essay”: what was the big idea you learned and what are some unanswered questions you have.

5.  Assessment for understanding must be grounded in authentic performance-based tasks.  To be authentic it needs to:

• realistically contextualized:  the person’s knowledge and abilities are tested in real-world situations
• Requires judgment and innovation:  the students have to use knowledge and skills wisely and effectively to develop a plan for solving a problem that is unstructured.  
• The student has to DO the subject
• Students need to experience what it is like to perform tasks like those in the workplace and other real=life contexts, which tend to be complex and messy

6.  Performance tasks typically present students with a problem: a

real world goal, set within a realistic context of challenges and possibilities

7.  Can use the design tool GRASPS to aid in the creation of performance task: Goal, Role, Audience, Situation, Performance, Standards  (great example on page 158 of Understanding by Design)

8.  We need to know the learner’s explanation of Why they did what they did, their support for the approach/response, and their reflection on the result that we may gain fuller insight into their degree of understanding.  

9.  Assessment of understanding is enhanced when we make greater use of oral assessments, concept webs, portfolios, and constructed response items of all types to allow students to show their work and reveal their thinking.  

10.  The six facets of understanding signal the types of performances we need as valid measures of understanding:

• Explantation: tell the big idea in their own words, make connections, show their work, explain reasoning and induce a theory from the data
• Interpretation: make sense of stories, art works, data, situations and involves translating ideas/feelings in one medium to another
• Application:  use their knowledge and skill in a new situations
• Perspective:   see things from different points of view, see the big picture, recognize underlying assumptions and take a critical stance.
• Empathy:  develop their capacity to walk in someone elses shoes.
• Self-Knowledge:   self-assess their past as well as their present work.    A simple strategy is to make the first and last written assignments the same question.
• The tasks and performances should require reflection, explicit self-assessment, and self-adjustment, with reasoning or rationale made as evident as possible!

Assessment Of, For, As Learning

How do you assess your kids in your classroom?  I read a chapter by Lorna Earle called Assessment of Learning, Assessment For Learning, Assessment as Learning. It was interesting to find out what the difference between the three were. It made me think of how I use assessment in my classroom and what I want to improve.

Assessment Of learning was one that I use basically so I have "proof" to show parents. When I first started teaching a fellow teacher told me that we do assessments so that if a parent ever questions us that we have prove to show them. I have always questioned this idea. I understand that the parents want to know how their child is doing but I don't like the idea of everyone being compared to one another and ranking them in this type of assessment.  What are your thoughts about comparing students? Is it important that we have a curve to show the ranking of students?

Assessment For learning is the on going process of collecting data to help understand where your students are and where you need to take them. This I feel is a daily assessment that most teachers do even if you don't see it on paper. I know I do it! I do it because I want to know where to take my teaching next. For example: We just finished a fraction unit and took a test. I use the test to see who gets fractions and who doesn't. I take the information to see where I am going next with my teaching and with whom! Do you have a favorite assessment tool that includes collecting data to help guide you with your teaching?

Assessment As learning is the students are motivated! This happens when students personally monitor what they are learning and use the feedback from this monitoring to make adjustments, adaptations, and even major changes in what they understand! Wouldn't it be great to have all our students be driven and take their learning in their own hands? This is one type of assessment that I would love to see more of in my classroom. I am not quite sure how to achieve this though. Any suggestions?

A new thought came into my mind that I am really dappling with and using in my classroom. This new thought came to me when one of my masters instructors introduced in the beginning of our program, that one of our goals of our class was to see growth. She explained we all come in with different backgrounds and are at different places in our learning. Isn't this the same as our students? They all come in at different levels of learning, with different learning styles and different background knowledge. With this we need to find a balance between the three types of assessment to help our students grow.

I will leave this post with you to ponder this quote....

Inspired

After thinking of a title for my blog, I was inspired by a book called "Third Grade Angels" by Jerry Spinelli.  This is a book both my students and I enjoy as a READ ALOUD.  The main character in the book, George, Aka "Suds" has just entered third grade.  He has heard the rhyme of 1st grade babies, 2nd grade cats, and now wants to become a 3rd grade angel.  It is fun to listen and learn how the class and Suds try to earn a halo to become that 3rd grade angel.   It is amazing to watch and see how the book influences some of the kids in my class to to act the same way as Subs!  (Great Read Aloud for Third Grade!) 

New at this!

I am new to blogging! I am having fun setting up my sight!  I am currently receiving my Master's Degree in Education through the University of St. Mary's. (https://www.smumn.edu/) This blog is one of my class requirements!