As the two assessment courses wind down I am reflecting on what I had hoped would happen in the courses. I made certain decisions as I was drafting the course that affected the original Syllabus. Over time the Syllabus would change somewhat. This change could be alarming. But I am hoping that with an explanation students will understand why I did what I did and the risks and rewards that go with teaching this way.
I am a constructivist at heart. Learning needs to be personally relevant. Students learn best when they learn by doing and learn with others. Relationships are important and that teaching-learning works best when I know a student by name as well as by their work. I believe in problem-based learning where the student is given an open-ended, complex, ill-structured problem. There is no one right answer. In my long experience, I have found that students really respond to this type of assignment well and demonstrate creativity and knowledge at the same time. But I also know this type of assignment can cause anxiety as students seek an answer - especially in a mark-based culture where there is supposed to be a right answer. Following this formula is a little hard in a large class, but I tried to accomplish all these dimensions in both 4P02 (80 students) and 4P02 (25 students).
I learned some things about my own assumptions. For one, I assume students are self-directed. For example, when one student said in an exit card that he was interested in learning more about the Kahn Academy he also added that he would look it up online. To me, this is the way it is supposed to be. If you are interested you will find out about it yourself - by hook or crook. Second, I assume that students learned the day-by-day assigned content (text and videos) through the collaborative reflections and discussions with your peers rather than chronological lectures of the text.
Third, I expected that 4P02 students could find their way around creating a standards-based disciplinary curriculum with like-minded colleagues. The process was a bit of a discovery process - but to me that is what problem-based learning is all about. It is messy and challenging and rewarding once all the pieces fit. And no one can do it for you in a linear simple way.
For 4P06 I could not predict what the posters and portfolios will look like. Each of you was in a completely different context and thus each of you will have something completely different to present. Yet in the final outcome, I do expect/want to see depth of thought.
The Collaborative Reflections have always been popular with students and I have assumed that students learn a lot because they have each other to bounce ideas off and to help each other grow. By seeing what others do helps one to think in new ways.
The Guest Speakers were designed to add an element of real-life context to the class. The text was chosen carefully because it is used extensively in schools. As much as possible I tried to provide elements that would make this course relevant to a prospective teacher.
I also put a lot of emphasis on Participation. If I believe that students learn by doing they need to be there to do it. And when they are there they need to be fully there - not on Facebook or texting friends etc. Of course I can't make anyone participate even if their body is present. So there is a long list of things to do to show that you are there and actively involved. As best Mike and I took observational records of this. We know, for example, when folks are there for the Collaborative Reflections and not there for the lecture. We know when social network was preferable to the class activity. None of this matters really unless there is a pattern of non-participation that is noticeable over time.
On assessment. This is an assessment course but I continually talk about all the other ingredients of education. Why? In my way of looking at the world, assessment is a part of a system. You need to know what you want to teach in order to assess the right thing. You need to be clear about instructional strategies because assessment is supposed to be embedded into all instructional activities. And, of course, you need to be connected to expectations because you need to be accountable. It is an interconnected system where when one part changes the other parts change too. The BIG IDEA an ENDURING UNDERSTANDING (I also know that you are supposed to learn the specifics of how to create a good rubric and a good test in your other Teacher Ed assessment course, so I do not cover this.)
My goal has to simulate an assessment for learning (AfL) environment. Fortunately AfL is deeply grounded in constructivism - which means that my personal heart-felt beliefs are upheld. In this course you have experienced AfL techniques as exit cards, traffic lights, thumbs-up and thumbs down, popsicle sticks, white boards (brown envelopes), no grades with feedback only, peer assessment, and higher-order questionning. Some of these have been more successful than others. The brown envelopes were not used that often for 2 reasons: 1. I was not that skilled at embedding them in the lesson and 2. And more importantly, the brown did not work as well as the white envelope would have as I could not see the answers on them very well. My lesson learned and thanks for getting your envelope laminated.
But AfL is not about a series of techniques. The Spirit of AfL is LEARNING. A key goal of AfL is to give both student and teacher feedback. Hopefully you did see places where you gave us feedback - whether it was from your one-on-one questions or exit cards. We also gave some feedback on the Collaborative Reflections and addressing questions in class. 4P06 helped to recreate the major rubric for this course. 4P02 helped us to refine it slightly for 4P02. You also know that you were a bit uncomfortable with feedback only - although we assured you that if you were at risk of getting a poor mark we would communicate with you personally. The only people with such a risk are those who did fully participate. This anxiety is one of the byproducts of being in a mark culture, such as the one that dominates our lives at university. I'm am still wrestling with how to change this.
The piece that opened my eyes was the teacher feedback aspect. The purpose of this student feedback is so that the teacher can shift the direction of the class to help more people learn. It is intended to be a learner-friendly environment and the shifts in the "original syllabus" are meant to make learning easier. The Aha for me was that in a constructivist AfL learning environment, nothing is carved in stone except the ultimate outcomes expected from the course. Now that I understand this I can explain it better to my next group of students. Change will happen and should happen. The fundamental goals need to stay the same. The KDB.
One last thing re grading the Collaborative Reflection. AfL thinking is that when you do a series of similar activities you will get better and better at it given the feedback that you get. The traditional way of marking was to average all the "activities" across the year. But AfL thinking says to take the best and most consistent grade. The point, of course, is that once a student has learned a certain skill they should get the benefit of a grade that demonstrates that he or she has learned it. Similarly a student should not have do pages of the same math problem when he or she has shown that they have already acquired that skill. The 4P06 suggestion that the students select the Collaborative Reflections for grading and that the teacher selects one is "smart marking". As a teacher you may find yourself mired in feedback. You don't want to mark it all - but you need to find a way that keeps students on their toes while giving them the best shot at getting a good grade (in the summative final grade stage). Smart marking helps you to do this.
Missing in this reflection is an assessment tool of my own making. I leave this up to you in your teacher evaluations. I take a risk by writing this metacognitive reflection and laying bare my perceived hopes and weaknesses. Perhaps you will only remember the things I did wrong. But perhaps this reflection will offer an example of a self-assessment. It is also a reflection of an experience that you were a part of. Hopefully through this self-assessment, you can see more clearly the Spirit of AfL and continue your own learning through the trial and error of trying new things with the intention of helping students learn...
