I strongly dislike assessments, maybe as much as my students do. Why do we assess? What do we assess? How do we assess? These were three key questions asked in a recent video I watched as I was digging through the innovative ideas of educators around the world on hundrED.org. The video was a presentation called Rethinking Assessment given by Jeff Heyck-William and Pekka Peura largely based on Pekka Peura's work surrounding personalized learning paths.
Pekka Peura describes the problem so many educators face when they follow pacing guides to move through the curriculum. Those who don't get it, still don't get it, and those who are bored stay bored. He created a self assessment tool that students fill out in teams that creates a giant color block for him to look at and decide to whom and what to reteach.
Since I began my quest for a research question, I have decided to narrow it to a specific subject area, most likely math. My latest version is: How can digital feedback loops enhance metacognition in primary students? I am in search of tools that will make providing students with meaningful and easy to digest feedback. Perhaps gamified math programs like DreamBox or ST Math would provide useful information in students' learning journeys. And perhaps posing a self-evaluation set of questions would grow their metacognition. How can the results from these games, lesson activities, and quizzes best be shared with students for them to use it to take their learning to the next level? I have failed at the feedback loop in the past. I tried to put up a chart where students would track their iRead growth under the guise of student number for anonymity. However, this was something I had to manage. Questions arose. How often should I review the data and shift all the student icons? How do I track growth instead of proficiency? How can students move their own icon if the difference between their old and new score is what is to be added to the chart? The whole thing became too complicated. But the idea behind it is still important. Students need to be aware of their own growth to take responsibility for improved decision making. If the data is not available to them and not emphasized, they will most likely ignore thinking about their growth. The feedback loop has to be efficient for the teacher, digestible for the student, and effective so as to produce student growth. Baggio's design suggestions will be important when creating and looking for these tools. When I think about the tools already available for me to measure student growth in math I think of Seesaw, Quizizz, Socrative, Google Forms with data analyzing extensions like Flubaroo, and adaptive math games like FastMath, DreamBox, Prodigy and ST Math. Are there too many tools in the toolbox? Do the tools already cover what I'm asking? I have many questions and I'm already at the end of my course in designing an action research plan. But I know that even as I move into my action research, I will continue to revise...this is part of the "action" part of the research and part of "smart failure." Hopefully that smart failure continues to drive me into the right directions.
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Avatars, defeating the monster, leveling up...doesn't sound like a classroom?? Well maybe it should...This afternoon I read several articles about how important both physical and digital games can be for children. Games and play don't only support student academic growth and critical thinking but can support students in their social and emotional development, which was a new idea for me. I watched a few videos by expert gamers and game implementing teachers with my brother, who is a big fan of video games. We've had our share of debates over the years and, although I hate to admit he's right about anything, these resources helped me understand where he was coming from and how games can be a powerful tool in children's learning. If I am already implementing some game concepts into my classroom like leveling up on the Super Improvers Chart, an element of Whole Brain Teaching, distributing delfinitos (paper mascot tickets for correct behavior) for a weekly raffle, and a self monitoring progress chart for reading and phonics growth, then why wouldn't I use the wildly better online programs that do these things and so much more at the click of a button? I know from personal experience the excitement and engagement induced by such games as Kahoot to practice Spanish conjugations in my advanced Spanish class, Class Dojo for awarding team and individual points, and iRead as an adaptive game for phonics. Today, however, I was able to dive into many new game resources. First I looked at Legends of Learning which I had great hopes for because it provides gamified lessons and practice organized by grade level and standard. I love the organizational element of this platform but the games are somewhat poorly designed, making it difficult for students to see and understand what to do. It is, however, free, and would be nice extra practice once students have learned a concept. Next on the list was Seterra. This website doesn't have the fancy avatars but I LOVE IT, probably because I love geography and maps. It is also simple and easy to start. I remember playing a very similar game when I was a kid which got me to master the states and capitals. There is every kind of blank map (printables too). As soon as it opens, a timer begins and you are prompted to identify the country named. There are various ways in which you can make the game more or less difficult. Teach Your Monster to Read is a really great free resource to teach the building blocks of reading but since my school district has already purchased iRead for us, I have a very similar and more advanced tool for this. I am most in search of a great math tool which I have found in Prodigy and DreamBox. Prodigy looks like a great free resource but I'm a little more excited about DreamBox because of its math tools that are much like physical manipulatives and models we use in class. It also adapts to the learner and comes in a great Spanish version. What I'm still in search of is a good tool for Spanish language development...not just syllables, sight words, and vocabulary, but something that helps them create mental patterns for the grammatical way the language works and implement that knowledge. I looked into Imagine Learning Español which we only use in first grade at my school and noticed they are looking for districts with immersion schools that would like to participate in their español research pilot and so I contacted a few people about it. As I was thinking of my plan to start students off in a blended learning atmosphere at the beginning of school so that they would be prepared to go back to distance learning in a moment's notice, I was worried about being able to prepare for both small group and online lessons at the same time. These adaptive educational games will be such a powerful resource to facilitate that transition for me and I can't wait to try them out on my incoming new students! "Do something crazy!...and get fired" is a line from the Ted Talk by business educator Eddie Obeng, called "Smart Failure for a Fast Changing World." This phrase can be the result even if the message being spoken is "take risks and be innovative." Obeng brings up the challenging point that when we are problem solving, the solutions we are implementing now are for problems already in the past when new problems have already arisen. How do we get ahead here? His telling line graph shows how the pace of learning is far slower than the pace of change. He states, "it's almost impossible to be certain that what we are going to deliver will fit" and this is what makes deciding on an action research question and plan is so paralyzing. I'm barely understanding the current tools and education world I'm currently sitting in, and now I need to capitalize on all those things to create something that will be useful in our ever changing future! I've shifted my driving question to involve feedback and metacognition. My current belief about the future of the educational world is that it will continue to go in the direction of students being the directors of their own educational paths. My students are limited by their developmental ability to absorb technological and academic information. Each individual also handles responsibility differently but I can envision even second graders having more autonomy and self-monitoring in their learning than what I've allowed for my students in the past. I don't want to place any extra limitations on them because of my own biases for their ability. There are so many amazing tools out there for measuring student growth like Quizizz, iRead, FastMath, Edpuzzle, and Seesaw, among many others, and I want to take advantage of them. The new question that arises for me is, will I be able to easily share these results with my students consistently in a kid friendly way. The upcoming school year is going to bring teaching formats that no one has experienced before. In accordance with where I think the education world is headed, student directed learning, I need to ensure that much of the responsibility in this feedback loop is held by students, otherwise I might find I've bitten off more than I can chew. Since teachers are still in the deep void of the unknown with regards to the 2020-2021 school year's teaching and learning setting, if we do go back to the classroom, I would like to practice some kind of a blended learning format with my students from day one....or perhaps day 2 or 3 after we get to know each other...I want to prepare them to be flexible and resilient in the light of inevitable change. With blended learning, my hope is that students would be used to getting much of their input and practice via digital tools and I would be able to implement intervention in small groups for the majority of the day. My mind immediately goes to possible failures. Where will I find the time to prepare these digital lessons and activities? Will I need to ask my administrator for flexibility in my schedule? This affects other teachers. How digitally prepared are incoming 1st graders? Will I drown in a mess of digital data (so many posts to approve in Seesaw!). But, like Obeng iterates, we should be proud of our smart failures which should be celebrated. George Couros shares that sentiment in Innovate Inside the Box, when he shares the New York Times suggestion that we keep a failure resume and track lessons learned. Like Couros says, I hope to intelligently do something crazy and move away from the "comfortable average in pursuit of an unknown better." What a list of fun tools I explored this week! I thought I had seen educators on Twitter posting instructional videos made with Powtoon so I wanted to check that out first. It seemed to be a more fun and colorful way to share written information. Definitely a step up from the old Power Point presentation. There were even animated "teachers" to the side doing the presenting. From what I've seen so far, it seems there was a lot of text featured in this tool even though the background elements were very fun. Next I opened an account in Nearpod. Nearpod seems to have a lot more options. When exploring some of their pre-created resources to get an idea of what I could create or assign for my students, I saw that the presentations had much more variety to them and were more interactive. There were places for students to add a short answer response or answer a poll question that could provide the teacher with valuable information about where the class is in their learning of a concept. You can also link videos into these presentation. However, I can imagine my younger students who struggle with reading just clicking through all the informational slides until they get to a video or picture. I'm still trying to figure out if some of the presentations are more meant for student to do on their own or for the teacher to use in front of the class. Of course, I would be able to design them how I like. This would especially be a nice tool for social studies or science when I need to present a good amount of information. In Seesaw, it's easy to write instructions and assign an activity but the instructions shouldn't get too wordy otherwise they'll be ignored. Nearpod might be a good resource for connecting other videos and some simply written content for students to review as part of a unit of study. I also checked out Flipgrid. I know this tool has so much potential that I don't want to miss out on. I made a little intro video and sent it to a couple friends. I like how easy the video editing is. Once again, from what I know so far, for the youngins, it's just easier to use the built in video feature in Seesaw along with the blog where kids can comment and leave feedback, than teach them a whole new video platform and login. However, I know that if we start the year with Seesaw, the kids might master it and mid second grade be ready for a new more exciting tool to add to their belt. Then, I made an account with ExplainEverything. I had heard of this tool before and remember being in need of a better whiteboard/editing tool during distance learning last spring. Explain everything seems to be a very interactive whiteboard where you can import pictures and record yourself making annotations, voice commenting, or moving objects on the screen. Since it is not a video tool but a whiteboard tool, it appeared that you could only work with one frame really at a time. Finally, I also made an account with Edpuzzle. This is my favorite tool so far because I had a big need for it during distance learning and didn't realize what the tool was or offered. It was very difficult to ensure that my students were watching the videos that I so painstakingly made and posted in their carefully designed Seesaw activities. For the lesson I made for class this time, I made my video with Screencastify and the base ten pieces app from the fantastic free apps offered by the Math Learning Center. I then opened this video in EdPuzzle and added comprehension questions. After assigning this to a fake class, I was finally able to access the share feature so I could get the URL and enter it into the link field in the Seesaw multimedia section. I will definitely be using this for my upcoming lessons to ensure more accountability for viewing instructional videos. It was certainly interesting looking into other teachers' and administrators' ideas on distance "learning," a hybrid model, and blended learning. In any case, I know that this coming year, I want to use technology to my advantage. Hopefully the district plan is at least to break my class into smaller groups physically present at school already but in a regular classroom setting I can definitely see myself utilizing these tools to have kids learning in meaningful, engaging ways, while I get to have more personalized small group time (socially distanced) with a few. We'll see where the year takes us... During the school year I frequently spout off to friends and family about things I feel strongly about in the education world. However, when asked directly this summer to come up with a driving question regarding an issue in education that I feel strongly about and want to research, I've been going in circles and coming up somewhat empty handed. Based on how shaky I feel about young kids and screen time, I knew I wanted to research something regarding technology and young learners. This week, after going down several rabbit holes via Twitter, Angela Watson's podcast (please read or listen to anything by her...amazing), and the George Couros book I'm reading entitled "Innovate Inside the Box," my memory has been sparked regarding one of those passionate topics I spouted off about during this last school year. During distance learning I remember thinking about the convenience of having student work samples stored online. Although I never ended up having to give students grades, I remember thinking how easy the skills feature of Seesaw could make assigning and recording assessments, and how virtually every one of the activities I assigned was available to look at through the assessment lens later. For years, my 2nd grade team and I have struggled with the incongruity of our district trimester pacing on the report card and our curriculum sequencing and provided assessments. We end up having to cut apart assessments and tape various pieces together and often make our own assessments to match the topics of the report card supposedly covered during that trimester. Did I say cut apart and tape together? Is this 1999??? Ever since reading Alfie Khon's ideas about abolishing grades, I've felt strongly that they do more harm than good. Growing up as a homeschooler through elementary school, I never saw a grade but I did receive plenty of feedback from my mom and myself. Why are we spending weeks of student learning time on foreign looking assessments to collect data for grades? Haven't students been working on what I want them to learn all trimester? Shouldn't I already have plenty of data to know how they are doing? And this is where the current version of my driving question comes in: How can creating a routine of formative assessment using online educational tools improve feedback and learning for primary aged students? This also relates to my long time desire to create a self-run classroom. I love routines. I believe they give students a sense of structure as well as free up the teacher's mental bandwidth to be more creative. If I create a routine of weekly formative assessment online, which is really just assignments digitally completed and housed that I can draw on at any time, kids will not only improve their use of these digital tools but hopefully show academic progress as well, developing in effect, better "transliteracy." I'm thinking fluency reads, math facts, online number of the day charts for place value, and periodic peer feedback in writing, which is always a time challenge area for meaningful feedback from me. I feel like some potential challenges here are assessment in the light of distance learning when students would not be in a controlled environment, the time it would take me to create these assessments (what am I going to take off my plate to make room for this?), and the steep learning curve for students as they learn to use the various digital assessment tools....and my own learning curve too! |
Minna NummelinLife-long learner and dual language 2nd grade teacher. Archives
April 2021
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