Assessment seems like such an ugly word to me lately. Every where you turn, someone in education is talking about new forms of assessment that must be done and how we will use our latest assessment results, and so on. I'm tired of hearing about it. I often feel like I assess more than I teach. My students don't take standardized assessments very seriously anymore because they see them so much. Something has to change. I can't make a change in state or county policy so I know Benchmarks and EOGs are here to stay, but I can make a difference in my classroom.
A few years ago, I had my students create portfolios where they kept work samples and also had quarterly goal sheets. They participated in two student-led conferences with their parents that year using the portfolios. The experience was very rewarding but a lot of work. I'd like to find the time and energy to do this portfolio assessment again because I think it was worth the effort. I also need to create more authentic assessments. I admit that I sometimes rely on those ready-made multiple choice tests because I know I have to have a weekly grade and those tests are quick to give and quick to correct. I feel ashamed admitting that, but I don't always have the time to create awesome assessments for assignments my students complete. Not that I'm all bad. I do have several rubrics that I use for projects and I've used checklists as I monitored literature circles.
The unit my group is creating has some neat assessment ideas in it. We have students writing letters and we are using rubrics to grade the letters. Performance on the culminating activity will also be judged based on a rubric since students must first create a product and then share their opinions with a government representative by letter. We have flip video creations that will show if students understood content they read, and airplanes will be flying in the classroom as we observe students measuring and making adjustments based on the results. The best news is - there isn't a ready made multiple choice test anywhere in the unit! :)
Love your idea about student created portfolio and student led parent conferences. I'd like to try that this year myself.
ReplyDeleteI think most of us have used the ready-made multiple choice tests for numerous reasons....mainly they're quicker to generate and grade. Time is something that we don't have enough of it seems! I still cut and paste, girl!! But, one thing that I have gotten out of our summer integrating classes is that I need to change some things starting next school year. I need to teach smarter, not harder.
Keep sharing your ideas - you have lots of good ones!
Time is definitely something that we don't seem to have enough of! I would love to have planning every day. That'd be amazing. Last year I only had planning twice a week, 30 minutes on Tuesday and 1 hour on Thursday and of course, occasionally that would be taken away for meetings, etc.
ReplyDeleteI do portfolio for my seniors and work samples for my other students which is great, but along with having the time to do this, I don'ts have any space in my classroom to stored them. We have 90 minute planning but sometimes we have to cover other teachers classes. End of Grade testing is hard for my students because of reading comprehension and having nonreaders in my classes.
ReplyDeleteStudents do not take assessments seriously because there are so many. I try not to give many paper pencil test. My assessments are typically project based. That becomes very time consuming but the students really get into what they are doing and what they have learned.
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