Written by Not only have we chosen to completely restructure our lessons and where are questions are sourced from, we’ve also gone a new route in summative assessment. We still have lots of formative assessment that looks pretty typical, but at the end of each unit, we’re giving a two part test. On the first part we are asking knowledge and communication questions that are more procedural and where students can use a calculator, but no other resources. On the second part, the questions are typically application and thinking and are more probing in nature. For this part, they can use their composition book. This book is where they do their homework, take notes on the approaches their classmates have taken, and anything else that they think may prove valuable on the test. This obviously means that most of the questions in part 2 are not replicas of questions that we’ve done in class, but they do require or would be aided by a similar skill set or approach.
Ok, so far nothing terribly revolutionary right? The biggest shift for me has been that after they write part 2, we give qualitative feedback, mostly questions, on their work. We then give them another 30 minutes the next class to add more to their solutions and respond to that feedback. I can anticipate some of the flares that may be going up in your mind right now because they certainly came up to me when I heard about this approach, again from Carmel Schettino (who has a survey on her website right now asking those interested in PBL about what kind of PD would be helpful to them – check it out!).
But that means that they could “cheat” because they could go home and figure out how to do the problem from their classmates or online or from their parents and then change it so that they get it right!
But that means that they could all get perfect because you show them how to fix all their mistakes!
But that means you have to mark all their tests twice? That’s way too much marking!
I think my greatest argument for this form of assessment is this: why should I care whether my students know how to do a question on Monday or Wednesday? Why should I care whether they learn it in class or from their peers or the internet or their parents? My goal in the end is that they are able to demonstrate understanding. Period. So far I haven’t had a whole class of perfect tests, I still have a similar range of results to what I would expect for a mixed-ability classroom, even in my enriched class there is a smaller, but still significant range.
Here are three examples of student solutions, my feedback (in orange), their second attempt (in purple) and my final feedback (in blue).
And the marking really isn’t that bad. The first round, I’m only writing commentary and asking questions. I have to read through their solution, but I don’t have to assign a grade. When I see their second draft, I’ve already read most of what is there and I get to see how they’ve responded and corrected. We have them write the second draft in purple pen so that we can tell what they wrote the second time. We don’t evaluate those answers any differently, but I think it’s important to be able to see what they were able to clarify. Considering that the other option we looked at was allowing multiple re-tests (which have to be done on our and the students own time), I’m happy to go through the tests twice.
I should also mention that we’ve done something called “spiralling” the curriculum. This means that we’re developing multiple curricular strands at a time rather than focusing on one topic area. The test that my Grade 9’s just wrote had a patterning and algebra problem, a geometry problem and some exponents questions. The reasons and pros and cons of this ordering is whole other post though. Maybe the next one!
Our next step is to add a rubric for communication so that we don’t take marks off an application question for organization or mathematical conventions. I think these aspects are still extremely important to develop so I want to show that we value it, but separate it from the individual questions. To come up with the categories for the rubric, I modified a couple rows from the Ontario Curriculum Grade 9 and 10 document (see table on page 22) and added a row that I revised from Carmel’s rubric that deals with revision. We’re still taking a look at any possible changes to this, but I’ll post it soon.
Hi Beth,
This is a really dynamic and interesting approach to assessment. It certainly is aligned with the concepts of Growing Success (assessment for, as and of learning); however, I am picking up a bit of tension in the use of and timing of feedback. In this way, I think that looking at how to triangulate POC is the way you may want to explore. How might you have conversations, and not just written feedback, or even add in an observation element to the groupwork/preparation that the students undertake in your classes.
I can’t wait to hear about how this is working out for you in the future!
thanks,
garth.
Thanks so much Garth! I would guess that time is on almost every teacher’s top 3 constraints. What I’m finding is that since the feedback is so valuable to them, and I can ask them more challenging questions, and I can hold them to highest standard for notation and communication, I’m willing to take the time it costs me to go through the tests twice. Return on investment, let’s say.
I took some time to think about your idea of having conversations rather than giving written feedback and I actually brought it up in my Professional Learning Group, which is focused on personalized assessment as a general theme. I’m not sure that I could have as thoughtful a response to their solutions in a conversation as I could after reading them. When I return the tests after the second draft, I meet individually with each student to have a conversation about their misconceptions and to discuss why they lost marks on each question. I value this time that we get to talk about the problems and I realize that they other boys may not be as focused while I’m meeting with an individual, but again, I think the return on investment is worthwhile.
They just wrote test #2, so we’ll see how it worked out for them this time!
Beth, what an awesome strategy for increasing students’ growth mindset! I am a firm believer in the power of YET and allowing students to have many chances to “get the right answer”. And what a great way to encourage kids to actually READ your feedback, when it’s written on a test. Congrats on giving your students the opportunity to reflect on their work and modify their answers to truly demonstrate their learning!
Hi Mackenzie! We are lucky this year to have a group of boys who mostly came in with a growth mindset. I had anticipated more resistance to asking them to present in front of the class, but most of them are eager to get up there and open to feedback!
I really like the phrase – “the power of YET”! Thanks!
Hello Beth,
I am fascinated by what you are doing here. One of my goals this year as a teacher is to try to find a way for my students to really reflect on their work on a test (or any assignment) rather than just look at the mark and toss the assessment in a binder (I hope). So I tried something similar, I believe, with my Grade 11 math students.
I gave back a test with words of encouragement such as ‘good job’, ‘well done’, etc. or words such as ‘double check’ or drew a line to delineate between the correct working and the incorrect working. I also had questions to further their thinking if an answer was incomplete or incorrect. The students did not get their mark until the wrote a reflective piece that showed their understanding of where they went wrong. I will have to confess for some, the reflection piece was somewhat brief, but I am hoping that the next one will be better. As Mackenzie said above, I was just happy that they read through my comments and did think about what went wrong even briefly. Also, one of my students said this was the nicest test she has ever gotten back – I took this as a positive sign that trying something different could be successful.
I look forward to reading of what happened on Test #2.
Thank you for sharing!
Hi Leslie!
I’ve really struggled with getting students to read and reflect on feedback too. I’ve tried reflections in the past (although never without giving grades, that’s a great idea!), but I came across that same problem that the strongest students had the least to reflect upon while those who were already struggling, had another big task on their hands in order to correct and write a reflection.
I think that would have been a problem again this year, especially with my enriched class, except for the fact that I’ve started putting one or more problems on the test that are really tough (thinking & inquiry style). I wouldn’t usually do this to my class on a test where they are so limited for time, but because they can come back to the problem again and they get a chance with my feedback, I feel confident giving them this challenge. For my last test, I had feedback to ask for more from every student on at least a few of the questions and that makes me feel like I’ve found a good range of difficulty for the class and this type of assessment.