The importance of iteration

Image source: http://lolsnaps.com/funny/185415

My last post was all about reflecting on the mixed results of my work on inquiry and project based learning so far this year.  This one is all about iteration.

This weekend, we are in Montreal for the SSUNS Model UN conference, run by students from McGill University.  I am really sorry to be missing the second F2F meeting.  I found the first Cohrot 21 session really motivating, to be surrounded by such a diverse and interesting group of like-minded educators. In anticipation of our planning session today, I put together my placemat and reflected on my progress towards the goals I set for myself, at the start of the year.  One of the things I have found helpful about Cohort 21 already, is it forces me to really focus in on one major goal.  When I wrote my placemat, I ended up listing lots of other smaller goals that have been at the back of my mind for a while. By simply listing them, I began to prioritize and then decide which would develop naturally, and which require a more concerted effort.

Here is my placemat, if you are interested:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1N8Dp0AOhe6TuxFVJhLqBQZzqbSC6trPV

I have decided to stick with recording and assessing student thinking throughout the inquiry process.  I wanted to choose something achievable, that would be applicable across all my courses and might have broader uses throughout the school.  Inquiry and project based learning have always been part of my teaching, but have generally followed a fairly formulaic framework, and have really been about the finished product.  I want to divert some of that emphasis towards the process and thought that go on throughout the project.  Hopefully this will better inform my assessment and deter students from simply ‘getting it done’ just before the deadline.  I have often set interim deadlines and provided formative feedback part way through larger projects, and have usually had multiple informal conversations with students while they work.  The challenge I am setting myself is to find effective ways of capturing the exchange of those ideas in a more formal way.  During more direct instruction style lessons, I often set a high volume of practice questions / examples for students to work through at their own pace.  I tell my students that I want them to attempt enough of the tasks that they understand the concepts or skills and ask me for advice as needed.  I value quality over quantity and am working to pare down the volume of existing assignments, to encourage greater time for thought and iteration.  It is this initial processing and then critical / iterative thinking I am most interested to capture and assess.

Time for some iteration of my own… I have done some preliminary research on this, but would love to hear from other C21ers about their ideas and experiences. I think that our primary and intermediate colleagues may already have substantial experience with this?  Some of the most useful things I have found so far are from practical subjects like PE, where observation has always been a major mode of assessment.

Here are a couple of the resources I have been thinking about:

https://teachingtools.ophea.net/supplements/inquiry-based-learning/assessment-inquiry-based-learning#5

This has some interesting assessment tools that I plan to modify.

http://www.naturalcuriosity.ca/pdf/NaturalCuriosityManual.pdf

This has some interesting pages on assessment of inquiry on p.21-29

I would really appreciate some feedback and ideas from people with different backgrounds, so that I can gain an understanding of what goes on in different age groups and subjects.  I want to come up with an adapted plan and target a couple of assessments to amend before we meet in January.  All ideas gratefully received.  Hope you all had a fun second F2F.

Laura