Semiotic Domain: Chicago History
Brainstorm a Game Using Twine I will create an assessment where students make decisions along a storyline of Jane Addams life. The goal of the game is to correctly navigate the opportunities she provided to others throughout her life. By navigating things that happened throughout her life, students will see how her positive impact created opportunities for great social change. For example, students will need to correctly identify the correct narrative for Jane Addams establishment of the Hull House and its impact in social reform. Only by completing the narrative and identifying where they (the student) ended in the story, will students be able to know if they have successfully navigated the correct storyline. The culmination of the assessment will be a reflection of how they felt they did navigating the storyline and by identifying one event in the storyline that was the most powerful to them. Plan an Assessment I will need a true storyline and some fictitious details too. Culminating in a way for students to view the correct storyline once they have completed the assessment in its entirety. By viewing the storyline that they ended on, I will be able to assess whether or not they navigated it correctly. The procedural rhetoric will align with the semiotic domain in the way that students make correct or incorrect choices in the story. This will be a summative assessment and will not be the first time that students are interacting with the content. I would however like to put some new content within the storyline that students will have to unpack and use a process of elimination to see what fits with what they already know about Jane Addams. A few of the questions from my Assessment Design Checklist that align with this assessment are:
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I have imbedded my screencast below for covering the purpose of my assessment design, the teaching context, how this assessment matches with my Assessment Design Checklist, and some of the CMS affordances and constraints.
Purpose The purpose of this assessment design is to gauge whether students are understading the implications of reversing the Chicago River. It is also looking at how students can apply their learning in agreeing or disagreeing with the City of Chicago's decision to reverse the river. The Google Classroom assessment design allows students to interact with content, answer based on their knowledge, and collaborate with peers. Teaching Context Based on Illinois State Standards for 3rd grade Social Studies SS.H.2.3. - Describe how significant people, events and developments have shaped their own community and region SS.G.1.3. - Locate major landforms and bodies of water on a map or other representation SS.G.2.3. - Compare how people modify and adapt to the environment and culture in our community to other places. Assessment Design Checklist Is it meaningful? The assessment forces students to contemplate the far reaching positive and negative impacts of rerouting a river. Established Learning Goals? Illinois state standards for 3rd grade social studies focusing on history and geography Constructive Feedback? Through the comments feature of responses they will receive feedback on their summaries by both the teacher and their peers Informing Teaching? By giving a quick Google Form assessment I am able to identify any possible misconceptions with the content. If one is identified, I can go back and reteach. CMS Affordances and Constraints Affordances: - The ability to have imbedded YouTube clips - Google Form integration - Organic classroom conversation through the commenting feature Constraints: - Google Classroom is good for linking other Google Applications but not as great for imbedding (more of a directory than a stand alone CMS) - Younger students may find navigation difficult - No student view for teacher Assessment Commentary: I found keeping the screencast to under 2 minutes to be very difficult and resulted in several tries. I could see using this type of assessment format in a middle school setting, where one-to-one technology has been implemented, but for an elementary classroom it may be more difficult. I may look to use this type of assessment occasionally with my students but using Google Classroom does not seem developmentally appropriate to implement for every unit. URL to Screencast Google Classroom
For my choice of a For my choice of a CMS to review, I chose Google classroom. I have experience using Blackboard, PowerSchool, RomanNet, and Weebly but felt that this was a great opportunity for me to work with a CMS that I was unfamiliar with. Google Classroom is a CMS that has interested me for some time but have never had the opportunity to use. During the school year I use RomanNet but with its many constraints, I rarely use it. Many of its features are clear advantages in a middle and high school setting but for 3rd graders the time investment to use it is not feasible. This is a nice lead in to why from a overview I like the idea of Google Classroom. From the many other Google Application that I use in my classroom on a daily basis and their broad streamlined user friendliness, I find the use of Google Classroom to be a natural pick of a CMS for me. I have categorized each feature and bullet pointed the question requirements for each. Defined
Security - Login username and password. Affordances: Google security is reputable and can ensure students data is safe. Easy log in and the ability for two stage authentication. Constraints: Everything is in one place(For example, if student and teacher accounts are compromised then a lot of personal data can be accessed.) Implications: For example, when I was trying to add student accounts that are not within the account domain it reads an error message and will not give access (I wanted to see the student view but after trying a work email, personal email, and university email, I was denied.) This ensures no one can get access to the Classroom data that is not supposed to and that assessment data is safe. Notifications - Emailed updates for activity in Classroom. Affordances: This feature enables you to get active updates on what is happening within the Classroom. You can get notified on comments for your comments or ones that you are mentioned on, and student work updates (that are posted and given deadlines within the CMS) for late submissions and resubmissions. Constraints: While notifications can be nice for staying up-to-date, they can also be overwhelming. Even though the settings give you the ability to turn some of these notifications off, it will still end up sending you a lot of emails. Implications: This allows you to stay easily up-to-date throughout the many moving parts of your Classroom. While it has the potential to be overwhelming, it is more important that a teacher is well informed. Overall this will ultimately help with organization. Main Posts Announcements - Posts to keep your class informed. Affordances: Has the ability to inform or notify your students. Link files (Google Drive, YouTube, hyperlink or file attachment). Have the ability to automatically post, schedule a post or save as draft. Through the use of a topic indicator it is possible to categorize information. There is even a way of identifying specific students that will receive the announcement. Constraints: Access to technology to view the announcements. Students willingness/motivation to check announcements. Implications: (Many of the affordances and constraints for posting will be similar in this section.) The functionality to link files in posts is incredibly seamless, especially when using other Google applications such as Google Drive, Website Creator, Docs, Slides, and Sheets. This very useful for both the teacher to share files but also for students. While there is the obvious advantage to having all your files accessible from one system, there is also the advantage of user interface comfortability. I can see this also have a great impact when students are studying or trying to complete homework. As the teacher you could have a Google Drive organized in a way that allows your students to click on a link from your announcement that has all the information that they will need right there for them. Or as an example you could even have Youtube videos imbedded in your post that has part of a lecture, so students can receive a refresher before starting their homework. Question - Post a question to start a discussion. Affordances: Questions can be framed as either a short answer or multiple choice. Different questions could be given to different students. Students can be given the ability to reply to each others responses and even the ability to edit their answer after posting. The question can be set to have a due date and be a scheduled post. Constraints: Questions are limited in the type of responses they offer. If answers are visible to other students in the class it could influence other students answers. Implications: With the integration of links and other documents questions could be built out in a way that you are not just limited to short answers and multiple choice questions. With the use of due date and scheduled posts, you could hypothetically build out a scheduled curriculum that is paced in advance. The application of this feature as a check in either as a bell ringer, exit slip or even during instruction opens up several possibilities for efficiency, as long as there is a routine around it. Assignment - Post an assessment. Affordances: At a glance the number of students that have completed the assessment is represented. The linking of files and Google Drive folders is well integrated. Instructions, expectations and resources all in one place. Gone are the days of printing extra copies for students that lost them and absent students have resources that they can reference. Constraints: Class time starts to become undervalued. Digital organization becomes more important for managing the completion of assessments. Implications: Students could start to see the materials as a reason not to pay attention in class. For example, when learning math in middle school it was crucial that I paid attention to instruction because if I didn’t, I would be left to figure it out myself when it came time for homework. If students get to comfortable with the amount of resources available to them then they may not value the in class instruction as much. I do feel that the benefits far outweigh the potential drawbacks. Especially in 3rd grade students are still learning organization and digital organization is no different. Reuse Post - Post from something you have already posted before. Affordances: Allows the teacher to repost from different classes and improves efficiency. Constraints: Lends itself to the potential to reuse bad assessments. Implications: Same issues that come with teachers reusing lessons for years. Just as lessons can become stale and outdated when not revised or reassessed for their validity so can posts (assignments, questions, announcements). Sidebar Options Calendar View - Organize all your classes in a weekly calendar. Affordances: Organization. Constraints: Limited in the amount of views (only weekly). Implications: I wouldn’t realistically imagine running every content area in a CMS for 3rd graders because I don’t feel this would be developmentally appropriate and their for the calendar would not be used to its full potential. A middle or high school teacher or student would be able to use the calendar to organize their different classes. For assessments this could be incredibly helpful for managing your time on a week to week basis. To-Do - Helping you keep track of posts you need to look at and those you already have. Affordances: Identifies work that has been done in the Classroom for the teacher to review. Also, features a reviewed section to look back on work that has been completed. Constraints: If you have a lot of students, I can imagine this being an overwhelming task to look through each individual comment or question response. Implications: Helpful for the teacher to keep track of their classes. Classes - Organization (if you have several different classes) Affordances: Organization Constraints: N/A Implications: Helpful for middle or high school but irrelevant for elementary. About - Class information. Affordances: A great way to collect your resources for a course. Creates an easy why of directing students to a place where everything is available. Completing assessments can be referenced here. Constraints: N/A Implications: If you are able to keep an organized resource page students will be able to quickly and easily reference what they have done in class. This will be incredibly helpful when working on any assessment. It is a great one stop for anything your students could possibly need relating to the course. Conclusion Overall this would be a great option for my classroom. The current CMS that has been established in the school works for an older group of students, it is not developmentally appropriate for an elementary classroom. Following the use of several other Google applications that have already been established with my students, Google Classroom makes the most sense for its streamlined user interface and great file integration (thanks largely to Google Drive). The affordances of Google Classroom far outweigh the constraints for my classroom. Google Doc Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1erNcqpr-XinG55cNw3sW6toMt4ZvZSn4q0jE6dEjQZE/edit?usp=sharing Questions:
Is my assessment meaningful?
Does my assessment address my established learning goals (i.e. content standards)?
Does my assessment provide the opportunity for constructive feedback?
Is my assessment actively informing my teaching?
Is my assessment measuring what my students know and understand?
Question 1: Is my assessment meaningful? The question is rooted in whether or not my assessment involves critical thinking and real-world application. If the assessment is inauthentic and meaningless then students will be disengaged. While this applies to my students overall learning experience, it also translates into my own teaching. By staying authentic and meaningful in assessment I am able to be more passionate, translating to improved student engagement and achievement. By knowing this about my assessment I can also ensure that identifying “What’s the big idea?” or “Why should we learn this?” is digestible for students (Shepard, 2000, p. 7). For example, in a recent project my 3rd grade students were working on, they were given an issue of insufficient revenue in a simulated community that they had been building as part of our lesson on community issues. A few of the students used their prior knowledge of taxes that we had briefly talked about earlier in the year. While this was far from the outcome that I was expecting them to come to. They viewed the problem from the eyes of an Alderman, someone that we had met (Wiggins and MicTighe, 2005, p. 94). By giving a complex, realistic problem to solve they rose to the challenge and reached a deeper level of understanding. Evidence of Understanding Shepard (2000) explains that “School learning should be authentic and connected to the world outside for school not only to make learning interesting and motivating to students but also to develop the ability to use knowledge in real-world settings” (p. 7). Shepard (2000) raises an interesting point for the importance of keeping learning, therefore assessment, relative to the world outside of school. In my experience, when students are posed problems that could or have happened, they have a vested interest in coming to a solution. My assessment needs to reflect this, if it does not have a real-life connection then I should revisit what it is I am assessing and ask myself if their is a different angle that I could take to make it more relatable. Wiggins and McTighe (2005) support this idea by saying, “The problems that we develop for students should be as close as possible to the situation in which a scholar, artist, engineer or other professional attacks a problem” (p. 94). My assessments should consider this idea, because if my students can see the real connections to what they see in a professional context, then I will have a better chance of keeping them engaged. For example, if I am giving a formative assessment on current events and I only pose vague overarching questions with no connection to their lives, they will likely struggle to consider its value. If I see that students are able to make connections to their lives, then they have provided evidence that my assessment is meaningful. Question 2: Does my assessment align with my established learning goals (i.e. content standards)? It is essential that my assessment is related to the establishment of my learning goals, therefore ensuring alignment with content standards. This will help ensure that I am meeting my long-term goals for student learning and understanding. Wiggins and McTighe (2005) talk extensively about the alignment of established learning goals in Understanding by Design. I found the question, “What should they walk out the door able to understand, regardless of what activities or texts we use?”(p. 17) to be profound in my establishment of learning goals and the way that I think about them. Adhering to content standards is especially difficult when you are focused on teaching a lesson that does not correctly align with what students will be assessed on. In my experience, if an assessment is given and students struggle, it is frustrating for both the students and teacher. Being able to avoid this by clearly planning with the end in mind will help to ensure that students are progressing in the way that I have intended and provides a much more pleasant learning experience for both student and teacher. Evidence of Understanding It is imperative to have established learning goals that are aligned in an assessment because without them I may fall into “...[having] no check on the teachers habit of merely teaching to short-term, content-related objectives” (Wiggins and McTighe, 2005, p. 58). Being able to consistently refer back to established learning goals will provide a more comprehensive understanding. Using the UbD framework will be the most efficient way of allowing content standards and learning goals to drive my students learning (p. 24-25). To take this a step further Shepard raises the point of, “...content of assessments should match challenging subject matter standards and serve to instantiate what it means to know and learn in each of the disciplines” (Shepard, 2000, p. 7). By clearly stating learning goals in the beginning of my assessment, I am making sure that my students are informed of the goals I have set for them. Question 3: Does my assessment provide the opportunity for constructive feedback? It is important that both students and teacher have a chance to reflect back on an assessment and be given confirmative, critical and constructive feedback. (Van Den Bergh et. al, 2013) Black and Wiliam (1998) also talk about the importance of the quality of the feedback that you are giving to students (p. 41). For the student it is important that they get the opportunity to reflect on an assessment to identify what they have done successfully and what they need to improve on. This needs to be performed on a deeper level than simply right or wrong but as a conversation of learning. It is equally important for the teacher to reflect on his/her own teaching based on student performance from an assessment . Evidence of Understanding To improve the effectiveness of student feedback, you must be cognizant of “student motivation and self-confidence” to avoid discouragement, this is often a “balancing act” (Shepard, 2000, p. 11). Keeping this in mind when planning to give feedback is crucial, because if done incorrectly, it can cause a complete shutdown or even confrontation to feedback. Using feedback from student assessments, a teacher can gain a better understanding of where they may have needed to better support their students and “know what to do next” (Hattie, 2007, p. 102). While feedback is important, the type of feedback could be argued as more important and should come in the form of “confirmative, critical, and constructive feedback” (van den Bergh et. al, 2013, p. 357). Interestingly the study found that in only 1.3% of the interactions observed encompassed all three of these forms of feedback were present (p. 357). I will be looking to ensure that I have set aside enough time after an assessment for my reflections, their self-reflections, and possible peer-reflections (when appropriate). Building this into my assessments will be the best way of giving every possible opportunity for my student to receive appropriate feedback to improve understanding. Question 4: Is my assessment actively informing my teaching? I need to use formative assessments to effectively guide my teaching in the direction that will benefit my students. Without the necessary evidence of how students are progressing through content, giving a summative assessment at the end of a unit could prove the whole unit to have been a waste of time. By creating formative assessments as checkpoints throughout a unit the teacher is able to make adjustments, for both clarifying expectations and to refocus (Black and Wiliam, 1998, p.141). With the right frequency of formative assessments, I can ensure that my teaching is being done successfully and efficiently as possible (Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick, 2006, p. 214). Evidence of Understanding I will need to ensure that my formative assessment is a quick diagnostic task that leaves room for identifying students level of understanding (Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick, 2006, p. 215). I will also need to make sure that my assessment does not solely “rely on recall” or “as an external accountability thermometers”(Hattie, 2007, p. 104). If I want my assessment to effectively inform my teaching and provide a better learning experience for my students, the assessment must be rooted in relevant information that informs the overall understanding of the content. With this information, I will be able to make informed interventions to guide my teaching on a day to day or lesson to lesson basis (Black and Wiliam, 1998, p. 20). Question 5: How is my assessment measuring what my students know and understand? When I am assessing student learning I should be using methods that accurately reflect what my students know and understand. If I am using the wrong measurements then the resulting conclusions from an assessment are meaningless (National, 2001, p. 54). When thinking about an assignment in project based learning, I need to ensure that I am giving my students measurements, possibly in the form of a rubric, that is accurately measuring their varying degrees of learning (Wiggins, 2005, p. 175-176). If throughout the course of a project they are unsure of how they are being assessed, then this is a confusing experience that did not include the information that they needed to be successful. But if students are given a rubric that explains, in detail, the varying degrees to which they will be assessed, then the expectations are known and can be achieved. Finally, by a rubric having distinct numbers associated with their completion of the criteria, the project can accurately be measured for overall understanding of the content. Evidence of Understanding To be intentional in the way that I am designing my assessments I need to make sure that I am including all of the necessary elements of assessment. In order to do this I should include elements of cognition, observation, and interpretation (National, 2001, p. 54). Students should be able to show that they are comprehending the subject matter on a metric that makes sense for their learning. In the previous example of the rubric, by students meeting the criteria that has been set, I can ensure a measurement of their learning. This can be hard task when considering the fact that all assessments inherently have some bias on the part of the teacher or curriculum director. Reliability in patterns, by checking for understanding at a rate that is frequent and appropriate, I can validate my assessments of learning (Wiggins, 2005, p. 188). References Black, P. & Wiliam, D. (1998). Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice. Assessment and Classroom Learning, 5(1), 7-74. doi: 10.1080/0969595980050102 Black, P. & Wiliam, D. (1998). Inside the black box: Raising standards through classroom assessment. Phi Delta Kappan, 80(2), 139-144; 146-148. Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 81–112. National Research Council. 2001. Knowing What Students Know: The Science and Design of Educational Assessment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/10019. Nicol, D., & Macfarlane-Dick, D. (2006). Formative assessment and self-regulated learning: A model and seven principles of good feedback practice. Studies in Higher Education, 31(2), 199–218. Shepard, L. (2000). The role of assessment in a learning culture. Educational Researcher, 29(7), 4-14. van den Berghe, L., Ros, A., & Beijaard, D. (2013). Teacher feedback during active learning: Current practices in primary schools. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 83, 341-362. doi:10.1111/j.2044-8279.2012.02073.x Wiggins, G. P. & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by Design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/19_tnhk-awuHlO0wlYwXb3mDdtxDgpXN8LbD071kV0lI/edit?usp=sharing Assignment Reflection: Overall I felt that this assignment had benefits in creating a great reference guide, but its requirements made it especially challenging for me. Including the required two citations from two different modules for both the question paragraph and evidence of understanding paragraph at times felt like a stretch. Using my ADC 2.0 to review a colleagues FAD was very beneficial in two ways. It both forced me to revisit my ADC and apply it to someone else's work, which was a refreshing way of looking at my own work. I also struggled to come up with my fifth and final question because I felt as though I had touched on the most important criteria to look for in an assessment. While I’m sure I could have seperated an idea from another question and made it its own question. It would have been taking something away from the initial question that I wanted to ask. While in some of the criteria for this assignment was challenging for me, I felt that it ultimately was a beneficial exercise to work through my understanding around creating an effective assessment. |
AuthorMy name is Ryan MacLeod and I live in Seattle, WA. I am currently a K-8 Lab Coordinator. I have a passion for educational technology integration and curriculum design, especially when it comes to the social sciences. Archives
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