Assessment for Learning

It is mid year - the time when teachers across the country gather information on students to report mid year results to all interested parties. This can take many forms, from parent-teacher interviews, reports, portfolios, 3-way interviews, student led conferences and more. Each school has ownership of how and when they feel it necessary to report, within the Ministry of Education guidelines.

Picture thanks to Hedrick on Flickr

In our school the reporting schedule is varied. We predominantly have AFL folders (assessment for learning folders/portfolios) along with  3way interviews term 2, and student led conferences term 4. We like to promote the child as being at the centre of their own learning, so they have a large part to play in reporting their progress, but this is not always easy.

With the introduction of e-portfolios in recent years I have found it more difficult to achieve a portfolio for learning instead of a portfolio of learning.

AFL folders serve a purpose, they replaced the written report, that would have originally discussed what a student could do and needed to work on in each curriculum area. AFL folders instead include test results, and progress graphs, along with students work samples and self reflections against learning criteria. Each year the AFL folder changes slightly one way or the other, and often discussion centres around what is the best way to balance the accountability of the reporting levels to parents, and the child ownership of learning artefacts.

With the introduction of E-portfolios this hasn't become any clearer, as we struggle to develop authentic ways to share students learning and progress digitally, while maintaining a certain level of consistency between paper afl and online e-portfolio, as well as reporting specific data to parents.

How do we find the happy medium between an assessment portfolio and a showcase portfolio, In both paper or online portfolios?

Student Surprises

Term 1 is a big one for assessments - as teachers get to know where their new students are at and what their  learning needs are.
Each year this is an interesting and somewhat draining time, getting to know 25-30 people as fast and as indepth as you can, so that you can start to teach them with some direction in mind. Often the previous years teacher passes on some basic data to you to help you with a starting point too. This is all great until...

You come across the inevitable surprise children. And not a surprise in a good way so much. The children who just don't seem to match the picture that last years teacher left you. The data you are discovering seems to indicate much lower attainment. What do you do?

Here is where things can go horribly wrong... Do you start moaning about last years teacher over inflating the child? Do you tell the child they've gone backwards since last year? Do you ignore it and carry on? Should you highlight them and test them over and over to see if you get a different result? Are they now deemed to be failing or at risk because the results differ?

The truth is that data is often only a snapshot in time. Children perform differently on different tasks, at different times of the day, with different people, depending on their mood, focus and desire. Humans (yes, we teachers are only humans) make errors - in judgement, and in recording or transferring information. All of these things could be legitimate reasons why data doesn't match. So why make a big deal about it? It is done and is history.

When I gather data about my students learning needs at the beginning of the year, it is for one purpose, to help me know what I need to help them with now, from this moment forward. While I can't completely ignore last years data (as parents were informed with it), comparing this data and questioning it endlessly is not teaching my students. Formal assessment takes up much of a teachers teaching time these days as opposed to actual teaching. -but that's another blog... Any assessment should be wholly for me and my students and to plan our next steps.

So yes, there are student surprises, data doesn't seem right. I should be aware of this...but should I be focusing on this aspect of the child, or focusing on the skills they are showing me, and the needs I am discovering right now?

Online Planning

Planning is my self confessed weakness - along with organisation, but that's another story.

Image thanks to cybrarian77 

Planning takes up time, too much time in my week. For 9 years I have tried template after template, planned in lists, in grids, tried it after school, day by day, month by month. Anyway I have seen or can think of trying to create efficient and effective teaching plans. But still hours of my week disappear in planning that never quite feels right.

This term I am trying digital planning in a shared forum - Google sites. My decision around this is because I have stopped printing all my word processed planning - as it seemed a waste of time printing, and organising into folders, bits of paper, just for my senior teacher to view for attestation. Not good time management.
So on-line I go - into a place others can view in real time with me if necessary - senior teachers, student teachers and relievers... hopefully!
Thanks to the VLN, and TaraTJ's advice and sharing of her trials, it gave me confidence to try Google sites too.

Now my task is to organise this document and transfer last terms planning over in bulk to meet expectations for attestation so far, and to then create a working document for moving forward. Thanks to Tara I have a simple way to get started and will build this from there. Keeping the ultimate goal in mind, which is saving time...  I have some trepidations. But will bravely move forward...

I have high expectations that this form of planning will help me to make some changes in my planning - like moving the time focus to planning each lesson, rather then the scheduling of the lessons. I will be looking at the sequence of lessons over a term for groups rather than week to week or day to day. Then these lessons just fit in as time allows. secondly I want to add a reflective column, with a guiding question to think about. This question will be related to the lesson and the children's attainment/self reflection. This may mean adding to this in the moment...a real challenge for me. But something I know I need to work on, getting this reflection out of my head and onto paper (still don't quite understand why this is, but will try it).

Once this is up and running I may add a link here. Wish me luck.