I had been eagerly waiting insights into how I could use assessment as an opportunity to support and personalize learning, and it was there in abundance through the panel on Thursday night’s OnEdMentors episode on Assessment. What was also there were catalysts for my own reflection on how I could improve my practice to really reach everyone, right now and always.
I realize, often, that I still have so much to learn about many things. After the show, I was feeling fraught, head in my hand when my husband harshly spoke some wisdom. “Noa, you are just a teacher,” he said after hearing my upset for how far I felt from where I wanted to be for my learners. These words felt cruel but that was not his intention. I have always felt an elevated sense of purpose in our profession. I have always tried to iterate my offerings in the best interests of my learners in view of the curriculum expectations. I want to do more, own more, do better. He knows that I take it all very seriously, too seriously some times and has been there when I have cried over feelings of failure and distraught deliberations over my impact. His words stung, but, again, he wasn’t wrong in anything except his word choice. We can try our best to reach every student, but we have no real way of knowing that beyond the evidence of pedagogical documentation, but there is so much we can't glean, especially now. With emergency remote learning, we have to acquiesce to our limitations. Sometimes, doing our best is all that we can do. This is not about us, it's about them.
There is, however, a lot we can do. Every member of the panel had important insights on Assessment. Here is some of the collective wisdom shared by the panel of Neil Finney, Angie McNaughton, Deb McCallum, and Dawn McMaster (not on Twitter) on Thursday's episode:
Focus on feedback and connection
be predictable and consistent- students need routine, a patterned and predictable approach to make them feel safe
choice
chunk assignments
less is more
focus on impact over intent
support, scaffold and personalize assessment-it’s not a one-size-fits all approach
focus on essential knowledge and skills as well as transferable skills
set clear learning goals and success criteria with targeted feedback related to that- keeping the scope small will help to make assessment more meaningful while highlighting the key elements only
exploring what they're curious about and different ways they can be learning and building community
view pedagogical documentation through an asset lens
Make sure what you are asking of them is “humane” (shared by Greg Harris)
Be responsive and flexible. As Beate Planche tweeted: Use should use conversations and feedback to help assess understanding and levels of confidence or anxiety, so we can adjust as needed
I was ruminating on the above quote that one of the panelists on the show had shared. Dawn McMaster, MYP and DP Coordinator and Director of Curriculum at The York School, has been attending many webinars so she couldn't directly source this statement, but she shared the question prompt that she encouraged us to ask ourselves when planning and assessing for students during emergency remote learning: What does the student need to know now that will change their lives forever?.
I keep coming back to questions about learning. ”How do I really know if my students are learning in their home environments or as a result /in spite of their mental environments? I have usually gauged my practice by noting: If they're not learning, I'm not teaching, but things are different now. How do I know what they are learning- about life, maybe a new language, how to play an instrument or draw in anime? How can I assess learning when some are learning so much through the experience of supporting their parents by taking care of siblings or at their businesses or on farms or construction sites if it's not on the curriculum? There is so much learning happening outside the blocks. How can I value that more and worry about assessing inside the curriculum less? How can we use this time to just be there, emotionally and academically, for support, connection, and feedback for learning. How can we use formative assessment strategies to see where they are, keep moving them forward, and really see where they are at on their own continuum as whole people? I am really reassessing my own sense of what learning is. In the meantime, I still want to do better for my students, even within my limitations as their teacher. I'm still left with a lot of questions but, thanks to the show, I have a lot of good answers, too.
Here are some of the Canadian and Ontario-based resources shared through the episode:
I do know that we have to get over ourselves and our precious curriculum expectations, distilling it down to focused skills and targeted support one student at a time. Usually, my litmus test is their learning so how can I know if I am teaching effectively if I can’t fully and accurately assess their learning? This is the gift and the limitation of the teacher during emergency remote learning. As always, I have a lot to learn, but these are helpful and actionable next steps for me, and I know I will do better for my students because of this informative and important episode of OnEdMentors.