standard 1.5

At SPARK Academy, our students demonstrate their learning through projects utilizing Seesaw and Showcases. We believe that ongoing assessment provides opportunities for students to explain their processes and conclusions as well as being an indicator of growth.

Our students are assessed using a standards-based reporting system rather than a traditional letter-based grading system. As a result, many of our assessments are performance-based, demonstrated and documented using the Seesaw app. Whether a formal end-of-grading period assessment or a quick demonstration of student learning, Seesaw allows students to record their thinking orally, which is ideal when working with young students. Assessments are no longer limited by what our students can record using a pencil and paper. The Seesaw iPad app also allows students to record their work and their reflections using photos, audio recordings, and video recordings. Additionally, since all of our Seesaw posts are available to be immediately viewed by parents and other teachers in the school who work with the student, all stakeholders have an accurate picture of what each student knows and is able to do.

As each grade level completes engineering design projects in both their classrooms and in the Learning and SPARK Labs, student success can be demonstrated the design’s success when evaluated against the project’s criteria and constraints. During their study of severe weather, our third grade students build levees to hold back flood waters. What follows is one student’s ongoing reflection as she built her levee, her results following her first test, and her results following her redesign and second test.

Twice a year, our families participate in a Showcase evening. During this evening, our students are able to demonstrate their learning and share their projects with their families and guests. During our Showcase evenings, students are able to show and demonstrate projects and activities that are unable to come home. In previous years, we have held two school-wide Showcase nights: one in the fall and one in the spring.

We observed that with each passing Showcase, we had fewer and fewer families participate. As a faculty, we decided to change the structure of Showcase to help increase attendance. We believed that with the shift from a traditional report card to a standards-based reporting system, it was critical that parents had multiple opportunities to see what their child knew and was able to do. To that end, the faculty chose to combine the fall Showcase night with our parent conferences and instead hold student led conferences. Each conference will be twenty minutes in length, with our students leading the first ten minutes and the teacher leading the last ten minutes, giving parents the choice of having their child join for the teacher portion or for that to be held in private. During the student-led portion of the conference, the student will demonstrate his or her learning through a performance task. In the spring, SPARK plans on having what has become a traditional Showcase evening, however, each grade level will schedule their own night, based on the unit they chose to feature for Showcase. Teachers will be able to determine the schedule, tasks, and presentation goals for their evening. Below is a picture of a student, sharing a menu she created in the classroom and is taking her family’s order. Following the Showcase evening, she will use her family’s order to calculate the cost for the bill.

Our challenge is to continue to develop creative, rigorous ways for our students to demonstrate their learning. We always want our students to be reflective learners and continue to work to model those skills. Our work on refining our unit tasks, combined with the work on personal and collaborative success skills will help us continue to improve and refine our performance-based assessments.