Standard 9
learners demonstrate their learning through performance-based assessments and have opportunities to develop self-assessment and self-monitoring skills.
Paine Elementary students demonstrate their learning through performance-based assessment. Through performance assessments in the classroom, demonstrations in STEM Lab, and ENRICH opportunities, students have experiences that help them develop metacognitive skills. With activities such as Electric Village, Beebots and Life Cycle projects, students can increase self-assessment and self-monitoring skills to check their work against expectations and learning goals as outlined by their teacher, as well as have opportunities to publicly share their work.
performance assessments in the classroom
At Paine Elementary, learners demonstrate their learning through performance-based assessments and have opportunities to develop self-assessment and self-monitoring skills through performance assessments. Through teacher collaboration, grade level teachers saw the need for an engaging way to teach specific standards. These lessons incorporate self-monitoring, self-assessing, and public demonstration of their learning where students have ownership of their learning. Recognizing that ownership allows learners to use intrinsic motivations to engage in activities that lead to STEM specific performance-based assessments. Specific activities teachers have implemented include: Electric Village, Beebots, Life Cycle Projects which all provide students the opportunity to self-assess and self-monitor through performance assessments.
Electric Village
Electric Village was developed for all fourth grade students to publicly demonstrate their learning of electrical circuits and electricity. Students developed a plan for their project and set goals to self-monitor and self-assess as they completed their individual projects. This allowed students to reflect on their learning throughout the process of completing a performance-based assessment. Teachers provide batteries, light bulbs, and electrical wires, and students provide materials to build their Electric Villages homes/businesses. Students build a home or business to be a part of the classroom winter village. In the classroom they use batteries, electrical wires, and light bulbs to create closed circuits to light up their home or businesses. Students also research and use the information learned in the classroom to create a speaking part to display their knowledge of electricity, energy, and electrical circuits. On the day of presentations, students light up their home or business, and they go through the room with their speaking part. Students thoroughly enjoy creating and presenting for Electric Village. Each year students present the village and what they have learned to the other grade levels and students look forward to their turn when they come to fourth grade. Students love the ah-ha moments when they complete their closed circuits and their lights work to power their home or business. It is an important learning moment as they find that the lights do not work unless they have a solid closed connection and this stays with them from that hands-on learning experience.
Bee bots
Beebots were used for second graders to engage in the engineering design process during a math unit on counting to support math standards. In this activity students were actively engaged in the engineering design process, math, and technology. Students had to self-monitor and self-assess, especially when the Beebot went wrong, they had to self-assess and adjust the problem then retest. Classes used six different mats. They have to program Beebots with fewest commands for correct money. It has them counting and recounting different coin combinations and numbers of commands over and over. Teachers are able to differentiate with different money amounts.
life cycle project
The Life Cycle project was developed for all third grade students to guide their own learning of different plant and animal life cycles through the use of science and technology. Students were able to self-monitor and self-assess as they completed their life-cycle project including a presentation where they publicly demonstrated their knowledge. All third grade students created a life cycle project and presentation in their sciences classes. Students worked in groups to collaborate finding research from various databases to collect information. Students were given questions from their teacher that they had to complete in the research process before creating their presentation on Google Slides. Students then developed a STEM-specific presentation using science and technology, by creating a presentation of the life cycle they chose to research. The teacher gave expectations before students presented their projects so they were able to self-assess as they presented.
Another example is, in several math classes, students are self-monitoring and self-assessing in math fact fluency to reach their goal. They set goals to master specific sets of facts and keep track of which facts they have mastered fluency and which facts they need to keep working on. Students reflect on specific facts they are struggling with and have meetings with their teacher on strategies to meet their goals. Data from performance assessments in our school is seen in classroom grades from teachers evaluating projects and presentations as a formative assessment. Also, teachers collect data by making observations and using this to choose next learning goals and steps.
Overall, student ownership has a significant impact on students' learning. Through the performance-based assessment part of each of these learning opportunities listed above, students have opportunities to develop self-assessment and self-monitoring skills by checking their own work against expectations, and these learning goals are ingrained with the students. Self-assessment and self-monitoring are great tools to deepen understanding and encourage independence which highly impacts students. Students also learn metacognitive skills that prepare them for future lessons and activities. When students were engaged in Electric Village, Beebot Programming, and engaging projects, discipline was at a minimum. Students continue to refer back to these activities when making connections to something new. Setting goals, guiding and assessing learning, reflecting on learning are all so important within our school. It is evident that teachers are continuing to create and facilitate new opportunities for students to focus on these elements.
Performance assessment in stem lab
Learners at Paine Elementary demonstrate their learning through performance-based assessments in the STEM Lab. Students reflect through self-assessment on the weekly lessons. Our STEM Labs are abuzz with various activities covering a wide range of Alabama DLCS standards. The classroom door warns, “DANGER….Engineers at work! We think with our hands!” If you were to walk through our door on any given day for any given grade level (K-5), you would feel the excitement and positive energy moving around our students as they engage in the lessons. Kindergarten students' excitement as they begin to learn how to navigate their devices for the first time and spend time in discovery building with Legos and other creative materials evolves into 5th graders demonstrating mastery of basic coding concepts and exploring design thinking with 3D printing.
Typically, in the STEM Lab we introduce the lesson challenge with a set of criteria and constraints that must be met. Students independently self-assess by comparing their work against the criteria in the lesson challenge and the provided rubric. By working within certain constraints, students also work to improve their self-monitoring skills. Students demonstrate their understanding of STEM content through performance assessments (often a prototype or final product), and use the Engineering Design Process to self-assess and reflect on their learning by testing and improving their prototypes and designs.
At the end of a lesson challenge, students have an opportunity to share out their projects to their classmates. As part of our unit on coding, 5th grade students experienced coding a basketball video game after learning about sequence and event-handlers. First, students emailed the link to their game for STEM teacher evaluation and feedback. Students had an opportunity to make improvements based on teacher recommendations before sharing the link to classmates. Next, students shared their completed games to classmates and they were able to play each other's games and provide compliments and constructive criticisms based on their perceived gaming experience. Lastly, students' had an opportunity to consider game revisions based on peer feedback to increase gamer engagement! Several of the final products were chosen to share through email with principals and other technology leaders in the district for evaluation and feedback. Students really enjoyed reading the complimentary feedback from these respected adults! We also share students' work with both internal and external stakeholders through our school newsletter.
Some examples of STEM Lab performance assessments are listed below:
Kindergarten
After reading Rosie Revere, Engineer, kindergarten students constructed bridges and towers. Students had to self-assess their designs to ensure that they met the provided criteria and constraints. Students were excited to present their work with each other, and reflected on their learning afterwards.
First Grade
Ricky, the Rock That Couldn't Roll
Frist grade students completed a performance assessment based on the book Ricky, the Rock That Couldn't Roll. Students developed designs to adapt a rock to make it roll down a slide. By testing and tweaking their designs, students worked to self- assess. Students completed reflections about the process afterwards.
Second Grade
Second grade students designed playgrounds after reading The Recess Queen. Students self-assessed throughout the project by working within certain criteria and constraints to build working models of playground equipment. These second graders were proud to show off their models and they had insightful reflections!
Third Grade
Our third grade students demonstrate their knowledge of coding with Dash robots and Blockly. They are able to see the results of their work in real time, self-assess, and adjust their code as needed to make their Dash robot function. Showing off how their Dash robots can move through a maze is an exciting moment during this unit!
Fourth Grade
Fourth graders spent time working on an unplugged graph paper programming activity from Code.org to learn about algorithms. Learners had to speak the algorithm, then write the algorithm with symbols and codes, and then communicate their algorithm with a partner. This helped students build their understanding of basic coding concepts. Their self assessments and reflections throughout this activity have helped guide our next instructional steps.
Fifth Grade
Fifth grade students learned to read and write algorithms, and then worked in teams to apply their coding skills with WeDo Lego 2.0. They followed the Engineering Design Process to design, build, test, and improve a motorized Lego model. WeDo Lego 2.0 is ideal for improving students' self-assessment and self monitoring skills because the provided instructions do not provide everything students need to be successful. Instead, learners must ask questions and find answers to problem solve.
Performance Assessment- 5th graders share out their teams design.
Performance Assessment- 5th graders share out their teams design.
Golf Enrich public presentation
Adults from the school and district test their miniature golfing abilities in 10 holes created by student designers. The adult teams traveled to each hole with their student caddy to meet the designers, learn about their process for designing their hole, play the hole, and give feedback to the designers.
Fourth and fifth grade students selected the Robotics Miniature Golf Course EnRICh in which they rose to the challenge to design and build a 10 hole miniature golf course with no tech and tech hazards for others to practice their math skills and persistence to be the one who could finish the hole with the least number of strokes. Students worked through the Engineering Design Process to ask questions within their group using the Question Formulation Technique (QFT), shared their questions with the larger group, research, develop plans, build, test, improve, and share with a larger audience. Throughout the process students learned to work in their group of four to celebrate the strengths of each member and give feedback to one another. They faced challenges in construction and persisted to complete their designs.
Along the way, they tested and improved frequently to prepare their designs for the principal, assistant principals, librarian, STEM teachers, IT Network Manager, Data Specialist, Athletic Director, Assistant Superintendent of Operations/Finance, and Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction to test their skills. The students showed confidence when meeting the adult golfers, introducing their designs, and supporting the golfs. Several design teams used their programming skills to create multiple degrees of challenge by writing code to increase or decrease the speed of their robotic element. When the adult golfers arrived, the students would ask how they would like to challenge their skills - easy, medium, or hard. The designers would give encouragement to the adult golfers even if it took them 14 strokes.