For this week's Learning Circle discussion all members of my group were present. So, the members participating in the discussion were the same as week one. I feel that this was one of our least productive Learning Circle sessions as we engaged in this discussion much later than normal. We had already spent time on the building of assessment criteria which took up the majority of the first half of this week's session, so by the time we had our Learning Circle we were more interested in talking about the creation of assessment tools and how our groups functioned throughout this process than the chapters that were assigned for the week. However, we still were able to stay on topic and discuss a good amount of the textbook's content for the week.
This week my group focussed our discussion on the idea of observation as an assessment technique. We talked about how observation can be so useful to teachers as it allows them to see student work in a much less stressful environment than writing a test or creating a presentation. We discussed how observation gives teachers the opportunity to see the process rather than just the product. Being a part of the process opens a window into the students' thought processes and what they actually know about the topic. Often the process of the student learning and creating a product is much more telling than the product itself.
In our discussion I brought up that I used observation often in my first part of my Pre-Internship as I was placed in a Grade One classroom. In this classroom most of my students were not in a place where asking them to write a response would be possible for them. So instead we used drawing as their way to show their learning. Drawings can be difficult to understand, especially at the Grade One level making observation incredibly important in the assessment process. I was able to speak with my students about what they were drawing as they worked on it, recording their answers to look back on later. This observation technique worked very well.
Along with discussing why observation is useful, we also created a list of groups that observation could be especially important for.
Younger Students
English Language Learners
Classes of Varying Grade Level
Students with Little Home Support