Class Four Reflection

The symbol I am using for this week's reflection represents creativity. I have learned this week that it takes a lot of creativity to assess students when they are showing their best work and create the assessment tools to do so.

Class Four Reflection

This week's class ran a little bit differently than it has the past three weeks. Instead of a series of smaller activities, we worked through a larger activity as a large group for the first half of the session. This large group activity was then followed by Learning Circles and we ended class with some videos explaining different techniques of gathering evidence for student learning. 

Though this week's class felt different, I also felt like I was more involved than I have in the past few weeks. I felt that I was able to really share my ideas in my group and step into the teacher role that we have been aiming for this semester. 

We began class by returning to our "Talking About Shapes' ' activity that we had initially begun last week. At the time I was very confused as to why we were doing this activity, it almost felt silly. But, this week it all made sense. The reasons why we were assessing this activity was to show how inconsistent assessment can be when there is no guide to how students are to be assessed. Teachers do not know what they are looking for, parents do not know what to make of the feedback, and students have no idea where they are going in completing the assignment and giving themselves feedback. The way this concept was taught through this activity was eye opening for me. 

This was the original activity sheet that I filled in. I thought that I did not do very well at this and gave myself a very low mark. My partner gave me a higher mark that I had given myself but not by much. However, regardless of how I did on this, I learned alot from it. When you are marking, if you do not know exactly what you are looking for to place a student in a range of grades, marking can never be consistent, especially from teacher to teacher. So creating an assessment tool is so helpful. But, I also learned how much work it is to create these tools, especially when working with others. This experience also showed me how each person brings something unique to the table, just as each student does. So, having different voices in the creation of assessment helps to cover all of the answers students could potentially give. I would be curious as to how I would score on the assessment we made, where would others place my work on the consistent scale?

This week I also completed the Self Assessment of Personal Goals activity and wanted to share my responses to my E-Portfolio to look back on throughout the semester. 

Self Assessment of Personal Goals

I have just completed the Cultural Inclusion Assessment Practices activity and I scored in the Good practice of cultrual inclusion in assessment category. I am looking forward to further looking into this and what it means about me as an educator.