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While at BHS and as part of my graduate school work, I created and implemented my own standards-based assessment system in my science classes. I did this in response to the following inquiry:
How can I more accurately, meaningfully and fairly represent students’ level of understanding and skills, while simultaneously encouraging greater acquisition of those skills and promoting a growth mindset?
Over a year's time I researched, interviewed, and conducted various site visits to learn about assessment and grading options. I took from each of these sources and adapted what I learned to fit my particular situation and teaching philosophy. After testing and tweaking it for a few years, we then expanded this system to the 6th grade Social Studies class, and two other teachers adopted all or part of this standards-based system for their own work. While this particular system may be unique to my teaching style and my role at BHS, my experience in generating assessment tools and working with teachers to craft their own standards that deepen understanding and promote positive habits of mind are skills that I am happy to contribute to our work together. My time working for NHEEP has also helped me to gain a deeper understanding of the Next Generation Science Standards, and how assessment can be aligned with performance expectations to strengthen cross-cutting concepts and practices as well as the disciplinary core ideas. Consultation regarding assessment systems could mean working on a district-wide level, or it could be individualized in order to help you create assessment tools or rubrics that are growth-focused and feel more meaningful, transparent and fair.
Below is a presentation I was asked to deliver for the faculty and the administration at the Beech Hill School. The goal was for each teacher to better understand and potentially adopt the assessment system that I developed. Check it out to learn more about why I chose this method, as well as the additional benefits and challenges that I discovered throughout the process.
Below is a presentation I was asked to deliver for the faculty and the administration at the Beech Hill School. The goal was for each teacher to better understand and potentially adopt the assessment system that I developed. Check it out to learn more about why I chose this method, as well as the additional benefits and challenges that I discovered throughout the process.
*Note: This is the visual aid from the presentation and does not include many of the finer points or opportunities for elaboration that the full presentation allows.
Assessment and Feedback Philosophy:
- I believe assessments should focus on skills (or practices) more than on content, and should encourage acquisition of life skills and practices as well as those practices associated with the specific subject-area.
- I want feedback to encourage a growth mindset. This means that students focus on improving and on learning rather than on a grade.
- The book should not close on learning. If you don't know something today, that does not mean that you cannot keep trying to understand it tomorrow, and I want you to receive credit for what you know or can do, even if the learning takes place at a different pace.
- I believe that student engagement, what BHS called the "Learning Process," should be dis-aggregated from skills and content competencies in some way. An assessment should both communicate what the student has learned, but also whether or not the student has made a good-faith effort to learn, and lumping both effort and effectiveness into one 'grade' removes the ability to distinguish.
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