WMS STEM - Standard 10: Performance-Based/ Self Assessments

NARRATIVE

At Winfield Middle School, we believe that students should not only acquire the necessary content and skills of core academic areas and specialty fields, but they should also have opportunities to self-assess, engage in metacognitive behaviors, and reflect on their own learning. Our educators are trained and challenged to create a wide range of performance-based assessments that will nurture a growth mindset and guide students on their journey toward mastery of content and skills. These activities require higher-order thinking and peer interaction while depending on cognitive skills such as information processing, critical thinking, and problem-solving. Our STEM activities also rely on interpersonal skills such as communication, teamwork, and time management.

Our inquiry and project-based learning activities are designed to allow students to take ownership of their learning by encouraging students to self-assess their learning/projects. When our educators implement their lessons, they have ensured that lessons are focused on the Engineering Design Process which will allow students the option to not only self-assess and take ownership of their progress but to manage their time in order to complete their project within the guidelines of the lesson.

At Winfield Middle School, we stress the importance of a growth mindset and student ownership of learning. Our educators implement these attributes by creating assessments that will foster student reflection and ownership. Through the use of rubrics, students can self-assess where they are and if they are meeting the expectations and final outcomes of their learning. Educators also utilize collaboration assessments to help students evaluate their role as a collaborator and understand that many things in life are better when done with others than by oneself. Through these rubrics, students can assess their individual part in group collaboration as well as the group as to how the group worked together. Similarly, educators use presentation assessments to aid students in evaluating how well they are communicating with others.

Strengths: Winfield City School System has many stakeholders that are involved in driving instruction with performance assessments. These educators, administrators, and students enjoy using self-assessments, rubrics, and presentations to demonstrate learning.

Opportunities for Improvement: Winfield City School System has several opportunities to improve in this standard. Embeddedness is the area of greatest weakness for the school system. Currently, the school hosts many teachers that provide wonderful opportunities for performance assessment, but we also see a nervousness from teachers in regard to performance assessment. Winfield plans to provide proper professional development to help this STEM standard flow seamlessly throughout each classroom.

Wax Museum

Sixth Grade students work diligently to provide a living wax museum for the community to enjoy and learn from. The living wax museum is made up of historical people that have made an altering contribution to society. Each student researches and chooses a historical figure to portray. After decisions are made, the students begin extensively researching their choice. Over the course of two weeks, the students do numerous projects in order to make the museum a success. The students create a one-minute monologue that will depict their character during the museum. They also create a PowerPoint presentation in front of research that includes the character's background, major contributions, and interesting facts about him/her. The students then create a backdrop for their characters using a trifold. Next, the parents of the students become involved in the project. The parents research and find the costumes that their children will wear for the museum. The parents can also help the students add props to the presentation of their child's characters. A few days before the museum, the teachers will find out how many students are planning on having large displays. Once the teachers have the information regarding the large displays, the students break into groups and measure the amount of room that we have for displays. Each group makes a chart of the school to determine the best placement for all displays. The students turn the charts in their teachers, and after much consideration, the teachers choose which chart they will use to place the displays. The night of the living wax museum, the students and parents arrive early dressing in costumes, with their displays. The students are placed in their section based on the chart, and the parents help their children set up. An hour before the museum is underway, a bank from the community comes and films all of our students' hard work. Once the filming is finished, the community starts piling into the museum and the students recite their monologues to each person that comes up to them. The students truly embody their character for that night, and it is an amazing production to attend. After the museum is concluded, the students are given a rubric and told to grade their production. They decide what they could have changed in order to be more successful during the museum.

At the core of our mission and vision, we realize that it is essential that students can not only do the work or understand the content, but in seeking mastery, we believe it is essential that students can work with their peers to accomplish goals and projects and that they can communicate their understanding to others.

Group and Self Evaluation.pdf

Self Assessments

To deepen understanding and mastery, students are given a wide variety of opportunities to self-assess their progress on projects and courses. Embedded within course units and individual lessons, students have opportunities to reflect on their own work as well as the metacognition of how that work was done and the intellectual processes that they used to get there.

Rubrics

Educators across the curriculum use a wide variety of rubrics to assess the presentation of information as well as collaboration on group projects and tasks.

App Rubric 2021-2022.pdf