Here are some thoughts from a recent PYP Evidencing Learning workshop, supporting teachers to shift from a traditional model of ‘Pre test – Teach stuff – Post test’ to a model where assessment is integrated and iterative.
(Note: Start anywhere, move back and forth as required, always pass through the centre.)
I used to think being ‘assessment capable’ just implied things like setting tests, planning summative tasks, grading and giving feedback.
A thought provoking conversation the other day with @YuniSantosa and @MKPolly, in relation to various workshops we will lead in the new year, highlighted the following questions assessment capable teachers and learners might ask ourselves:
How might I observe and notice my students’ learning?
What is revealed through what students say and do?
What skills and dispositions are they demonstrating?
What skills and dispositions might they need to work on?
What have they understood? What misconceptions do they have?
How have they moved forward? What’s holding them back?
What is their behaviour communicating?
What questions might I ask to reveal what students are thinking?
How has their thinking changed? What prompted the shift?
What patterns do I observe in individuals, groups or the whole class?
How might reflecting on evidence of learning guide my teaching?
How might I support students to move forward in their learning?
How might I provoke their curiosity?
How might I respond to what they reveal?
What might I offer that could take them to the next level?
How might I push their thinking further?
How might I further challenge them?
How might my questions clarify their understanding and help them notice misconceptions?
How might I help them notice and identify skills and dispositions?
How might I encourage them to build on their strengths?
What feedback and feedforward will be valuable?
How can I target my teaching to meet specific needs?
How might modelling my own thinking and reflection encourage theirs?
How might I ensure learners feel empowered to drive their own learning?
How might students be empowered to drive their own learning?
How might the teacher’s language influence the way students see themselves as learners?
Is how we learn as much a part of the conversation as what we learn?
How is ownership of learning encouraged and fostered?
Are students invited to co-construct success criteria?
What experiences, mentor texts and examples will help build their schema?
What opportunities are there for students to demonstrate their thinking and learning?
Are students encouraged to take risks and make mistakes?
What opportunities do they have to grapple with productive tension?
Is failure viewed as an opportunity to learn and grow?
What opportunities are there for students to make their own decisions?
How is the environment organised to maximise independence and agency?
How might students use their own and others’ strengths to move their learning forward?
What reflective questions might support assessment capable learners?
What new understandings do I have?
What connections have I made?
What am I still wondering?
What new skills have I mastered? What skills might I need to work on?
What strategies have I used? What strategies have I learned that I can use in future?
What patterns have I noticed? How might I apply what I learn from them?
What might my next steps be?
How might I approach things differently next time?
What strengths have I noticed in myself and others?
What challenges might I need to overcome?
Who might be able to support me? How might I support others?
What have I noticed about myself as a learner?
What else would you add?
Every time we’ve thought about how we might improve our reports, we’ve failed. The barriers to major change have somehow seemed insurmountable. Parental expectations, government requirements, technical restrictions, constraints from within and outside of the school and our own heads… all of these have stood in our way.
And then came COVID, along with weeks of remote learning, and the chance to reimagine our reports, at least for this semester. The only barrier was time, and this turned out to be an advantage. No time to seek perfection, just the opportunity to take an inquiry stance, dive in and produce something both meaningful and practical, as quickly as possible.
How might we create a report that aligns with what we believe about learning? What if we report on what we really value in learning? What if we elect to report only on transferable skills? What if we let go of expected ‘levels’ (real or imagined) and pay more attention to who each child is as a learner? What if we focus on assessment FOR and AS learning, rather than only assessment OF learning? How might we support students and parents to value and reflect on skills that really matter?
So we created a written report which views the whole child, addressing the development of a broad range of skills and dispositions including social, self-management, communication, thinking and research skills. These ‘ATL’ skills, as we call them in the PYP, are the building blocks that support our learners in all areas of learning and of life.
How might we best observe, assess and reflect on these skills? We considered the possibility of creating a grade by grade continuum but the development of these skills is neither age dependent nor linear. Is developing and reflecting on these skills, in fact, lifelong learning? How best might they be learned? Some influencing factors include the language we use to notice and name them, how they are modelled, opportunities for them to be demonstrated, expectations and routines around practising them. Once again, we see Ron Ritchhart’s cultural forces at play. What if, rather than seeing them as being ‘taught’, we consider how most of these trans disciplinary skills might be enculturated?
Our written report will be accompanied by in-depth conversations between students, parents and teachers. Together, the written report and the conversation will focus both on growth and on potential next steps. I’m conscious of how the Growth Coaching approach has influenced this vision. Some years ago, we shifted from performance appraisals for teachers to a growth model, in which teachers, in partnership with leaders, are encouraged to identify strengths and set goals for further development. Why should students be measured against arbitrary age based standards? What if the focus for student reporting was on growth, too? What if strengths were highlighted and students were supported to reflect on future action they might take to further their development?
Are we there yet? No. Have we come up with a starting point that (mostly) addresses expectations and requirements, while coming much closer to aligning our beliefs about learning with the way we report on it? Yes. Are we still struggling with some aspects as we explore how to improve on and sustain these changes? Absolutely. But embracing the power of ‘what if?’ is how we drive change and how we grow.
I’m certain that many of you are reporting in this way already. We’ve been on the road for a while now but, somehow, we needed this period of remote learning to give us permission to see a potential new way forward.
What would happen if we didn’t have numbers?
Rubi poses this question to her Year 5 class, as a provocation, generating wonderful ideas and discussion…
One student declares ‘We wouldn’t have time’ to which another responds ‘There would still be time, just no way to record it’…and they are on their way to a deeper conceptual understanding.
As Rubi shares the conversation with me, we are excited, not just by the kinds of things the children have thought about, but by the power of a simple open-ended question to provoke thinking and inspire discussion.
She tells me she had planned to give a Maths pre-test during that lesson but, swept along by the comments, questions and conversation, had forgotten all about it. I point out that everything is an assessment. She agrees that she has gathered a broad range of data via this discussion, not just in terms of their understanding of the content, but about her students as learners. She can tell:
Our school goal for the year is to use data to inform teaching and improve learning. While many think of data as the formal, numerical kind, it’s interesting how much informal data can be gleaned from careful observation and really listening to the learning. This is how good inquiry teachers decide where to go next.
Plan in response to learning, not in advance…
Do you feel part of a learning community?
What teams exist within your school?
How do you build a culture of learning within and across your school teams?
We start the year with a whole school gathering, an address by the principal in which he welcomes new staff, shares achievements from the past year and outlines goals for the next.
Moving inwards to the next circle, we have a two hour workshop for P- 6 staff across our three campuses, facilitated by the Teaching and Learning team.
Objectives–
Almost a hundred teachers are seated at tables in groups of 6. Constantly moving between groups will allow opportunities to meet and talk to a range of people, while engaging in educational dialogue.
What is data? Teachers are asked to classify a dozen items under the headings of data or not data. Some groups debate whether informal, subjective information counts as valid data. Others question how much information we get from formal testing. Watching Peter Reynolds’ The Testing Camera reinforces that testing is a snapshot, not necessarily representative of where the student is at. The conclusion is reached that everything is data. Observing students and listening to the learning, analysing their thinking and questions, watching them play and learn and interact will provide much more data than testing alone.
The activities have given everyone the opportunity to clarify what data is, consider how they already using it and how they might in the future. They have engaged with the big idea that everything is grounded in evidence. We don’t just plan lessons and teach them. We build our planning around responding to the individual needs of every learner. (We are ready to take this further as the year unfolds.)
Our workshop has been successful.
Moving inwards to the next circle…
What Ed Said 