Fall Forum: Marjorie Pappas October 14, 2006
Posted by kperry in : Fall Forum 2006 , add a commentMarjorie Pappas gave a host of ideas about types of assessment tools to use, such as logs, webs, matrices, rubrics, graphic organizers, and rating scales. If assessment is used to inform us about the learner then the assessment tools should help us to collect evidence about that learner. It is possible and desirable to foster independent use of assessment tools by the student.
One interesting tool which I haven’t used much in middle school was the I Can Checklist. It collects evidence of student skills and seems much more affirming than some of the rubrics I have used, as well as a quicker type of formative assessment. Marjorie discussed the use of prompts to start writing log entries for students and that relating these prompts back to the learning goals was the way to maintain focus on the essential question of your unit. I think about students blogs as a way to encourage reflective writing on the research process. Joyce Valenza is working with blogs about research projects with her high school students.
A great idea which Marjorie passed on to us from a librarian she visited was the use of a research planning graphic organizer as a hall pass to the media center. Students have to fill out the plan as a first step to beginning their research. This is a good sneaky way to get students to plan, which seems to be a difficult task in middle school.
If assessment provides evidence, then using and sharing the evidence with the teacher and the student is the best way to improve performance. It will also allow you to inform/improve your teaching practice for the next teaching experience.
Fall Forum Goals
Posted by ayucht in : Fall Forum 2006 , 1 comment so farThe program for this Forum was developed by the Teaching for Learning Committee in response to political imperatives that focus on identifying what — and how well — K-12 students are “learning,” and how those imperatives impact the school librarian’s role in the total educational process.
So the goals of the forum are that attendees will:
- understand the role of the school library media specialist as a teaching partner in assessment.
- understand how to assess student learning
- learn how to design instruction to improve student learning
- learn how to measure the effectiveness of instructional practice.
and, underneath it all:
5. develop strategies for demonstrating the integral role of the library media program in teaching all students to become reflective lifelong learners.
Fall Forum Afternoon Breakout Session
Posted by dbeaman in : Fall Forum 2006 , 1 comment so farIn an afternoon breakout session for high school level we learned about interpreting questions on state tests. After an introductory presentation by Peter McCarthy from BOCES in New York State, we worked in groups of two or three to analyze standardized test questions. A form for Item Analysis had us look at the format, content, question, skills, and connections for each item. As my partner and I identified skills that were addressed in the questions, we noticed that some of the questions were content oriented but others included information literacy skills. We found questions that addressed interpreting a map, finding the main idea, or drawing conclusions. Finding information literacy skills in state tests is a useful advocacy tool. It enables the library media specialist to show how collaborating to teach information literacy might impact state assessment results in the content areas.
Fall Forum: General Session 1
Posted by kperry in : Fall Forum 2006 , 1 comment so farWow - Vi Harada and Barb Stripling set us on the right path this morning with their definitions of assessment and how the media specialist should take a role in creating assessments.
Vi told us assessment is not the same as evaluation. It has always been sort of synonymous to me and that gave me much to reflect upon. If you think about the kinds of assessments that need to be done throughout a research project, more of them seem to come at the end. But the better, more successful projects – meaning those that more students “get” and successfully complete – always have some intermediary check for understanding or progress milestones. We learned this is called formative assessment versus the summative assessment taking place at the end. Violet has written a lot on assessment and the school library. Here is a list of some of her publications.
Barb linked a lot of her discussion to the Inquiry model. She emphasized releasing responsibility to the students as assessors of their own learning and discussed making a diagnosis before work on a topic. (Ex. If you ask students to complete the scavenger hunt before you do orientation, you may find out what they already know about libraries.)