Week 4 Thoughts

This weekend I attended the Idaho Dance Educators Organization (IDEO) annual conference.  I found myself looking for formative assessment connections in terms of movement and "emotional intelligence."  I also realized I am fairly stumped when it comes to assessment AS learning in the arena of creative movement.

The focus of the conference was Anne Green Gilbert's "Brain Dance," which I have used since learning about it during my BSWP ISI experience in 2011.  One of the presenters this weekend directly mentioned aspects of the braindance as being useful platforms for formative assessment of student movement.

- AAH!  I just remembered this thoughtfulness is also supported to be feedback focused!  -

Anyway, I suppose I can also brainstorm about how to use some of the feedback techniques and language we have practiced for movement and drama.  I think I must do a lot of "feed forward" especially during rehearsal for our big shows, since if I didn't the performances would be the same as the first read through!  I will definitely work to elevate mindfulness in this particular area of my practice...

Week 3 Recall

Week 3 has come and gone, but I can recall that most of my formative assessment thoughts were based on how to use assessment as learning - especially the assessments we are required to collect as part of our pre/post year data that we submit to the principal at the end of the year.  Usually I have collected writing samples or administered pretests and then piled them up and tried to find extra moments to "grade" them within a relatively reasonable time frame.  As the beginning of school is a especially busy time of year, this is usually weeks, if not a month or more.

As I was collecting my student work for the Sept. 19th class, (sticky note exit tickets w/claim evidence examples) I started realizing how much I am not putting these assessments to work.  I was reading the sticky notes with the mindset "Oh good, they are doing fine on this" rather than "Hmm, where do we put effort next?"

I started realizing that I was four weeks into the school year and I hadn't even looked at the pre-assessment writing samples, much less looked at them as a means of informing my teaching.  I'll admit that I administered the task robotically for the primary purpose of meeting a requirement for which the assumed parameters are fairly superficial - merely presenting data at the end of the year.

Whether or not it's been explicitly addressed, I know the true importance of this student work that is gathered pre-instruction is to inform ongoing instruction.  Suddenly, these writing samples were promoted to the forefront of my priorities.  I asked my teaching partner to bring her samples to our weekly Monday afternoon collaboration session.  Consequently, we did not get to any review or sorting, but at least they're now on the radar as being urgent!

Week 2 Reflection

Although my thinking takes place daily, my writing seems to occur on a less frequent basis.  Still, some feedback is better than none right - or I guess that depends. Last week I was mostly thinking about feedback in terms of my senior project classes.  They just completed two assignments, each for which I gave very different styles of feedback. The first assignment, was their letter of intent proposing what they intend to do for the senior project.  This letter is personally reviewed and edited by me, and then goes on to be reviewed by myself and two other "board members." Both stages of progress, require very specific feedback,  or else it's a lose-lose situation: the student does it get their project approved, and the teacher doesn't get a carefully articulated idea for a project proposal.  In some cases, when reviewing the letters of the board, it was obvious that my first round of feedback for the students ("What would it look like if...? or "Have you considered…?") had been well received and aided the student in progressing and communicating their idea. In other cases, it seemed my feedback was not clear or did not offer an actionable enough plan for the student to implement in their letter without further discussion. In these cases, the other board members and I had to be especially direct and careful in our suggestions to the students for revision, since this would be their primary source of feedback to lean on in modifying their project to get the idea passed.

Ironically the other type of feedback I found myself giving senior project students this week was was the non-procedural slash & dash red pen type - on the resumes.  Well I'm editing these important documents for them, I feel as if I'm doing them a big favor that they should appreciate and take full advantage of. Thanks to this class, I also found myself questioning the nature of my feedback and the efficiency of my time span giving students specific technical commandsto guide them in the procedure of revising their resumes.

Week 1 Overview

While I was a bit slow on the uptake of the particulars of our formative assessment tracking, I actually was making formative assessment efforts and observations in the meantime, so I'm not too far behind in recapping a week of daily thoughts!  I actually integrated at least three intentional formative assessment strategies this week directly from our class this weekend, which is quite the takeaway!  On Tuesday, the seniors in my Senior Project class completed the "Senior Prep" survey I made using Google forms.  Also on Tuesday, I used a continuum with my Drama II students as a pre-year assessment of their confidence in writing, rehearsing, and performing an original performance piece.  Midweek in my freshman English class, after our first annotation experience, I asked students to stick their annotations to the whiteboard before they left class so I could gauge what they were annotating and how developed their skills were.  I feel like I could have better used an opportunity to assess Drama I students' knowledge of stage directions before I directed them myself.  Room for improvement and increased implementation!