Paige Darbyshire ED 331 10 Winter 2013 Outside Observation Reflection - Evaluation My first goal for this session was

s to figure out what I was supposed to be looking for when evaluating a set of student work. My second goal was to figure out why I was bothering evaluating students in the first place. What One of the first things we discussed were what grades even mean in terms of what a student understands from the content. Many teachers use percentages as grades that are determined by the number of correct answers out of a set number of problems. However, these grades do not really tell you why students got the problems wrong. It may not have been from a lack of understanding of the content, but due to silly mistakes like dropping negatives or plugging numbers into a calculator wrong. Percentage grades also dont necessarily keep track of right answers and whether they were well developed or lucky guesses. We decided that a better option for grading would be to use a standards based rubric when grading your students. This way, the grade actually reflects the students knowledge of the content they are being assessed on instead of their ability to add or multiply or plug numbers into a calculator (unless that is the content). This will prevent students from failing assignments, tests, or even units due to concepts that are not a part of the standards being covered. However, the students ability to get a right answer and follow through with a problem correctly is still an important aspect of mathematics. Therefore, the percentage type grades first discussed should not be eliminated completely and have their place within the students final grade. It should just hold less importance than it does now and should be a smaller portion of the grade than it is now. For example, if a students grade is 20% test grades, then maybe only 10% (50% of that 20%) is the actual percentage grades and 10% is standards based grades from tests. The next step in our session was to determine how to grade based on standards and what a good rubric may look like. One of the first aspects we noted was that it would be beneficial to develop a rubric, grade a few students, and then adjust the rubric to make sure students will be assessed appropriately. It is also a good idea to look at all of the evidence for a specific standard instead of looking at a single piece of evidence. An important note is that not all evidence is equivalent in determining if a student understands the content. For example, an activity sheet where the student practices the content for the first time may not be as good of an indicator of their proficiency as the third or fourth form of assessment they completed. We discussed that while looking through all of the evidence, there are some key phrases to keep in mind. Three that we devised for the teacher are I dont think you know it, I am not sure or not convinced that you know it, and I am convinced/positive that you know it. The teacher would then develop a rubric around these three levels a student could be at for each standard. This rubric may describe a general place of understanding, but may be more effective if it lists out key characteristics or aspects the evidence must include for a student to fulfill that level of understanding.

For example, we looked at a standard in a Quadratics unit, I can add, subtract, and multiply polynomials. Within the I am convinced level, the rubric may include requirements like Uses the distributive property correctly and Combines like terms correctly. On the other hand, the I am not sure level may include Usually uses the distributive property or uses the distributive property but doesnt distribute to all the numbers and Usually combines like terms or incorrectly combines like terms. All of these things will clearly demonstrate to the students what proficiency looks like. We realized that this method of grading is going to take a long time, especially if there are a large number of problems or sets of assessment. So, we also discussed including students in the grading process. This could mean that the students choose which pieces of evidence will be assessed. They should select two or three pieces for each standard that they think demonstrates their highest level of understanding. The other option is to have students self-assess with their own student rubrics. The phrases we devised for a self-assessment would be I dont get it at all, I just need more practice, and I get it. This will save time and get students involved in seeing how well they progress through the material. So What The final thing we discussed was why we bother going through the process of evaluation at all. The first reason is to see if any section of the content needs to be retaught. In this case, the evaluation needs to occur shortly after the instruction and before any summative assessment. A teacher should check if their students actually understand the material before moving on to the next topic or section of the unit. The second reason was to determine if students were ready for the final assessment like a test. There is no point in testing your students on the entire unit if you know they are not ready for it. The last reason related directly with my placement. The evidence was actually collected at the end of the unit right before or after the unit test. Collecting all of the work at the very end seemed really strange to me. I know that it is important to gather all of the grades eventually, but it seemed like it would have been more beneficial to collect them as the unit went on. However, collecting evidence at the end and looking at all of the grades through the unit has its purpose. This last reason for evaluating is to see what needs to change for future years and classes. A teacher can look back and see what lessons and activities need to be altered or replaced so that students have a better chance at fully grasping the material. They can also look at which topics were more difficult for students to get and decide to teach those in a new way or spend more time on them in the future. In general, evaluation should always be used as a way of checking how well students understand the content and determining how the teacher can change to make lessons better. Now What The next step is to figure out where to go from here. During our session, we were given several examples of standards based rubrics. I plan on looking through these to get a feel for some of the ways I might be able to develop my own. Eventually, I will spend some time practicing making my own rubrics and using them in the classroom. Since we are coming up on the end of the semester, the actual implementation of these rubrics will probably have to wait.