Administrators Learn From Others Through Google Forms

Superintendents and other central office people often need to find out information, collect real time data, opinions or interests of others.  Likewise, a building principal might want to survey the views of his/her staff. He/She may be looking for alternative ways of solving a possible school problem.  When  administrators receive suggestions, opinions, etc from others and have up-to-the-minute data, they can make wiser decisions. An easy way to quickly get information from others is through Google Forms.

One just needs a Google email and then they can create a Google Form.

Go to Documents on the Google menu bar.

Click on New

Click on Form.

Type in  the title  of the form such as Hall Problem.

Add in any directions.

Select from several type of questions. Can use as many different types, each in a different question.  Those questions that allow for a specific answer (multiple choice  Checkboxes, Choose from a lists, scale, and grid) can  automatically analyze the number of responses for each choice. If you include numerical or very short answers, people can answer these from their Smartphone.
Text – short phrases or a short sentence
Paragraph – longer answers such as multiple sentences
Multiple Choice (select one of the answers)
Checkboxes (select one or more of the answers)
Choose from a list
Scale Rate something on a scale of 1-5 or 1-1o
Grid Rate a series of items on a scale of 1-5

Remember to click on “Makes  this a required question” if the survey takers have to answer the question.

Move any question up and down by clicking on it, holding down on it, and moving it up or down.

Click on Save.

Go to Forms, Edit and copy the url (http://..). at the bottom of the page.  Email that url to the people you want to take the survey or  take that long URL and shorten it using bit.ly so that people can type  it directly in their Smartphone or tablet.  Be specific about when the closing date is for taking the survey.

To see the results, go to Forms – Show Summary of responses.  The numerical answers will be a graph form. The text answers for any question will be grouped together.

For those  administrators that want real time  data at a meeting,  get the URL of the form, shorten it using bit.ly, and display that shortened URL at a meeting so the people can take the form right then on their Smartphones or tablets.  Show them the results instantly.

Are you ready to learn from others? Are you ready to make better decisions based on real-time information from others.

I have Spanish spontaneous speaking activities at Teacherspayteachers:  http://bit.ly/tpthtuttle

My formative assessment books:   http://is.gd/tbook

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5 Formative Assessment and Technology Myths

Myth 1: The big computer assessment every three to five weeks is formative assessment. By three to five weeks, the students have learned and practiced the wrong way of thinking so that learning has become cement. When he assess on a daily or weekly basis, we catch learning gaps in the process and correct them.

Myth 2: The teacher uses technology to collect student work.  Yes, the teachers can use many web 2.0 tools such as wiki, voki, Google Forms, Glogster etc but the teacher has to move from collecting the evidence to recording  the  student data. If a teacher does not collect and make decisions based on the recorded data, then the teacher does not do formative assessment. Without recorded data, the teacher cannot measure progress over time.

Myth 3: The teacher can use technology such as voki, audacity, Word to talk to the students after seeing the students’ work. The teacher needs to do more than talk, he/she needs to give the student a new strategy to improve. If the student is stuck, he /she needs a precise way to get unstuck.

Myth 4: More practice on Quia, Google Forms, Blackboard, etc. will improve the students’ learning.  Only when the students learn why they got the answer wrong and learn how to think differently will they get the right answer (way  of thinking). A “you are right/you are wrong” quiz program  does not help students to grow.

Myth 5: Once the teachers see the students’ work through technology, the learning is done.  Formative assessment requires re-assessing and giving different strategies until the student shows improvement to the desired level. Often the students’ technology project is a draft and not the final version of his/her learning.  The student takes many assessments until he/she shows the desired mastery.

Link to Tuttle’s Formative Assessment books

Harry Grover Tuttle's Three Formative Assessment Books

Class increase of 12 points over last semester

I give a pre-test and a post test in my Spanish course.  From the pre-test I can measure the students incoming knowledge.  From the post-test I measure their departing knowledge.   More importantly, I analyze the results of each unit test by the various categories on the test. If many students do poorly on a certain section, I reteach it.  The next semester I start out that particular point with  the reteaching material.  I also do many formative assessments so that I can give students new strategies to do better.  This semester my students did an average of 12 points better than last semester’s students.  I have analyzed the final to see the area in which they lost the most points – writing mini-compositions and have begun to figure out ways to help them. We will do more writing in class and on our class wiki. I will focus on the verb forms to tell a story such  as what I did last weekend. I will have them write out their weekend in a chronological order and make sure that they use a different verb in each sentence. We will do mini-writings over several class periods. For the final they do not need complicated sentences; they just need simple sentences that communicate different ideas.  My goal is to increase this coming semester’s average by 10 points over last semester.

By how much will you increase your class average  this coming year?

My book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Your Students, is available through Eye on Education.

Also, my  book,  Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment, is available through Eye on Education.

Check Lower Level Learning Immediately (Formative Assessment)

We all want our students to be learning at the higher levels of thinking.  However, they first have to learn  lower level information.  For example, Spanish students want to converse in the language but until they learn basic vocabulary and grammar such as the present tense; they cannot converse.  We can change the format of class so that after we have introduced the lower level learning and have them practice it enough to know whether they understand the concept, then we can have them practice the lower level learning at home.

If we have them use an online program that “drills” them, shows them the right answer, and shows them  how to get the right answer,  they can immediately know how well they are doing and be given the opportunity to improve.  They do not have to wait until the next day (or in terms of a college course five days or week) to find out if they can do this lower level thinking.  Since the teacher has put in the program   a full explanation of how to get the right answer, the students can overcome their learning gap (formative feedback aspect of formative assessment).  They can redo the program to verify that they can do this lower level activity well.  They feel successful.  They have practiced this learning in the safety of their homes.

Then, in class, the teacher  can move the students to higher levels from the lower level.  For example, the Spanish students can tell what activities they do that day, can describe the various activities of their family members, and ask others what they things they do during a day.

So how do you practice lower level learning so that students know immediately if they are right or wrong and if they wrong,  do they learn how to change their thinking to get right answers? How do you  use formative assessment to move your students forward in their learning?

My book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Your Students, is available through Eye on Education.

Also, my  book,  Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment, is available through Eye on Education.

Grading for Success or Failure

A critical question is whether we, as teachers, focus on grading for success or failure.

I think most of us grade for failure.

Jaime has done four science labs. In the one in Oct., he got a 20, in Dec, a 40, in Feb., a 60 and in May, an 80. His last lab score was an 80. He improved from a low 20 to an 80. So what grade do we give him? Do we total his scores (20 +40 +60 +80 = 200) and divide by the number of labs (4) to get the average of 50? Or do we give him a grade of 80?

Also, Luisa was in the same science class. Her grades were 80, 80, 80 and 80.  Her last lab was an 80.   Her average is an 80.  She showed no improvement throughout the year.

Both Luisa and Jaime ended up with the same last lab grade.  Do we reward one  student more than the other?

What does your grading reveal about your focus on success or failure?

My book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Your Students, is available through Eye on Education.

Also, my  book,  Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment, is available through Eye on Education.

Activating Prior Knowledge and Formative Assessment

As I work with my students to develop their writing skills, I want to know what they already know about writing. I want to activate their prior knowledge and experiences. However, there is a down side to activating prior knowledge. A science teacher friend says that his students have many more misconceptions about science, then conceptions. He is careful to find out their misconceptions about a topic at the very beginning of the unit so that he can spend time in helping them to understand that their misconception is not valid science thinking. If they continue with this misconception, they will never grasp the real conception. I find that the same thing happens in writing. Students have misconceptions about writing such as “if I write it, it has to be good”,  “A very long story at the beginning of a very short essay is a great introduction.” or “One small piece of evidence is enough to convince my reader”.

I think we have to be aware that activating prior knowledge means activating whatever the student s may  think they “know” about the topic. Such activation does not assume that all prior “knowledge” is really positive knowledge. Activating prior knowledge provides a great formative assessment tool since we can “see” the students’ previous learning.  Therefore, we can guide the student forward instead letting student being stuck in his/her misconceptions.

Do you activate and diagnose students’ prior knowledge and  figure out strategies to  help the students improve in their learning?

State Benchmarks, Weekly Data Collection, Life long learning

The other night I was on a conference call with people around the state. I heard the comment about how much testing is being done in school and how much data collection is being done. Several people felt that collecting the data (taking state benchmarks) was interfering with instruction.

 

I have several reactions to the statement.

1) If we give benchmarks once a year, then we are only collecting a snapshot that probably is not a big enough picture to inform instruction. For example, for students to write two essays in three hours in an English Regents means that each essay is really a draft, not a finished product.

 

2) The benchmark results are transformed into data that is supposed to help improve instruction. However, with most benchmarks, the students in that year’s class have gone to the next grade level; the data should go to their next year’s teachers, not the present year’s teachers.

 

3) Teachers need to build formative standard-based assessments into their weekly instruction so that as they assess part of the state standard, they can build in adjustments (Remember M. Hunter’s Modify and Adjust?) I believe that unless we do this on a weekly or very regularly basis, then we will not truly improve student learning. Cramming at the end is not educationally sound. Gradually improvement (building on success) is sound.

 

4) Teachers need to have students collect their own data on how well they are doing. For example, how many students monitor their vocabulary strategy to see if it is effective for them? How many students monitor the words they write in a daily journal to see if they improve on the quantity of the writing (getting in the zone)? I have done both of these and find that students like to be able to monitor their own learning and make improvements. Sounds like life long learning to me ( I remember when that was a purpose of schools.)