Self-Assessment, Teacher Assessment and Improvement

This semester I have my students in Speech class do a self-assessment (what do they think they will do well on and what do they think are their areas for improvement)  before they give a speech.  Then they give the speech and do a post-assessment (what do they think they did well on and what do they think were their areas for improvement) . After they give me their pre-post sheet, I give them my assessment.  Then I return their pre-post to them so that they can compare their statements and mine.  In the next step they pick two areas and write out specifically what they are going to do improve (Not “look up more” but “look up more by (indicating the specific action). During their next speech I look for their indicated improvement.

How do you help your students to improve?

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Quickly Find Power Points for a Learning Topic

I do like to visually guide my students through a learning goal by creating Power Points but it takes me a long time to create them.  I’ve been using another method, finding an existing Power Point on that learning goal and then adding my own Power Point  for any missing points or things I want to emphasize.  An easy way to find Power Points is to put the category such as narrative writing in quotations “narrative writing” and add .ppt (the ending for Power Point files) so the search would look like “narrative writing” +.ptt.  A search for a Civil War Power Point would look like “Civil War” +.ppt while a search for a Power Point on the Three Little Pigs would appear as “The Three Little Pigs” +.ppt.

I found that within a few minutes of searching I can usually find a Power Point that captures much of what I want the students to learn. Then I create a mini-Power Point to add any additional information and I call it the topic plus “more” such as “NarrativeMore”.  I have cut my creation down drastically and often have a learning tool that is much better than I had thought of.

Using a Pre-assessment as Formative Assessment

Usually students take a pre-assessment and the teacher is the only one to see the results. If we look at a pre-assessment as a formative assessment, then the students not only need to see the results but also need to be presented with new information or strategies to help them learn the standards-based material. The pre-assessment tells the students where they are in terms of the standard and where they need to be. A score such as 70 does not help them. Seeing which items they did well on and which they did not do well on provides them with an awareness about their present learning.

One technique is to have a checklist that you use to evaluate the pre-assessment. You check off those student strengthens that are present. Students can see what strengthens they have and know what areas they need to improve in. You can refer to a handout, textbook, or website that can help the students as they begin to progress in the standard.

Another technique is to have an online system that tells if each answer is correct or not. More important, you make a comment after the correct answer to explain the correct answer. Students can understand why they had an incorrect answer and begin to understand what is required for a correct answer. They have more than right or wrong; they have the start of their future learning in the standard.

Shiny Bright Student Fomative Learning: Paint Metaphor

I did some painting this weekend. I had to scrap off the old chipped paint, apply a primer, and then paint. I wonder how we preparing students for their learning?

Do we pretest them and report the information back to them so they know how to improve. For the first day of class, I had them do a task which is one of the two tasks on the final. I assessed it according to the writing rubric (analytic assessment with no total) and then returned it to them. In a spreadsheet, I kept track of their analytic scores as well as a running record of their common errors and misconceptions so that I can focus on helping them be successful.

Do we let them know the standards and the specific parts of the standards for which they are responsible? Do we let them know how they will be assessed in the course? “What’s the purpose of this course?” is my favorite question to my students, followed by “How will you show it?”

Do we break the information into section that can be assessed for feedback? I had the students learn the format for a business letter without the content. I assessed their letter format and returned with comments for improvement. Then we practiced the structure of the introduction, body, and conclusion parts of the letter.  I assessed their “body paragraphs” and returned with comments for improvement. Then we learned different types of letters (the actual content) and how to modify each structural part for that type of letter. Each time they do a letter of a certain type, they hand it in and I identify their strengthens and areas for improvements with specific prompts.

How do you help prepare your students to be shiny bright in your subject’s standards?

My front porch is shiny white due to my scrapping, priming, and painting. Hopefully, my students will be shiny bright in their proficiency in the standards.

Examine Teacher Strategy Effectiveness for Student Standard Learning

How do you select the strategies that you will use to help your students achieve the standards? One technique is best on a quality matrix. You list several possible strategies that could be used to teach a particular key component of a standard. You then guesstimate what percentage of your students will be successful in learning the key component if you use each strategy. You look at your scores and select the strategy that has the highest possible score. You pre-test the students, teach them using that strategy, and then post-test. Next, you check your guesstimate against the reality of the post-test. You can use a spreadsheet to do the analysis. Then you can make a decision if that strategy was as effective as you had hoped. If it was not effective, you can think of modifying that strategy or using another strategy. If your colleagues teach the same key component, you can compare strategies and their effectiveness in helping students to be successful learners in a standards environment. If two of you used the same strategy and had drastically different results, you can discuss of how the strategy was implemented in each class.

Try out this quality matrix to help you determine which of your teaching strategies are effective in helping students achieve the standards.

© Harry Grover Tuttle, 2007

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