I find that if I ask students to revise their work based on my formative feedback, some of them do make the changes and others do not. However, if the students have to create a Change sheet, they do make the changes. In the Change sheet, they list the original learning problem, tell what they did to improve, and include an example from their most recent work. As I look at their revisions, I first look at the original rubric, then their Change sheet, then put their previous work and their revised work side by side. I look for the changes in their revision. I look to see if they have changed all of the items for each formative feedback. For example, if I asked a student to improve his/her topic sentences, I look to see if all the original poorly done topic sentences have changed. If students have made the revisions for the three major areas of feedback and, therefore, reached the level of proficiency or above proficiency, they receive a new higher grade.
How do you help your students to improve?
My book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Students, is available through Eye-on-Education.
Teacher Portfolios- Real Student Success or Faked Success?
Published March 26, 2009 Academic , Accountability , Achievement , Administrator , Assess , Assessment , Comment , Content , Data , Eportfolio , Evaluate , Portfolio , Proficient , Teacher 2 CommentsTags: Accountability, Achievement, Data, examples, Feedback, Portfolio, Proficient, Student, student work, Success, Teacher, work
Individually, I talked to two teachers who had to present teacher portfolios and had received back comments on their portfolio. One teacher had glowing feedback. He told me how he had only put student material in the portfolio that demonstrated above proficient work. He explained that usually only one or two students in all of his classes had reached that level for each standard and so he included that work.
The other teacher had put in student work at all levels of proficiency. Her feedback focused on how she had to help students to be successful. She had included the percent of students at each level of proficiency; she had even included a graph for the proficiency rates on the four major standards. She indicated some strategies she had tried and whether each strategy succeed or did not succeed with these students.
The administrators were looking for measures of the teachers’ success in helping students to learn. They did not discern the difference between a staged or fake representation of success for a teacher and a teacher’s full disclosure about classroom learning.
How can your teacher portfolio show your growing success in reaching more and more students?
My book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Students, is available through Eye-on-Education.