Teaching inquiry focus 2015
To use formative assessment in my Year 11 (L1 Biology) class to develop confident independent students using teaching of assessments, rubrics, self assessment and next steps by the end of 2015. This will be assessed using student feedback.
How do I know that this is a learning need of my students?
The following sites helped to formulate my inquiry focus for 2015. Assessment for learning has been identified as a way to guide educator teaching strategies and learners how to learn in an individualised fashion.
One of the biggest changes in thinking I could see going forward was having segments in my teaching programme that would be devoted to teaching about 'assessment'. Reflection: I would like to re-think my approach to teaching 'assessment', I think it could be done more effectively within a context and will look at incorporating this approach to units going forward. |
Perspectives
Student voice
An initial survey was conducted to gauge what students in the Level 1 Biology class understood about assessment prior to undertaking the inquiry focussed teaching. The number of students that responded: 17. The following themes were explored from the student perspective: |
- Purpose of assessment
"I think [assessments] are for teachers to see where we are at with our learning and understanding of the topic"
- Confidence around assessment
- How to interpret assessment
Colleagues
An initial survey from my colleagues perspective about how students experienced assessments was also undertaken. This was done to gauge whether others thought there was a need to address the way 'assessment' was taught. The results suggested that my colleagues generally thought the same way I did - that students didn't know much about assessment purpose or use of results. It was surprising though that when students were surveyed, some students did have a good understanding about assessments. |
Appraiser
The discussion with appraiser focused around the difference between assessment 'of learning' and assessment 'for learning'. There was agreement that this inquiry would support my students by building their understanding and confidence around assessments empowering them to become independent learners.
Inquiry journey |
To begin my inquiry I collected data to inform the teaching I would need to do in order to 'develop confident and independent students' using education of assessments as the tool.
The idea of different levels of understanding was taught to students early in 2015. The rationale for this was to provide a blended learning unit that students could use to develop skills to become independent learners. The Units were constructed as SOLO grids with different tasks depending on the level the student felt challenged by, thus, providing an individualized teaching approach. The following is the information I made available to students on our Google Classroom page: |
Evidence on image in slide show
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We started with a brainstorm to identify student prior understanding. Then we built a definition of what assessments were. Using the students previous understanding of SOLO taxonomy we co-constructed a table of different understanding levels, where the students 'assessments terms' aligned with these levels and then where the NCEA assessment framework aligned with the levels and terms. Reflection: Something I wanted to continue with was teaching students 'types' of assessments and when different types would be used. I think there needed to be more planning around this in a larger unit rather than just 'slotting' it in when I could. Going forward I would teach different assessment types while teaching Biology content e.g. a self assessment task - related to Biology but with a discussion/reflection about when this type of assessment is beneficial and what the results can indicate to us in terms of next steps. |
co-construction of understanding with students
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Students were required to select a practice question that had an assessment schedule or answers. This was so that when they had completed the question they could go to the answer and see what that had understood from the question and any areas they needed to work on, thus, giving them their 'next steps'. Reflection: I really felt like this learning experience was something students could 'take away' with them. I could see the understanding happening as I wandered around the room and I think it would have empowered some students to look at assessments differently and start to focus on how they can identify their next steps for their learning. Going forward I would like to re-enforce the messages we covered here more often.
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Observed during appraiser visit
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Inquiry outcomes
Evaluation of inquiry outcomes |
It to make any conclusive statements about the results as only 6 students responded to the final survey (compared to 17 in the initial survey).
Two things I did take away from the results were as follows:
I wanted students to move away from their negative association with assessment to reduce the pressure they place on themselves and to highlight that it is a necessary way to gauge their understanding. |
Next steps
- I would like to re-think my approach to teaching 'assessment', I think it could be done more effectively within a context and will look at incorporating this approach to units going forward.
- Going forward I would teach different assessment types while teaching Biology content e.g. a self assessment task - related to Biology but with a discussion/reflection about when this type of assessment is beneficial and what the results can indicate to us in terms of next steps.
- To re-enforce the application of assessment on an ongoing basis so students can associate 'understanding' and 'confidence' with assessment terms and procedures
- During my next inquiry I will structure my data collection more robustly so that I can have a good comparison between before and after
Further evidence
This year I was HOD Advanced Learning Programme and spoke to the whole staff about how to identify students who may be GATE students and on ways to enrich the learning of these students in their classes. I was able to have discussions with staff members who inquired about ALP.
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