With all the lesson and unit plans we’ve been creating lately, it’s hard to avoid talk about assessment. Although, if I’m being honest, I still haven’t actually learned anything about assessment in my classes. I’ve heard the words “formative” and “summative” and the only reason I know what they are is thanks to dear old Google.
So for starters, formative assessment is a type of assessment that occurs throughout a student’s learning and is not a test or exam, for example. Summative assessment typically presents in the form of a test or exam and exists to look at the overall learning a student has done and is usually done at the end of a unit or the end of a course. I’m realizing more and more how against testing I am. One of our professors said something along the lines of “don’t test them on stuff that they can easily just Google… what’s the point?” and they were right – what is the point?
Being in a couple pass/fail classes has really changed my perspective on grading and testing in general. At first, I was a little terrified as I’ve always based my worth upon my grades. But wow, getting an actual learning experience instead of grade anxiety has been so nice. My only gripe now is that not all my classes are pass/fail (which apparently some Education programs are?! Come on, UVIC). We had a check-in session with the manager of the program and everyone in attendance was all for more pass/fail classes and it looks like it may be something the university might transition to eventually. I really think pass/fail would make us better teachers in the end, because we would absorb more content rather than just worrying about the A’s.
Public school, however, still has a grade system. In my future classes I would really like to stray from testing and grades as much as possible and have more honest assessments with my students. I think it would create better learners.
And on the topic of “better learners”, we had Trevor Mackenzie talk to our class the other day and wow, what an experience. He told a magical story about a student he used to have that absolutely hated school and would not participate. Trevor told us about how he turned this student around simply by asking “what do you love to do?” This brings up the topic of how we can best reach all of our learners and be inclusive of their needs. He mentioned a website called Explain Everything which is essentially an interactive whiteboard. The app/website can be really beneficial to students who prefer to visualize their work or draw out their work. I spent the day playing around with it and actually decided to do my EDCI 780 inquiry project using it. It’s a little goofy, but it was so fun to make.
I think this will definitely be a tool that I’ll use in the future. Engaging learning styles is important to me and I can’t wait to see what kinds of things my future students will come up with in terms of creative assignments.
