Branksome Final report Carol and Oksana.pages
Transcription
Branksome Final report Carol and Oksana.pages
INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS INQUIRY PROJECT “RETHINKING ASSESSMENT WITH PURPOSE IN MIND” FINAL SCHOOL REPORT 2010 SCHOOL:Branksome Hall Senior School INQUIRY TEAM MEMBERS, INTERESTS AND GRADES TAUGHT: Oksana Jajecznyk: Head of Science, 25 years experience teaching chemistry and general science in the UK and Canada. Interested in promoting contextbased teaching in chemistry and hence promoting student engagement through the relevancy of concepts with focus on developing key skills needed in science. I am currently teaching G11 and G12 chemistry and am a senior IB Diploma chemistry examiner. • Carol Van Wagner: Head of Mathematics, 18 years’ experience teaching math and chemistry at the senior level. Interested in helping students learn to understand concepts rather than just memorizing them, and in helping students develop strategies for learning that will help at university and beyond. Quote from Administrator: Rosemary Evans, Head of Academics “I believe that student selfassessment is a critical component of our school assessment policy. It is SCHOOL BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT FOR THE PROJECT: through student selfassessment that students Branksome Hall is an independent IB school for girls in downtown Toronto internalize and understand with an enrolment of 860 students (JK -12). All of our graduates go to assessment criteria, university. There is a strong emphasis on professional development here. promoting goal-setting Faculty have been trained in TC2 (Roland Case), Schools Attuned (Mel Levine), and articulation of next Differentiated Instruction (Cindy Strickland), and implementation of a 1:1 steps. This is a critical laptop program. Our Head of Academics, Rosemary Evans, helps to maintain component of student a strong emphasis on assessment and evaluation in the school, so that all learning and motivation. courses include both formative and summative assessment and a most The significant point is to have students begin to recent, most consistent strategy for evaluation. As teachers of universitythink about what they have bound senior students, we have an interest in encouraging students from Gr. done which has worked 7 up to take responsibility for their own learning. Rosemary encouraged us to (and the evidence that it is participate in this action research project to formalize our interest in helping working) and what they students to become more active in the learning process. have done which has not worked and hence what OUR ESSENTIAL QUESTION: they can do differently. If students conduct structured self-evaluations of their progress towards proficiency in a course, to what extent can they develop effective personalized learning plans to move their progress forward on the learning continuum? 1 OUR ACTION RESEARCH STORY involving students directly inOF monitoring their progress on the learning continuum and in filling in gaps in 1.By PURPOSE AND SCOPE THE RESEARCH AND HOW IT CHANGED: their learning, we hope to promote meta-cognition and help students take ownership of their learning. “Students, as active, engaged, and critical assessors, can make sense of information, relate it to prior knowledge, and master the skills involved. This is the regulatory process in metacognition. It occurs when students personally monitor what they are leaning and use the feedback from this monitoring to make adjustments, adaptations, and even major changes in what they understand” (Earl 2003, p. 25). Our teaching involves the frequent use of formative assessment tools such as daily quizzes. Students receive regular feedback on their progress as well as opportunities to improve their understanding and skills before being assessed for marks. This is assessment for learning. We also use a variety of summative assessment tools including end-of-unit tests, reports, and problem sets. This is assessment of learning. In the past we have found that students tend to be somewhat resistant to making an effort to improve their understanding of material after being assessed for marks. By helping students to direct their own learning, we hope to increase the level of ownership that students feel they have in the learning process; we hope that this will increase all three of the following: motivation, confidence, and proficiency. “When students feel ownership and have choice in their learning, they are more likely to invest time and energy in it” (Rethinking Classroom Assessment with Purpose In Mind, 2006, p. 7). In this project, we wished to explore the role of tests in assessment as learning. We hypothesized that students who: 1. complete a thorough self-evaluation of their progress in learning after tests; 2. design a personalized plan for filling in gaps in learning; and 3. follow through on their plan, will improve their grades more than students who do not participate in such a self-analysis. Our original research idea centred on a gap analysis conducted by Grade 12 students based on their own achievement on a set of preparatory exams. The gap analysis provided a detailed template for each student to: analyze her marked preparatory exam, measure her progress on the learning continuum from emergent to proficient, identify specific areas of strength and specific areas for improvement, and plan an effective strategy to fill in gaps in learning before final exams. We intended to analyze the correlation between: the level of improvement in learning (i.e., grade achieved on the final IB exams in May – grade achieved on the preparatory exams in March) and the extent to which a student had followed through on her individualized learning plan. To determine a measure of the latter (i.e., the independent) variable, we asked each student to complete a follow-up to the gap analysis. We asked students to report their progress on the learning continuum immediately prior to writing final exams, and to explain how much of their plan to improve had indeed been fulfilled. However, we discovered that students were generally reluctant to complete the follow-up—classes were over and exams had begun—and that many students had actually misplaced the original gap analysis containing their plan for improvement. This meant that we could not obtain a reliable measure of the extent to which each student had followed through on her plan. Our revised plan is described below in Part 3: Project Process. 2 We2.thank the administration team at Branksome for funding our participation in this project. This FUNDING AND SUPPORT: included the fees for this course and the costs of supply teachers to cover our absences from class. We are also grateful to our colleagues in Science and Math (Deepa Raj, Steve Casterton, Edith Louie, Andrew Schroter) for helping to test-run the various versions of the gap analyses we created. We enjoyed our “OISE days” collaborating with the Junior School team at our school—Jennifer Colleran and Anna-Marie McAleer. Thanks also to our technical support, especially Joe Smith. We3.each led a class of Grade 11s or 12s through a series of gap analyses conducted after marked tests PROJECT PROCESS: were returned. We explicitly discussed with our students the role meta-cognition plays in the learning process. Each gap analysis included the following components: • Where am I now? Self-evaluation of progress-to-date on the learning continuum from emergent to proficient • Where are the gaps? For each skill assessed on the test, the numbers of associated questions were listed, with room for students to record whether their understanding was fine for this skill, or what specifically needed to be improved • What can I do to close the gaps? A list of strategies for students to choose in developing their personalized learning plan • What specifically do I need to remember next time? A prompt for students to list specific reminders on their study sheet for that unit • Have I followed through on my plan? A checklist system for students to record completed steps in the learning plan At various stages in the study, we collected feedback from the students—both informally and formally— on their response to the gap analysis process, its effectiveness, and suggestions for improvement. Finding the time to share ideas and observations was a challenge for our team, but we managed to collaborate on-line and face-to-face during the class time available at OISE. Quote from Math Student “I find the analysis very helpful because it allows me to reflect and make improvements on my studying methods. It is also helpful because it allows me to easily see where I have gone wrong and where exactly I need to do the most amount of practice.” 3 4. 4. ASSESSMENT STRATEGY: a) DESCRIPTION OF THE DATA COLLECTION: Our main source of data was the students themselves, and their responses to the process proved to be most helpful to us. In the first phase involving approximately 25 Grade 12 students in each subject, we collected quantitative baseline data (achievement on preparatory tests, self-evaluation of progress on the learning continuum) and quantitative culminating data (achievement on final exams, self-evaluation of progress on the learning continuum, measure of following up on learning plan). The second phase, involved 18 Grade 11 math students and 22 Grade 12 chemistry students; we collected feedback about the process mid-way through the project and also at the end. Data included: • Completed gap analyses, paper and on-line • Post-its with feedback on gap analysis process • Video of students carrying out the gap analysis, and of parents, teachers, and administrators discussing the process and how useful it is • Written survey of student responses at the end of the action research , completed in class • Marks of students over the action research period b) MAKING SENSE OF THE DATA: Over the course of the research period we periodically used the student feedback to revise our gap analysis template. We categorized informal responses (on post-its) into those representing positive responses and those that were negative. We created a bar graph to illustrate the results of our culminating survey. 4 Quote from the parent of a chemistry student “It is the strategies which students employ which is the nub of metacognition and students do require the prompts and structures to facilitate this. As a parent of a GY student, I was able to see how she was able to articulate where to put in her time. In chemistry, she knew which were the c)areas FINDINGS: of strength and which areas need more focus.” Most students felt that the gap analysis activities either help them quite a lot or help them somewhat to: • Figure out where they are so far, and what they need to do next • Make their learning strategies more effective in the subject • Solidify their understanding in the course These findings are supported by informal feedback from post-its and by the bar graph illustrating the results of the culminating survey. Bar Graph: Results of culminating survey Our results suggest that giving students this type of structured opportunity to evaluate their progress towards proficiency in a course is an effective strategy for helping them develop personalized learning plans designed to move their progress forward on the learning continuum. To determine whether or not student achievement is actually improved by this process would require us to also measure: 1. final level of achievement in the course; and 2. the extent to which each student followed through on her plan. 5 1. Example of Grade 12 gap analysis 2. Completed Grade 11 Math gap analysis 3. Completed Grade 12 Chemistry gap analysis ARTIFACTS, IMAGES: Quote from Chemistry Student “It allows you to figure out your strengths and weaknesses. For example, I know that the explanations in the bonding topic need to be more specific.” 4. Photographs of post-it feedback 5. Comments from students and teachers 6. Videos of interviews with students, teachers, and administrators Items 1-4 are attached as appendices to this report. CONCLUSION AND HIGHLIGHTS: What we found: • • Most students: o Appreciated having the gap analysis process as a structured opportunity to analyze their progress in the course o Followed through on their personalized plan to improve, and thus became more active in their own learning. We were successful in our aims to: o Build on the strong emphasis on assessment and evaluation in our school o Enhance and develop strategies for helping students take more responsibility for their learning. The future: • Continue to incorporate the gap analysis process in our course delivery as a follow-up to summative assessments—a new strategy of assessment as learning. • Share our findings within our departments and encourage our colleagues to develop their own gap analysis protocols, involve younger students in younger grades and get all teachers within our department “on board,” make this an integral part of course delivery within departments. • Extend to other departments in the school. The challenge: • As always, finding the time—time for teachers to prepare these templates, time in class for students to fill them out, and time for students to follow through outside of class time. The bonus: • Parents appreciate this effort, so reporting to parents is made an easy task for teachers: discussing the results of a test, explaining how you helped each student to analyze the test and identify gaps in learning, and describing how each student has designed a personalized plan to fill her own learning gaps provides a feasible response to test results—all parties are involved 6 but the student is central in taking responsibility for her learning. RESOURCES WE RECOMMEND FOR PROFESSIONAL LEARNING TEAMS: Earl, L. 2003. Assessment as Learning: Using Classroom Assessment to Maximize Student Learning. Thousand Oaks: Corwin. 7 1. Completed Grade 12 Math Gap Analysis 2. Completed Grade 11 Math Gap Analysis Follow-up to Test 3A—Quadratics Minitest Name_Student B Within 48 h of receiving your graded test back: 8 1. Use the posted solutions to correct your test. 2. Complete this form. 3. Print this form and staple to your corrected test. 4. Write me an email briefly telling me if and how this gap analysis could help you move along the learning continuum. 5. Attach the completed form to your email. ___________________________________________________________________________ 1. Where are you on the learning continuum for this material? Copy the green checkmark and paste it on the arrow where it best indicates your progress in this material so far. Emerging (after follow-up) Developing Proficient 2. Which specific skills are progressing well, and which need work? 9 Skill/Topic Solving quadratic equations 1, 2,10 Describing 3 transformations using correct terminology Stating domain and range 5ab Graphing quadratic functions I’m OK. Questions I’m improving I’m ok I’m ok 7 Converting to vertex form 8, 9 Interpreting and working 4, 6, 11 with an equation in vertex form What specifically needs work? Ensuring I have the correct format and carry though all work until the question is completely answered I need to review stretches and compressions I need to make sure to pay attention to signs Working on the shape of my parabolas and using all my space effectively Pay attention to proper process I’m ok 3. Closing the gap: Highlight each strategy that you will use to improve skills before Test 3B. Check the box when you have completed the item. Strategy Correct your Test 3A in pen from the solutions posted on BB. Done Include specific reminders to yourself on your Unit 3 study sheet. Retry selected Test 3A questions. Use the Unit 3 Outline to do more practice on skills that need work. Attend math clinic. 4. What specific reminders to yourself can you include on your Unit 3 Study Sheet that will help you succeed on the quadratics questions on Test 3B? 10 - 3 Pay attention to signs Read over test carefully Review vertex form Compressions and stretches Completed Grade 12 Chemistry Gap Analysis 11 12 4 Post-it Feedback from Grade 11 Math 13 14