Attached below is a Grade 9 Research Assignment regarding emerging technologies for recombining genetic material. This assignment offers students choice as well as an opportunity to explore controversial issues in society. This assignment required student work and participation but was also very clear and laid out. Below is a condensed version of the assignment. Students were graded by the rubric attached below.
As a student teacher at IF Cox I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a School Improvement Day with the rest of IF Cox teaching staff. This workshop was geared towards assessment; formative and summative. If I were to cover everything I found valuable in this workshop this blog post would take you 2 days to read. Instead I want to tell you the parts I found most beneficial, relevant and important for me as a student teacher in my PSI. 1. The importance of questioning! Questions for students should be structured to build understanding. Open ended questions are the best. There is also different levels of questioning that inflict different levels of understanding such as evaluation, interpretation, application, prospective, empathy, self knowledge. For example: "What is the key idea in....?" "How might we justify, confirm...?" "What does____ reveal about...?" "How could we use this to overcome...?" "How similar _________ to or different from...?" It is important that questions are phrased as a open ended question and do not require a "yes" or "no" answer. This forces students to think about their learning and therefore makes it more meaningful. 2. Assessment Teacher as a planner: Keeping the end in mind! Planning with the end in mind helps you keep your assessment focused explicitly on curriculum outcomes. Often it is easy to fall into the "crayola curriculum" and forget about "what do we really want out students to learn and how are we going to know if they have learned it?" This also involves thinking about who our learners are and what strengths do they exhibit or areas for improvement? Teacher as a Coach: Supporting learners through formative assessment strategies! Coaching= Assessment for learning This involves deciding what activities will engage our students in their learning? What opportunities will students have to practice skills and develop understanding? How will students use specific, descriptive and timely feedback to move their learning forward? How will teachers use evidence from formative assessment to inform instructional decisions? 3. Key strategies teachers can use to engage students in the assessment process is: - Clarifying, sharing and understanding learning intentions and criteria for success - Engineering effective discussions and activities that elicit evidence of learning - Providing feedback that moves learning forward - Activating learners as instructional resources for one another - Activating learners as owners of their own learning "As an educator, it is impossible to go through a school day without impacting someone's life...for better or worse. What a great responsibility. What an even greater opportunity." (Marzano and Pickering, 2005) |
AuthorI am currently a student teacher attending the University of Lethbridge Archives
April 2016
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