Jim Rosseel
From TeacherWiki
Ideas for involving Fellows in "teaching" the Lesson
My plans for ASSISTment in 2010-11
Projects
The one project that we've focused on is the Bellwork project. I summarized the recent efforts on this project in an e-mail to Cris the other day, and rec'd her response, as follows. This project consists of kids being assigned random bellwork problems that they've seen before, in class, on more than one occasion. These daily bellwork problems are chosen from sample 7th/8th grade MCAS short answer problems, etc. A bellwork quiz will be given from now on, every two weeks, when we go to the computer lab.
"We gave the 1st bellwork quiz a week ago last wednesday. It went well. there were some computer glitches during the 1st period, but these seemed to work themselves out.
Nearly every student in the cluster got a grade. It is certainly simple to correct! The range of scores went from 30 to 100. We will do our next one next wednesday. I'll coordinate with Adam as far as setting this up. (Cris' response: "I like that the grading is done for you and now you can do the teaching/ working with students.")
The formative assessment that is available from this may not be addressed in the Popham book. We're talking about 7th grade bellwork problems that, by now, should be routine. Why they're not yet routine for the majority of students is probably attributable to students simply choosing not to learn ... not to study. This particular bellwork project is intended to address this 'phenomenon'...". (Cris' response: I actually think this is a perfect example of what Popham is talking about it and we should share this on Saturday. 1. You have a learning progression (Pophams words) that includes the steps that say students should learn those skills assess on the Bell Work Quizzes.
2. You are assessing if the students are indeed able to do these things. You have also set this up so that students can track for themselves if they are achieving the learning objective. This is very much part of Level 2 in Pophams work.
3. Now as you mention you are ready for the next thing which is getting students to realize that THEY have a roll in making things work. If they see by your Quiz that they do not have it yet you have provided for them (and that is the important teaching action) an opportunity to think about adjusting their "learning tactic" A Poplham language. If they did not study they will not do well. What does it mean to study? Now you or other students can offer up things to do. So in addressing the "phenomenon" as yo say you are deep into Level 2 of Formative Assessment which is getting students to note their deficiencies and make changes in their learning tactics. VERY COOL."
