Feedback
&
Assessments
In this section, I highlight the my models for formative and summative assessments in my course design and how I share feedback using rubrics, as well as to create avenues for self-reflection. Feedback is essential in support student's ability to achieve competence in assignments and assessments so individuals can experience growth.
Formative Assessments
Following the frames of assessments for learning, formative assessments are traditionally used to measure the advancement and growth of the students development as they move through learning goals. As I stated before, I have used "quests" to indicate a gamified element to design assignments and assessments in the course. The example below is a daily quest assigned to student to complete as an assessment for learning. Daily quests were used as the progressions though a unit, scaffolding and measuring the students' gradual development in the skills established. Each daily quest is designed like a traditional flipped classroom, however, what makes this a formative assessment is that student are required to produce evidence of comprehension, synthesis, collaboration and progress in the material.
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To describe the example, this daily quests is a progression to scaffold our summative assessment that requires them to create notecards to form their historical narrative. The quests consists of the exposure to new material, where they will take notes and collected notecards, followed by a synthesis of the readings they have engaged in at this point in the course through an Essential Question Journal, and finally to create a Flipgrid to brainstorm and draw conclusions to support their historical narrative.
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To inspire students to self-assess and reflect in their work, as well as to set standards for competence in the daily quests, there is set rubric that helps to create guidelines so that student can strive to achieve competency. This helps to create parameters for a clearer definition on what the learning outcomes under the formative assessment context.
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The regularity of doing daily quests permits the instructor to assess student's understanding constantly, providing feedback and additional help if needed. With students taking more ownership of their learning through a self-regulated pace, I am able to follow the progress of students who may struggling with the material more clearly when I see students turning in quests inconsistently, which could mean that they could be having difficulties with understanding the content, or simply lacking motivation.
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Summative Assessments
As daily quests create a progression towards the culmination of a unit, they serve as assessments for learning regularly. Daily quests serve to scaffold for summative assessments, serves to check for the understanding and comprehension of the learning goals set in the unit. As students undergo several goals to meet that serve as targets to understand specific concepts or ideas, I like to think of summative assessments as the synthesis of those targets through the connection and application of such concepts and ideas.
In the example provided below, I have scaffolded a summative assessment that requires the understanding collected through daily quests in order to execute a major project. In collaboration, students are creating a 3D model of an essential event in the Great War. Through a UbD template, I have scaffolded the project, starting with the big ideas, those being the learning goals of the unit. I have also included the rationale behind the project and the steps students are required to follow. Finally, I have attached a rubric that reflects on content, structure, impact, evidence and application which challenge students to provide a summative understanding of the unit. Language from our formative assessment rubric is used so that students find familiarity and consistence in essential skills like presentation, grammar, synthesis, and incorporation of examples.
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What if its good, but not in the rubric?
Part of my frustration with rubric is that goals, guidelines and instructions are fixated to it's parameters. How loyal can I be to a rubric I created, when a student showed novel and creative ideas outside the rubric? Wouldn't that be thinking "outside the box?" I am always curious a both the language and views students have of rubrics, in my understanding, both serve as the place to set standards to assess student learning. Using a number or a letter to for scores, teachers then make objective decisions to score the level of performance in meeting such standards. Student who may be driven to achieve high grades my see the standards as a list of tasks to complete and include, perhaps even taking away from learning and risk- taking. I found this to be true with rubrics that may be too specific or sophisticated, as students spoke about meeting standards of rubrics as if they were standards to please me since I would score them. When it came down to scoring, I was puzzled by the way I would critique and provide feedback to students who excelled in most standards with creativity rather than specification, leaving me with a debate in my head on how I should assess the situation. Alfie Kohn (2006) makes this critique when it comes to looking at extensive and instructive rubrics that may be seen as a a check list to students, rather than highlighting the purpose of the assignment, "In fact, when the hows of assessment pre-occupy us, they tend to chase the whys back into the shadows. So let’s shine a light over there and ask: What’s our reason for trying to evaluate the quality of students’ efforts?" (p.14) As I move forward into my journey as an educator, I watn to create equitable rubrics that permit students to have creativity which can be accomplished by setting standards that gear towards the "whys" and away from the "hows" making more room for students to think outside of the box.