2zanne’s Weblog

I listened to the recording of Tuesday night’s session yesterday and it reminded me of Dennis Littky’s vision for his schools. His schools are based on inquiry, application, reflection, internships and presentations. Very similar to Lehman’s mission and vision. I’m not sure if Littky’s schools are 1:1 laptop schools. I don’t recall reading anything related to technology. Littky’s schools deal with students at risk as well as students following a “regular” program. Assessment is linked to student inquiry and presentation. Littky’s book is a very good and easy read: The Big Picture: Education is Everyone’s Business.

What I found most interesting was the discussion in the chat room regarding assessment. Great discussion. I agree with Chris Lehman regarding the use of rubrics in assessment. Our system continues to use rubrics in writing benchmarks and other areas. When I taught in the French Immersion program, particularly grammar and composition, students were made aware of how they were being evaluated and I demonstrated on a regular basis papers written according to the different levels found in the rubrics. I also had to train my teachers to use the rubrics so that we were all evaluating the same way. I like using rubrics and continue to do so.

It’s been a few years since I was involved in any type of assessment as my school, due to it’s modified status, does not participate in any kind. I have been trying to implement “reading inventories” as a pre-test and post-test so that we can assess student progress in reading. Well, it’s time consuming and teachers are not interested in doing this. I did administer reading inventories with all of my grade 11s at the beginning of this semester and it was most helpful in developing individualized programming. I hope next year, if I’m still there, we will be doing some sort of assessment with particular grades related to reading. We are currently developing an assessment tool related to numeracy; linked to the trades and the workplace. That has also been a struggle, teachers are just not buying into it. Hopefully we will see changes next year.

Well, I went ahead and created a Wikispace for my staff (still trying to think of a catchy name). I’m going to include tutorials for Gradebook, SIRS and emails (yes, some are still have problems with that). I hope to add some titles for professional reading and maybe even start a book talk for interested educators in our school. Thanks Marlene for the idea.