Alternative assessment (and the bribery of my students)

This week, I am not giving my Level 2 Physics class a topic test, even though they have finished all their learning about waves. Instead, I have given them an extended collaborative project. They all blinked when I said that, so I have taken to calling it "your jewellery project".

I don't really like topic tests. The project I have given them requires the students to work together to answer a range of questions that cover everything you'd expect a topic test to cover, but they get more time, can use their books and online resources, and can talk. I assigned the groups by getting them to line up in order of the wavelength of their favourite colour. I'm seeing a range of group styles in their different approaches.

First, some groups assign questions to different people and they work more or less independently on their own tasks. They seemed to assign the questions randomly. On the plus side, they are working pretty consistently. On the minus side, it does make them more likely to ask me for help instead of asking someone else in their group or looking up the answer. I guess they like having a reassuring someone to tell them things.

Other groups went through the entire question sheet and separated out particular questions. One group has one person who is the 'diagram specialist'. This person is doing all the ray diagrams, while another person is doing all the mathematical problems. This is quite efficient, and shows that they have some pretty clear ideas about delegating and division of labour. It means I can't be completely confident that all of them understand all of the topics, but I think that is a small price to pay.

Still other groups are all working on the same question at the same time, just different aspects of each one. These groups tend to be noisy, with lots of checking that they are all on the same page and all on track. They don't ask a lot of questions, but when I check in on them, they are clear about what they are doing and where they are going.

I think these types of group styles can rise organically in classes, like this one, where the majority of students know each other fairly well and are all confident about communicating their ideas. In other classes, particularly bigger ones where the students are younger and less self-directed, most groups default to the first type. I think this is a bit limiting in some scenarios, and I think I might set up some activities deliberately to tease out some other styles of group management.

I am pretty pleased with how seriously the Level 2 students are taking this project. Of course, when I handed it out and explained the parameters, they negotiated hard for a prize for the best team. We had some discussion about how 'best' should be defined, eventually agreeing that it would be a combination of group work skills and value added to answers since their last formative assessment. Naturally, the prize consists of food. On Wednesday, we will have a judging session and the winning team will nominate their choice of home baking. I think it's worth a few hours of my time.

Key Competencies

I like the New Zealand Curriculum. I get excited by things like the Vision and Values in it. I think its awesome that we are encouraged - expected, even - to explicitly teach about citizenship, to integrate creativity, and to develop curiousity.

Anyway, one of the big pushes in our school right now is to make the way that we teach the Key Competencies more explicit in our classrooms. I think this is a great idea, so long as it can be done relatively painlessly. Fortunately, this is possible. I used the activity below with my Y10 students yesterday:

Key Competencies Self Evaluation

I just wrote this on the board, and typed it up this morning so it could be shared. Some students found the matching difficult, and I worked with them to remind them/build with them a definition of what each KC actually is. Some students flew through it, and were coming to me with their statements and wanting to know what to do if they thought they did the KC twice. I haven't had a good look at what anyone wrote yet, but I will do that soon and give some feedback and feedforward. Overall, though, it was a simple activity that students got into far more than I expected. I guess all my excitement was infectious for some people.

Some thoughts on assessment, IEPs and success

So, the HoD meeting last night was fascinating. We talked - really talked about, like, actual ideas - and it was constructive and thoughtful. I left wondering if the entire school had exploded into pod people, but no. We had freaky mind melds and respectful disagreements and it was awesome.

One of the things we talked about was the need for students who have low ability to also experience success in some way. We talked about ways to measure and comment on where the students are improving, even if their improvement is not enough to achieve at the level needed in our assessments. I have been thinking about this, and the need to give good, constructive feedback and feedforward on what students are doing.

So, I have decided to make more use of the 'comment' option in our reporting programme. I think it will be helpful, not just for the students who receive the comment but for me too.