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We are BACK! Wow, time sure has flown by this year! We have been very busy in K/1 Fusion, not to mention all the SNOW DAYS! This has been a wild, crazy, and COLD winter thus far. We fear that it may not be over quite yet either! Enough about SNOW! ENOUGH SNOW!
NOW… Where to begin again with our journey? In lieu of PARCC testing beginning in the upper grades, how about we talk a little about the dreaded word, ASSESSMENTS! How do we feel about them? How do YOU feel about them? How do our CHILDREN feel about them?
“MORE assessments?”
“Are they really necessary?”
“Are they really that important?”
“Why do I need to give them, I already know where my children are?”
“Assessments just stress out the children for no reason!”
These are all statements that flood the education world more so now than ever before.
Let us begin about us sharing how we feel about assessments. We LOVE them! (Love may be a strong word, but pretty close to accurate. Well, making them is pretty time-consuming, but once we have them made, we are home free! Just tweak them, and we are good!) Assessments basically run our classroom. They have become such an ingrained part of EVERYTHING we do! Our children will even let us know when they think they have a skill mastered and are ready to take an assessment on it! Talk about owning your own learning! To give a clearer picture of why our children are so eager to “show what they know,” let us back up a little bit.
Everything we teach is differentiated. We are fortunate to be able to do this very effectively because we have aligned a Kindergarten class with a First Grade class, which gives us two teachers (twice the children as well). We are also inclusion classrooms, which brings an Intervention Specialist to the mix as well. We also aligned a Special Education Paraprofessional’s schedule for Phonics instruction due to a couple of our children having unique disabilities. To determine our differentiated groupings, we give a Pre-Assessment prior to teaching ANYTHING! These assessments include Kindergarten and First Grade level skills. This way we can determine what our students already know, what they are confused on, and what they need. We then analyze the assessments, score them, and see where the students are based on the results. In the beginning, our students were on more similar levels. In Math, we may have had 4 groups based on the Pre-Assessment results for a particular strand. As we begin teaching the concepts, we give formative assessments throughout to see where we are with the little steps to mastery along the way, and base our instruction from them. Not every child is ready for each step along the way at the same time, and we shouldn't always make them wait! As the year has progressed, so have our children, and our instruction. Because of this, we have gone from a differentiated classroom, to a more personalized classroom, and all because of assessments!
From the very beginning, we have told our children that these assessments are nothing to worry about. They are just tools to let us, as teachers, know what they can do. We reinforce to them that sometimes these assessments are going to hard, and that they may have no idea what we are asking them, and that is OKAY! It just means that we, as teachers, either have not taught it to them yet, or we just haven’t taught it to them the right way yet. We never put the pressure on the children. Instead, we assumed ownership of ensuring that the children learn each of the skills. We use the phrase “SHOW WHAT YOU KNOW!” If you were to ask any of our children what an assessment is they would either say, “Show what you know,” or “EVIDENCE.”
We discuss what we are working on continually, and what the expectation is for mastery. By doing this, the children know when they think they have it down, and will even sometimes tell you that they are ready for an assessment.
For example, in one of our Phonics groups, 2 of 3 children said that they thought they were ready to see if they had blends mastered. The third child said that he wasn’t so sure he could do it because writing the words with blends was hard, and he really had to think about it. We decided together that he should see how he does. When given the assessment, 2 of the 3 mastered the skill (thus making it a summative assessment), while the 3rd did struggle slightly with writing words with l-blends. He even recognized that he missed the “l” in both words when writing them, and stated, “I miss that sound a lot.” (His assessment became a formative one because it will inform his instruction.) By him recognizing what he needs to work on himself, he will more than likely master the skill sooner because it is HIS learning.
Not only are assessments PROOF FOR US that our children are learning, but assessments are also PROOF FOR THE CHILDREN! This is probably even more important! One could compare it to any sport. Take soccer, for example. Learning in school is the same as learning the skills necessary for soccer. Children practice concepts, just as they practice foot skills for soccer. We all get an idea of what the children know in academics, as well as the foot skills that each possess. However, if all you do is practice, and never get the satisfaction of winning the game, what is the point? At some time, everyone wants to WIN! Right? Our assessments are just like playing the game. Children can determine how they are doing, what they need to work on, and the satisfaction of winning the concepts! We have broken down the standards into smaller concepts, so all children are successful, and experience winning the game! POWERFUL for motivation to learn!
“MORE assessments?”
“Are they really necessary?”
“Are they really that important?”
“Why do I need to give them, I already know where my children are?”
“Assessments just stress out the children for no reason!”
Okay, it is time for us to answer these questions according to our beliefs:
YES!
Yes
Yes
PROOF!
NO!
Our children are going to take our lead! If we think assessments are ridiculous, then we will subconsciously be conveying that same sentiment to them, and then the assessments will have no value. So, will your instruction, and learning still have value then? If our children truly can believe in us that assessments are mere stops along the journey of learning to ensure understanding, and trust that the assessments are our (teacher and children’s) shared accountability for learning, then we are doing something undoubtedly EXTRAORDINARY!
Of course, the next logical thing to do for our children, is to find a way for them to “keep score” of their learning! This has been a lengthy process finding the right tool to use for children to track their own learning at such a young age that is practical, effective, and efficient, but we think that we have found our solution! More to come next time!
