"The Project From The Black Lagoon!"

It was a dark and wary night. I was I had completed all the assignments I had for the week until.....

I know that is not a typical start to a Blog, but I wanted to give myself a little break mentally from the rigors of this week's assignments. We were to create an assessment, quite literally from scratch. At first, I thought this would be a piece of cake, as I have helped with making simple spelling test for students before. However, quality assessment creation he's a very painstaking process. But if you want something done correctly, you will take the time to do it. With the help of the article, "Is This A Trick Question," I was able to fully understand the thoughtfulness that must go into the multiple forms of assessment.

 With creating an assessment from an original thought, you must first figure the standards that are to be assessed. Next, comes how to teach the standards and the source from which to teach it. Next, comes the aspect of creating the assessment and any other tools necessary for the assessment, including a rubric, alignment chart, and data collection source. Lastly, and this is of extreme importance, the assessment must have a way to prove its validity and reliability as an instrument of education.

It did not take me long to realize, that this entire process ties into a few of our standards we look to meet as teacher candidates. Standard 1.e states that we are to demonstrate high ethical standards. With our assessments, it is best practice to create them with integrity and within the laws that govern education in the state of North Carolina. By following through with validity and reliability on the assessment tools and data, there is a great chance you wll be in alignment with these ethical standards. Looking at Standard 3, the creation of the assessment, the content, and material used to teach students must all fall in alignment to what the educator knows. The educator also needs to know how to teach the content that's appropriate, make changes as necessary for the students, and find ways to connect content to other aspects as well. Though this project connects to many of the NCTCS, another important one to point out is Standard 4.h. Through creating this assessment, I could see first-hand the numerous indicators we can put in place to assess student understanding. The assessment and its parts are said indicators and are influential and making sure we get students in the direction they need to go.

Since a few of my friends from East Iredell are suppose to visit my page this week, I wanted to share with them my post from seminar this week. It goes with our project and confirms our processes.

As we discussed in class this week, assessments have to be valid and reliable. The validity of a product by definition means to have a sound basis in a fact or logic. Being consistently good in quality or performance with great trust is also the definition of reliability. This is true when these two words are used to describe assessment. For any test to be valid, it must measure the objectives that were taught up to the actual assessment. As stated in class a valid assessment will measure what was taught and be consistent, reliable, to this information. The data from the assessment should be reliable because it only tested The content that was provided. It is up to the teacher to make sure that these two aspects are met within every form of testing that they give. This may sound funny but I wouldn’t grade and apple on the taste of an orange. They are both fruits, but the contents of both are different and I’m not being fair if I’m not grading the apple based off of the contents and definition of an apple.

With validity and reliability of the assessment ensured, then the assessment should be proof that the teacher is “meeting the needs of learners” and “design with the learners, content, and goals in mind,” which is a key focus in our conceptual framework.

All right, until next time……

Always Learning, Always Growing;

William B. A. Alspaugh  

Here I am again...

Here I Am Again

Another action-packed week is almost in the books. And while my head is spinning from all the information, I must say the words assessment and feedback will never leave my brain as long as I live. In class, this week our objectives were to focus on creating, analyzing, and implementing assessments and understanding and implementing feedback. Assessment is general used to judge student understanding of the content they have learned. The data from the assessment can be used to make quality decisions on the direction learning could go. The other aspect of effective assessment is to provide feedback. Feedback is the way in which a teacher communicates the achievement of students' learning back to the student based on rubric, playlist, or checklist of the assignment; both of these actions are the epitome of standard V. Teachers are reflective on their practice. Feedback helps students understand their effectiveness at the assignment and if they reached their goal. You want to make sure the feedback is not criticizing but encouraging and helps the student reflect.

My professional development continued in Frontline with the introduction of “Monitoring student learning” and “Checklist and Rubric: Student Assessment. “I found it intriguing how various teachers where able to establish rubrics and checklist as a culture within their classroom. This shows me another example of teachers knowing the way learning should take place, i.e. Standard IV. The rubrics make clear the information that must be delivered and how the process should take place to insure a successful assessment.  I hope to use these effective learning tools within my future classroom. The difficulty of tracking student learning has been eased back a bit for me after completing the PD on Frontline. This program helped me to understand the effectiveness of formative assessment to track progress. Questioning is an effective way to gauge student learning, and when done properly, it will give the teacher leader a clear picture to where student understanding is. I plan to use the rubric within this lesson as a means to gather understanding of student responses.

Since one of the essential parts of the Frontline PD use on homework, I decided to discuss the information with my lead teacher at work. As stated, it is difficult to ensure that the homework that is to be assigned was completed independently by the student. So, we collaborated on an effective way to do homework this half of the year. We decided to only send home reading assignments; while “homework” is to be completed with me, the TA, during small group time. This is to make sure students complete the work while receiving the appropriate amount of help on the assignment. We will also use this time to practice for benchmarks and the process of district standard testing will occur.

This week, my learning has opened my eyes to the endless possibilities to help my future students learning as well as improve my facilitating of learning as well. Since Standard IV of the NCTCS, clearly states that teachers should provide instruction appropriate to the students’ level. Through the use of checklist and rubrics, I can clearly state the expectations of all the standards to the students as well as parents and administration, and be able to gauge the student’s growth throughout the lesson, unit, or course. By using the rubric, I can also have a basis by which to evaluate all assessments the same and be able to give proper feedback in a timely manner. This also provides evidence that I have knowledge of the content I am providing as required by NCTCS III. The need to make adjustments to rubric will ensure for a class that is inclusive to all students, standard II.

Well, this wraps up week number 4, and we are rolling in EDU 410. Until next time…This is your reporting future candidate

Always Learning, Always Growing;

William B. A. Alspaugh  

My World Is Rocked

Reflecting

Welcome to another exciting chapter in my adventures with EDU 410. Have you ever thought that you were completely understanding something only to have your world shattered and the repair? This is the intersection I am at with assessment and education within my own little world. Through my studies this week on assessment, I was introduced to the process called instructional decision making. This is a mind shifting concept that has caused me to reflect on my understanding of data, decision-making, and effectiveness, hello standard V. As I am still grasping the complete concept, I learned that the cycle consists of five aspects: assess, plan, teach, and reflect. If you are beginning a new year, the information you can start with from the assessment aspect would be the data from the previous year. Each part of the cycle coincides with some aspect of the North Carolina Teacher Candidate Standards. Assessment and plan are aligned with standard IV, facilitating student learning; teach coincides with standard III, this states the teachers know their content; and reflect is self-explanatory as it goes together with standard V, teachers are reflective of their practice. One more aspect that was covered in the academic week was comprehensive assessment. Using the five keys to comprehensive assessment; goals and measures, formative assessment, summative assessment, and student ownership, a teacher can try to develop a student-centered classroom. This is one of the key components for 21^st century learners.

Starting this week, I am doing a Twitter Chat for my EDU 410 class. After participating in my first chat, I realized this chat is beneficial for my current and future classrooms. #Games4ed was my preferred a room for this week, and the focus in this chat was on scavenger and treasure hunts. We discussed many applications and subjects that can collaborate and create innovative lessons. One take away I plan to use this year is to make QR codes for my students in third grade. Each year we do a wax museum project and students pick a personality to represent. I would like to record three short videos and a long introductory video for each student describing the identity of the person they are representing. We allow the students to do the research and record the videos, but we the teachers make sure that the QR codes are made and are accurate for the project. I think this type of innovation is needed for our classrooms and a project as this.

The big picture for my future is starting to shape up. My future students and parents can look forward to having a teacher who is willing to be as innovative as possible but not vary too far from the NCSCOS. I want to try and make the class student centered by reflecting over the data from all forms of assessment that we use. I even hope to have the students take part in the assessment themselves, as was described in my front-line lesson from this week. After doing an assessment of the students, I hope to do an assessment of myself in the reflection, to ensure that I am giving them what they need. Planning for the students and facilitating the learning of the new or repeated content must be a focal point. Our goal is to score a figurative touchdown each week or each lesson and ensure that we are prepared for the future we must face. Touchdown… Go Pats!

All right, until next time……

Always Learning, Always Growing;

William B. A. Alspaugh