These are the result of what I've learnt during the course!!! What's really amazing is that I could apply many things and concepts in my planning and teaching!!!!
WHAT I KNOW
WHAT I
WANT TO KNOW
WHAT I
LEARNED
-
Assessment is included in evaluación.
-
There’s a formal assessment, an informal assessment and a self- assessment.
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Its principles are:
Validity
Reliability
Practical
-
It involves a process and its product.
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It’s important to see what sts know and change when something doesn’t work.
-
How to assess in a fair way.
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I want to learn creative tools to assess my sts.
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Diseño curricular of 6th year.
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Assessment in 6th year and its tools.
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Washback effect
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Construct
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E- portfolios
To conclude I want to say... ASSESSMENT IS THE TIP OF AN ICEBERG. IT ONLY SHOWS YOU A PART YOU SHOULD EXPLORE AND GO DEEPER. Do you agree?
They are student-centered, promote active learning and student responsibility, and constitute a showcase of work and reflection. Portfolios provide information to students, parents, teachers, and members of the community about what students have learned or are able to do. Portfolios can be student, teaching, and institutional documents (Lorenzo & Ittelson, 2005)
One of the most interesting tools I've learnt in the course and I've implemented in all my courses!!!! It brings together curriculum, instruction and assessment in a creative and funny way!!! And it develops autonomous learners!!!!!!!!!
“Teachers… have to respond to the demands made by testing regimes and students´ desire to pass tests. It is therefore about evaluating the impact that test use may have on teaching and learning, in the broadest sense. The effects of the use of language tests are measure of the meaning of the test in practice. If the test has been well designed, with its purpose and effect in mind, we might expect to see many positive effects …”
(Fulcher 2010)
This was what has helped me to reflect about the tests I give my students. Now, I understand the concept of WASHBACK. It is "extent to which the introduction and use of a test influences language teachers and learners to do things that they would not otherwise do that promote or inhibit language learning".
The washback hypotheses (Anderson and Wall: 1993) widened my view about tests and their consequences in my students. I've realised that test affects some learners more than others, and some teachers more than others. Tests also influence and affect me.
It's crucial to reflect on these hypotheses:
•
What teachers teach
How teachers teach
What learners learn
How learners learn
The rate and sequence of teaching
The rate and sequence of learning
Attitudes to the content, method, etc. of teaching and learning
Another topic we dealt with in this meeting has to do with CONSTRUCTS. I've learnt that they are "abilities of the learner that we believe underlie their test performance, but which we cannot directly observe. These begin as 'concepts', and we can identify them because they are usually abstract nouns". Some of them could be: intelligence, attitude, responsibility, fluency... I really know that I have to investigate deeper this concept because not all the ideas are clear for me. What a challenge!!!! Isn't it?
We've started this meeting by highlighting the key words in a text about assessment principles in CLIL, written by Coyle, Hood and Marsh (2010).
I've underlined the following concepts:
Clear learning objectives are needed before an assessment focus can be chosen. Learning objectives/ outcomes should use a format which acknowledges the different areas of learning in the classroom (such as the 4Cs approach) –this usually include content/skills first, then language in some form. In a CLIL classroom there are likely to be more possible angles of assessment at any one point because of the integrative nature of content and language. Therefore, even more than in first-language lessons, we cannot always assess everything.
We should use a mixture of formal and informal assessment which is both task-based and assignment-based, and a mix of specific test times and classwork sampling.
We should familiarize the learners with the assessment measures and success criteria, expressed in a student-friendly format.
Content knowledge should be assessed using the simplest form of language which is appropriate for that purpose.
Language should be assessed for a real purpose in a real context –sometimes this will be for form/accuracy, sometimes for communicative competence and/or fluency.
If the assessment is orally based, “wait time” is crucial, as in CLIL contexts we should be asking students to think, and thinking takes time and the expression of that thinking takes longer.
Scaffolding is not “cheating” –we need to assess what students can do with support before we assess what they can do without it.
Students need to be able to take some responsibility for their own assessment, both in terms of self- and peer-assessment. This will enhance their longer-term learning potential.
We also analysed projects done by teachers teaching in the Province of Buenos Aires. After that... we had to plan our own unit!!!! The first thing we had to take into account was to do a mind map based on the 4 Cs: CONTENT- COMMUNICATION- CULTURE-COGNITION. This was our first production!! (Wow!)
I've found this video really interesting and I want to share it with you as an introduction to the approach that is mentioned in our diseño curricular.
What do you think?
In a warm morning of February at 8 o'clock, we started the course at “Nacional” school. At that day, we also returned from holidays and began working at our schools (too many things for the first day after holidays). A bit sleepy and distracted, we were asked to do the first activity: “complete the first two columns of the chart for ‘evaluación’”.
WHAT I KNOW
WHAT I WANT TO KNOW
WHAT I LEARNED
-
Assessment is included in evaluación.
-
There’s a formal assessment, an informal assessment and a self- assessment.
-
Its principles are:
Validity
Reliability
Practical
-
It involves a process and its product.
-
It’s important to see what sts know and change when something doesn’t work.
-
How to assess in a fair way.
-
I want to learn creative tools to assess my sts.
In this meeting, I've also learnt about the learning objectives of the 'diseño curricular'. Now I know how to include them in my annual planning.
Bloom's taxonomy was the third point that was developed. In 1956, Benjamin Bloom headed a group of educational psychologists who developed a classification of levels of intellectual behaviour important in learning.This categorized and ordered thinking skills and objectives. His taxonomy follows the thinking process. You can not understand a concept if you do not first remember it, similarly you can not apply knowledge and concepts if you do not understand them. It is a continuum from Lower Order Thinking Skills (LOTS) to Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS). They are arranged below in increasing order, from lower order to higher order. During the 1990's a new group of cognitive psychologists, lead by Lorin Anderson (a former student of Bloom), updated the taxonomy to reflect relevance to 21st century work. The two graphics show the revised and original Taxonomy. Note the change from nouns to verbs associated with each level.
Old version New version
I found very interesting a list of key verbs that we, teachers, should consider when we plan our classes. This will help us to recognize the thinking skills we are working with.
In this class we also reflect on test purpose. Fulcher in his book Testing and Assessment in Context mentions what Carroll (1961:314) states: 'The purpose of language testing is always to render information to aid in making intelligent decisions about possible courses of action'. There are different types of tests according to their purposes: - Achievement -Aptitude -Diagnosis -Placement -Proficiency I want to add that test are also relevant to motivate learners to study and fix and integrate contents.
This class was really useful because I've leant something new:
ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING: it gives teachers information to modify and differentiate teaching and learning activities. It can be said that it is formative assessment. Teachers can use the information to provide feedback to students to help them advance their learning.
ASSESSMENT AS LEARNING: it focusses on students and emphasizes assessment as a process of metacognition (knowledge of one’s own thought processes) for students. Assessment as learning emerges from the idea that learning is not just a matter of transferring ideas from someone who is knowledgeable to someone who is not, but is an active process of cognitive restructuring that occurs when individuals interact with new ideas. Within this view of learning, students are the critical connectors between assessment and learning. For students to be actively engaged in creating their own understanding, they must learn to be critical assessors who make sense of information, relate it to prior knowledge, and use it for new learning.
ASSESSMENT OF LEARNING: it refers to strategies designed to confirm what students know, demonstrate whether or not they have met curriculum outcomes or the goals of their individualized programs, or to certify proficiency and make decisions about students’ future programs or placements. It is designed to provide evidence of achievement to parents, other educators, the students themselves, and sometimes to outside groups.
After this, I have to analyse an assessment task "Take a last look" and answer the questions in the grid. These were my conclusions:
ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING
ASSESSMENT AS LEARNING
ASSESSMENT OF LEARNING
WHY
ASSESS?
To get
information about they learning skills.
For sts to
critically reflect on their ability to manage a text.
To measure
their proficiency.
ASSESS
WHAT?
Each st’s
progress and learning needs in relation to reading comprehension.
Each st’s
thinking about his learning to understand the text.
Appliance of
contents taught.
WHAT
METHODS?
Questionnaire
which includes prior knowledge, examples, etc.
Use of
strategies to elicit st’s learning and metacognitive processes.
Questionnaire.
ENSURING
QUALITY
-Being accurate
and consistent in instructions.
- having clear
expectations.
- providing
enough opportunities for sts to use all the strategies and knowledge.
Challenging his
thinking.
Providing
enough opportunities for sts to use all the strategies and knowledge.
USING
THE INFORMATION
To know where
each st is, what he knows.
To know how
they learn and the way they assess themselves.
To know how
well they have achieved the learning goals.
