Staring Assessment in the Face...literally!

It's two weeks into semester two, and our no grades classroom is in full swing. This initiative has already changed my teaching style, how I plan my classes, and even how I organize my time at school, and at home. This is due to the amount of time it takes to make regular observations and to conference with students. Both are needed so that students know exactly where their learning is (goals, strengths, weaknesses and next steps), and both are used as evidence that will help students and myself generate their numerical mark at midterm reporting periods. Speaking as a type B person, the organization of all of these different elements has been difficult, but doable. Using google forms as an "app" on my phone has helped me to make oral notes and observations on the fly, and to also record my conversations and conferences with students.

Since student self assessment is such a huge part of the no grades classroom, I wanted to make sure students had the proper tools and understanding when talking about their learning in class. As a part of my course outline, I handed out all the rubrics that we would be using for the semester (linked under Rubrics for Assessment through the Arts tab), which included some student friendly "can do" statements in language that I hoped would be accessible for them to start assessing themselves with. It was clear that the expectations and levels needed to be simplified further if I wanted students to really understand the concept of self assessment. This poster is now posted in both of my classrooms. I think as the semester progresses, we will be able to speak about assessment more in depth, but for now, simple is good.

  

Students seem to be very comfortable talking about their learning using this language. I refer to this poster almost every class, and I do think that it helps them to stay focused and on task, and also provides them with some ways in which they can start to think about how to improve their work.

I believe that assessment shouldn't be considered as an afterthought, jammed within the last 10 minutes of class (I am very guilty of this in past courses). I wanted to students to think about the PROCESS of assessment and the TRANSPARENCY of assessment. Constructed with my learning goals and success criteria in mind, on Monday of last week I pinned a self-assessment to each music stand and told students that in 3 days they would be assessing themselves on the following expectations. I thought that if they saw this list in advance, and had a chance to look it over multiple times, it would help them to be aware of their learning, and perhaps help them to achieve their goal more effectively. 

After they submitted these assessments, I looked them over and found them to be very accurate to what I had observed in class....phew!!! I was also pleased during our conferencing time when students were able to talk in detail about these expectations...what they did well, what they needed to improve upon, and what their next steps may be in order to achieve their goals. There seemed to be a sense of ownership of their assessment, and that feeling was something I was really proud of. I will definitely be using this assessment strategy again!

As we roll into our third week of the semester, I need to begin to create more balance between written self -assessment, and video evidence (using Seesaw) that will help drive student assessment in a different way. Now that I feel I'm starting to get a grasp on the semester, digital evidence needs to be more or a priority. Wish me luck!!!