Assessment

PLC NOTES: November 21, 2012

PLC Name: Assessment Group

PLC Members: Kathy, Lisa, Emily

PLC Focus and Essential Question:

How can we develop assessment practices that best improve and support student learning and guide teaching?

Our focus is on involving students in the assessment process, and we plan to focus on these sub questions:

1.   How do we support students to be honest with marking?

2.   How do we support/be good with peer edits?

3.   How do students improve their work based on their own feedback?

4.   When does a “standard” rubric need to be created/provided?

5.   How can we provide/use guiding questions to help them make progress? (Interview questions/one-on-one)

Challenges: non-readers

Goals & Strategic Plan

We want to find answers to our guiding questions by looking at student work, and assessments we currently use, and improving them.

Our first project is to develop a more meaningful Structure and Style Assessment that parallels the report card.

Goal & Descriptor of Success

What do we need to learn, know, explore, discuss, find, access and be able to do in order to achieve our goal(s)?

We need to look at student work, and examine our current assessment procedures.  We need to consider what has been successful as well as ways to improve based on our guiding questions.  Our goal is to improve learning.

How and where will we get the knowledge, skills or understandings?

·      From each other and through collaboration by sharing our current assessments and looking at student work.

·      Discussing pros and cons

·      Getting student input/feedback

·      Getting feedback from each other

·      Practice/Implementation (applying it into our class)

·      Personalization for assessment

What resources and supports will we need in order to achieve our goals?

·      Student work samples

·      Past rubrics/forms of assessment

·      Refocus

·      Galilleo

What data will help us understand how this work has improved student learning and achievement?

·      Student progress

·      Observations of students making meaningful self-assessments (accurate)

·      Students taking feedback/using checklists, etc. to improve their work

Action Plan

PLC Actions

1.   Address the questions by the end of the year

2.   Tackle Project one: develop meaningful Structure and Styles Assessment

a.   Develop new student-created rubric based on their suggestions and feedback related to report card scale (1-5). Each of us will develop one with our student groups. We will meet before next PLC to compare each other’s rubrics.