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Ed Tech

Looking back at your elementary, middle, and high school years - what was your very favorite test? I've asked many educators that question over the years, and usually I get that tell-tale cricket-chirping silence.

Sometimes an educator will look at me as if I have two heads, and asked, "What do you mean, 'favorite?' You mean a test I enjoyed?" Usually, if I get an answer at all, it is some variation of "I once got an 'A' on test I was sure I failed or that I studied really hard for."

Unfortunately, traditional tests don't inspire further learning. They don't reinforce knowledge (unless one counts cramming information that will be forgotten in a week or two as "reinforcing"). And they don't accurately reflect a full understanding of the content or an expertise of skills that were taught.

So, what is a better alternative? Authentic and creative assessments are perfect, and here's why.

A well-thought-out assessment:

Provides a comprehensive view of students' understanding

Gives students and opportunity to exercise critical thinking skills

Reinforces or furthers knowledge

Allows a range of intelligences to be expressed

Helps students create meaningful connections

Thinking creatively, you can adapt these ideas to fit any curriculum or subject. As you look through them, keep in mind (especially you STEM teachers!) that non-animated objects can be anthropomorphized to great and clever effect in some of these examples:

Here are 10 quick assessment ideas to use or inspire you.

One key to success for any authentic or creative assessment is to think carefully about what your learning goals are and create an assessment that not only helps you know where your students are at, but also how you can help them. Along with your feedback, ask students to reflect on their own work, and the other students'.
Feeling daring? Ask your students to help you come up with the assessment and bring them into the process!
Do you have a favorite assessment to contribute or have you been inspired with a new idea? Please share on Twitter by tagging me @OverthrowingEducation along with the #Ditchbook hashtag.

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©2023 Ditch That Textbook by Matt Miller.

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This post is written by Batsheva Frankel an educational consultant at New Lens Ed. Batsheva has been in education for over 25 years and is the producer

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I once read an interview with a hero of my early teaching days - Donald Graves. He was asked about the way people had misinterpreted his 'process writing' model and replied that sometimes he wished he'd never written it down! Years later I understand the frustration behind that sentiment. It's hard to do justice to the complexities and nuances of inquiry in writing. So much gets lost. Something that is rich, layered and multidimensional can come across as flat, linear and recipe-like. Over the years, I have published several books that share a 'cycle of inquiry' and the kinds of learning engagements that we might design within a cycle. I have seen hundreds of interpretations of this idea in classrooms. Many have been gratifying and exciting. Teachers who really 'get' the intention, understand the complexity and invite their students into the learning have blown me away with what they have done. And I have also seen (and heard) many bewildering versions or iterations of the cycle that are such a long way off the original conceptualization and intent! Ironically, I have seen slavish adherence to a cycle actually impede rather than enhance inquiry.
So why even 'have' such a cycle?
Articulating a model or framework for the process of inquiry is a helpful way to support and guide our practice. The intention of the 'cycle' is to guide the teacher's (and learner's ) thinking beyond simply coming up with 'activities' and towards a more thoughtful process that assists students to move from the known to the new. The need to 'name' some kind of process was first revealed to me as a young teacher by my fabulous mentors Marilyn Woolley and Keith Pigdon. They helped me move beyond thematic planning and into a more rigorous way of thinking about how to guide learning. Once I understood constructivism - it made sense to me to describe what was such a natural process of building understanding over time. My job as a teacher was to help design experiences for learners that would support the brain's best inclinations to wonder, look for patterns, seek new information, link to prior learning and transfer. While it has changed over time, the cycle I now use owes much to Woolley and Pigdon's visionary work.

Here are some of the more common misconceptions about 'the cycle' and my response to them. I hope it is as useful to read as it has been to write!!
Misconception 1: Inquiry is all about 'the cycle'. We DO the cycle....therefore, we DO inquiry.
Simply using an inquiry cycle does not make us inquiry teachers. As I have written before, inquiry is a 'way of being' in the classroom. Yes, there are planning frameworks that can support the ways in which we design learning experiences for and with students but this is only part of the inquiry story. An inquiry teacher knows how to question students in ways that enhance and deepen thinking, how to offer choice and honour voice, how to seize an unexpected moment for investigation and how to embed learning in purposeful context It's a pedagogy - not just a planning framework.
Misconception 2: The cycle is a recipe. We need to follow the stages in sequence for it to 'work out' in the end.
Nope. It's a flexible framework. Not a recipe. Essentially, inquiry cycles provide labels for a process that is common to many disciplines. Most people agree that inquiry : involves time to establish your current thinking, your needs and questions, some 'hunting and gathering' of information/ideas/ data, some sorting organizing and meaning making and some kind of creation/application/transfer/use. And most agree that this process is cyclical in nature. New discoveries lead to new questions and so on. But this process is much neater on paper than it is in practice. True inquiry is often messy and recursive. We gather and sort then realize we have new questions so we return to some more gathering. In the cycle I use, I place great emphasis on the role of 'tuning in' to students' thinking to establish pathways for investigation. While it often sits at the 'start' of the process - I return to 'tuning in' regularly. These are phases more than they are stages, elements more than they are steps. There is nothing contained, neat or particularly orderly about a lot of inquiry BUT having a relatively simple iteration of it in the form of this cycle can help us think more clearly and actually better manage the messiness without getting overwhelmed!
#Misconception 3: All inquiries go through the same phases over a similar time frame.
Much as it would be convenient, no two inquiries are the same. Although most journeys will contain elements of this cycle, starting points, emphases and time frames vary from context to context and depend on the group of students, their age level and what they bring to the journey in the first place. I have seen some beautiful inquiry journeys travelled within an hour. I have seen some that last a year. I have seen some that really don't involve much 'action' but are highly worthwhile and engaging and others that are really all about the action.
# Misconception 4: Using a 'cycle' as a guide, we can plan a complete unit of inquiry for students
I think this is the most troubling use of the cycle I see. The cycle should INFORM planning, guide it but it doesn't mean we can create the whole thing before we start. When I use a planner with the elements of the cycle in it - I see that planner as a guide throughout the process - not as a template to be filled in one sitting. The cycle is emergent....how kids 'sort out' the ideas information depends on what they gather - and that is not something we can determine in detail. The cycle unfolds.
#Misconception 5: The cycle is for teachers.
Students benefit from having some 'meta-language' to attach to processes they use as inquirers. Some kind of framework should be developed for and WITH students that helps everyone gain a shared language. Making this visible to students helps them think about how journeys of inquiry are both similar and different. It is really useful to display the cycle but only if it is referred to, analysed, played with and critiqued!
#Misconception 6: The cycle only applies to 'units of inquiry' in disciplines like science and social studies.
I see many examples of this cycle in action in a range of disciplines and contexts. Some 'tweaking' is needed at times to best fit the nature of the discipline but it is interesting to explore this kind of transfer. Check out for example - the great work done on http://www.iphys-ed.com about inquiry based PE or Bruce Ferrington's application of the cycle to math inquiry - http://authenticinquirymaths.blogspot.co.at/
# Misconception 7: It's my way or the highway or 'there is only one cycle'....
There are many versions of a 'cycle of inquiry'. The fact that there ARE many versions is healthy and affirming. I love the different emphases, language and uses of these cycles and think that, together, they help offer us lots to consider as we continue to clarify this intriguing process in our own minds . Explore various cycles. Look for patterns...where do they all agree? Find one that works for you and your students. Create your own - but be consistent. Shared language across a school has great benefits.

A cycle of inquiry helps us plan and teach with intention. When it is understood, it pushes us beyond simply coming up with 'activities' and challenges us to think about how skills and concepts can be developed and deepened over time. It gives us some shared 'meta' language to use with students and colleagues

How do YOU use a cycle of inquiry to inform your work as an inquiry teacher?
...Just wondering....

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Busting some myths about 'the inquiry cycle'.... - KATH MURDOCH

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I once read an interview with a hero of my early teaching days - Donald Graves. He was asked about the way people had misinterpreted his 'process writing' model and replied that sometimes he wished he'd never written it down! Years later I understand the frustration behind that sentiment.

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Language and Literature Assessment Example.pdf

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Formative assessment-discovering what students know while they're still in the process of learning it-can be tricky. Designing just the right assessment can feel high stakes-for teachers, not students-because we're using it to figure out what comes next. Are we ready to move on? Do our students need a different path into the concepts? Or, more likely, which students are ready to move on and which need a different path?

When it comes to figuring out what our students really know, we have to look at more than one kind of information. A single data point-no matter how well designed the quiz, presentation, or problem behind it-isn't enough information to help us plan the next step in our instruction.

Add to that the fact that different learning tasks are best measured in different ways, and we can see why we need a variety of formative assessment tools we can deploy quickly, seamlessly, and in a low-stakes way-all while not creating an unmanageable workload. That's why it's important to keep it simple: Formative assessments generally just need to be checked, not graded, as the point is to get a basic read on the progress of individuals, or the class as a whole.

7 Approaches to Formative Assessment

1. Entry and exit slips: Those marginal minutes at the beginning and end of class can provide some great opportunities to find out what kids remember. Start the class off with a quick question about the previous day's work while students are getting settled-you can ask differentiated questions written out on chart paper or projected on the board, for example.

A quick way to see the big picture if you use paper exit tickets is to sort the papers into three piles: Students got the point; they sort of got it; and they didn't get it. The size of the stacks is your clue about what to do next.

No matter the tool, the key to keeping students engaged in the process of just-walked-in or almost-out-the-door formative assessment is the questions. Ask students to write for one minute on the most meaningful thing they learned. You can try prompts like:

What are three things you learned, two things you're still curious about, and one thing you don't understand?

How would you have done things differently today, if you had the choice?

What I found interesting about this work was...

Right now I'm feeling...

Today was hard because...

Or skip the words completely and have students draw or circle emojis to represent their assessment of their understanding.

2. Low-stakes quizzes and polls: If you want to find out whether your students really know as much as you think they know, polls and quizzes created with Socrative or Quizlet or in-class games and tools like Quizalize, Kahoot, FlipQuiz, Gimkit, Plickers, and Flippity can help you get a better sense of how much they really understand. (Grading quizzes but assigning low point values is a great way to make sure students really try: The quizzes matter, but an individual low score can't kill a student's grade.) Kids in many classes are always logged in to these tools, so formative assessments can be done very quickly. Teachers can see each kid's response, and determine both individually and in aggregate how students are doing.

Because you can design the questions yourself, you determine the level of complexity. Ask questions at the bottom of Bloom's taxonomy and you'll get insight into what facts, vocabulary terms, or processes kids remember. Ask more complicated questions ("What advice do you think Katniss Everdeen would offer Scout Finch if the two of them were talking at the end of chapter 3?"), and you'll get more sophisticated insights.

3. Dipsticks: So-called alternative formative assessments are meant to be as easy and quick as checking the oil in your car, so they're sometimes referred to as dipsticks. These can be things like asking students to:

write a letter explaining a key idea to a friend,

draw a sketch to visually represent new knowledge, or

do a think, pair, share exercise with a partner.

Your own observations of students at work in class can provide valuable data as well, but they can be tricky to keep track of. Taking quick notes on a tablet or smartphone, or using a copy of your roster, is one approach. A focused observation form is more formal and can help you narrow your note-taking focus as you watch students work.

4. Interview assessments: If you want to dig a little deeper into students' understanding of content, try discussion-based assessment methods. Casual chats with students in the classroom can help them feel at ease even as you get a sense of what they know, and you may find that five-minute interview assessments work really well. Five minutes per student would take quite a bit of time, but you don't have to talk to every student about every project or lesson.

You can also shift some of this work to students using a peer-feedback process called TAG feedback (Tell your peer something they did well, Ask a thoughtful question, Give a positive suggestion). When you have students share the feedback they have for a peer, you gain insight into both students' learning.

For more introverted students-or for more private assessments-use Flipgrid, Explain Everything, or Seesaw to have students record their answers to prompts and demonstrate what they can do.

5. Methods that incorporate art: Consider using visual art or photography or videography as an assessment tool. Whether students draw, create a collage, or sculpt, you may find that the assessment helps them synthesize their learning. Or think beyond the visual and have kids act out their understanding of the content. They can create a dance to model cell mitosis or act out stories like Ernest Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" to explore the subtext.

6. Misconceptions and errors: Sometimes it's helpful to see if students understand why something is incorrect or why a concept is hard. Ask students to explain the " muddiest point" in the lesson-the place where things got confusing or particularly difficult or where they still lack clarity. Or do a misconception check: Present students with a common misunderstanding and ask them to apply previous knowledge to correct the mistake, or ask them to decide if a statement contains any mistakes at all, and then discuss their answers.

You can use sticky notes to get a quick insight into what areas your kids think they need to work on. Ask them to pick their own trouble spot from three or four areas where you think the class as a whole needs work, and write those areas in separate columns on a whiteboard. Have you students answer on a sticky note and then put the note in the correct column-you can see the results at a glance.

Several self-assessments let the teacher see what every kid thinks very quickly. For example, you can use colored stacking cups that allow kids to flag that they're all set (green cup), working through some confusion (yellow), or really confused and in need of help (red).

Similar strategies involve using participation cards for discussions (each student has three cards-"I agree," "I disagree," and "I don't know how to respond") and thumbs-up responses (instead of raising a hand, students hold a fist at their belly and put their thumb up when they're ready to contribute). Students can instead use six hand gestures to silently signal that they agree, disagree, have something to add, and more. All of these strategies give teachers an unobtrusive way to see what students are thinking.

No matter which tools you select, make time to do your own reflection to ensure that you're only assessing the content and not getting lost in the assessment fog. If a tool is too complicated, is not reliable or accessible, or takes up a disproportionate amount of time, it's OK to put it aside and try something different.

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7 Smart, Fast Ways to Do Formative Assessment

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Within these methods you'll find close to 40 tools and tricks for finding out what your students know while they're still learning.

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3.1MYP Global Contexts Handout (1).docx.pdf

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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Creative Writing Prompts for IB Learner Profile

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Creative Writing Prompts for IB Learner Profile

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The IB strives to create internationally minded people who become responsible members of local, national and global communities. In the wake of COVID-19, our children are now learning first hand how their actions and attitudes have larger implications on their communities and countries. A simple example-the choice of staying home, when possible, helps limit the spread of the covid-19 disease and keeps community spreading at bay. By obliging cheerfully to stay at home, our children are displaying their international mindedness-putting the world ahead of them.

As students continue to stay home, it's a great time to immerse in learning experiences that foster each of the 10 learner profile attributes, encouraging reflection, open-mindedness, and inquiry. Here's a list of creative writing prompts for each learner profile attribute that you could do with your students and children, aged 7-12 years. We promise these challenging, and significant exercises will delight, engage and inspire young learners to be expressive about what's really on their mind. Use these prompts and get their creative juices flowing! (Most of these writing prompts can be used as speaking prompts for young learners.)

As teachers, you could assign these writing prompts as home projects for students to do. You can start a Class Discussion in Toddle Classroom so students can read each other's ideas, provide feedback, and get inspired! You can also give students the opportunity to share their creative writing piece on the Toddle Student App in the media of their choice. Some students might want to share a written piece while others may want to submit a voice recording or video recording.

1. Imagine a toy in your room comes to life. What will you do together?

2. Your house could be made of anything you'd like. Yes, even chocolate. What will you make your house with and why? What would it look like?

3. If you could build a dream house, what rooms would it have?

1. What is your favorite book that someone has read to you? How does that story end? Now imagine, the story does not end there! What happens next in the story and how does it end?

2. You are responsible for creating a whole new city - what would your city be like?

3. Write a letter to your favorite cartoon character.

4. If you could be any emotion, what emotion would you be? Write a poem and tell us!

5. You're the first person on Planet Earth. No one else is around. What do you do? How do you start communicating? Who do you talk to?

The all-in-one collaboration platform for educators.

Toddle streamlines planning, assessments, reports, projects, portfolios, and family communication - all from one place!

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Shradha is the director of product innovation and user engagement at Toddle. Having been a teacher herself, she's passionate about supporting teachers with a thriving lifelong learning community and innovative technology. She has a Masters from Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Disclaimer - This resource has been produced independently of and not endorsed by the IB. Toddle's resources seek to encourage sharing of perspectives and innovative ideas for classroom teaching & learning. They are not intended to be replacements for official IB guides and publications. Views and opinions expressed by the authors of these resources are personal and should not be construed as official guidance by the IB. Please seek assistance from your school's IB coordinator and/or refer to official IB documents before implementing ideas and strategies shared within these resources in your classroom.

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40 Creative Writing Prompts to Foster the IB Learner Profile

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Engage and inspire every child to be a writer with these creative, open-ended prompts and foster the IB learner profile attributes in your PYP classroom.

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The IB believes in an inclusive approach to education designed to remove or reduce barriers so that every student can fully participate in IB programmes.

Inclusive education is facilitated in a culture of collaboration, mutual respect, support and problem-solving involving the whole school community.

Across the world, inclusive education has grown from a movement that was about the inclusion of students with disabilities to a holistic approach that is about all learners and values the diversity of the student population.
The IB approaches equity and inclusive education in two main ways:

inclusive principles in the design of IB programmes

inclusive education practices in IB World Schools.

Inclusive principles in the design of IB programmes

IB programmes are designed to ensure inclusivity and equitability-allowing all IB learners to have equal opportunities to learning pathways, learning experiences and educational recognition. The IB applies these principles for programmes and subjects.
When designing and developing the curriculum, the IB aims to meet the principles of equity and inclusive education through:

designing and developing a universally designed curriculum that is inclusive, fair and accessible for all IB learners

taking into consideration planned access and adaptations (inclusivity and accessibility for groups of students who would need specific access) and student well-being

drawing upon the full range of ways of knowing and incorporating experiences, contribution and histories from across cultures, nationalities, backgrounds, identities and perspectives

ensuring representation across cultures, nationalities, identities and experiences.

The above will allow all learners to feel represented and seen in the curriculum-to feel they each belong. Students are encouraged to think critically and holistically about a subject with an awareness of their biases. This can help reduce or remove cultural bias, and expose learners to multiple co-existing narratives and ways of knowing.

IB assessments address inclusivity, equitability and accessibility by:

using the principles of universal design of assessments, including cultural diversity and sensitivity to personal identity, in assessment design and development

considering student well-being during assessment design and development

providing inclusive access arrangements for students with access requirements

supporting students who are impacted by adverse circumstances during examinations

ensuring that evaluation of achievement is carried out in a reliable and valid manner by providing instructions to IB examiners to reduce or eliminate bias during the marking process.

Inclusive education practices in IB World Schools

The IB creates and maintains policies and creates resources to support equity and inclusive education in IB World Schools.

Access and inclusion policy

The access and inclusion policy is designed to enable full participation of all students across all four IB programmes in teaching, learning and assessment (formative and summative), by reducing and removing barriers using appropriate and well-planned access arrangements.

Each year tens of thousands of students with learning, physical, sensory, emotional, medical and other long-term challenges are supported in their IB assessments (Diploma Programme, Career-related Programme and MYP eAssessments). Students whose learning, emotional and functional stability are impacted by personal, family, social or other life circumstances (such as mental health difficulties, gender and sexual identity-related challenges, or being affected by war etc.) are also supported through this policy.
Read the access and inclusion policy (PDF, 3.1 MB)
Adverse circumstances policy

The adverse circumstances policy supports individual students who are impacted by circumstances such as bereavement, injuries, illnesses, or groups of students impacted by circumstances such as natural disasters during the assessment period.
Read the adverse circumstances policy (PDF, 2.6MB)
The IB principles of equity and inclusive education focus on all students-equal opportunities for every IB learner. Equal opportunities in the learning journey will not mean equal outcomes, but the focus is on all IB students fully participating and engaging in IB programmes. The principle is to emphasize similarities and strengths and not differences and what divides us.

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Equity and inclusive education in the IB

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The IB believes in an inclusive approach to education designed to remove or reduce barriers so that every student can fully participate in IB programmes.

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The UDL Guidelines are a tool used in the implementation of Universal Design for Learning, a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. Learn more about the Universal Design for Learning framework from CAST. The UDL Guidelines can be used by educators, curriculum developers, researchers, parents, and anyone else who wants to implement the UDL framework in a learning environment. These guidelines offer a set of concrete suggestions that can be applied to any discipline or domain to ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.

Reenvisioning the UDL Guidelines

Because the UDL Guidelines are meant to be informed by feedback from the field as well as new research, they have been updated several times in the past. We are in the process of updating the Guidelines once again in our UDL Rising to Equity initiative.

This update will focus specifically on addressing systemic barriers that result in inequitable learning opportunities and outcomes. CAST aims to develop a transparent, inclusive, and community-driven process. If you are interested in collaborating and staying updated on our progress, we invite you to complete a brief survey.

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The UDL Guidelines are a tool used in the implementation of Universal Design for Learning, a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. Learn more about the Universal Design for Learning framework from CAST. The UDL Guidelines can be used by educators, curriculum developers, researchers, parents, and anyone else who wants to implement the UDL framework in a learning environment. These guidelines offer a set of concrete suggestions that can be applied to any discipline or domain to ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.

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2017 Piedmont IB 8th Grade Community Project Showcase

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MYP Personal Project Fair Grade 10 | November 2019