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If you would like me to explain how I use these resources in my class, please feel free to send through a message and I can share how it works for me.
-Steph Watkins

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Instantly access over 40,000 of the best books & videos for kids on Epic

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Get unlimited access to 40,000 of the best books, audiobooks, videos, & more for kids 12 and under. Try it free.

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Wordless Picture Books

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View the Beyond Words collection on Epic plus over 40,000 of the best books & videos for kids.

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[Nonfiction Wednesday] On "Feeling" Sound in "Listen"

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We are delighted to dedicate our Wednesdays to featuring nonfiction titles, as per usual. Evelyn Glennie grew up in a musical household in the 1960s in the farm hills of Aberdeenshire, Scotland. She took to music at an early age quite naturally and instinctively - learning how to play musical instruments, the piano and the clarinet, by ear.

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Grade 1 Team

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Here are the apps to ask IT to help you download.

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There are 9 pages here, I print them as 9 to 1 page so they are the right size. I print these on green paper so they are easily seen in their writing books. Students set goals during conferencing time, alongside the teacher or if they have reflected and are ready for a new goal, they have access to the template and they can write a new one.

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There are many posters to choose from. I select a few at a time to display on the wall. I try and connect them to what I think the students need, mini lessons or units we are doing.

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Go for Dash and Dot your students can easily steer them using their finger. Wonder and blockly your students can begin to code using blockly.
Great for math, sight words, and mapping, the sky is the limit.
Lay out a huge number line on the floor, even writing numbers on masking tape. Dash can help you use the number line to add, count etc.
Lay a deck of cards on the floor, and have 2 teams. Give a math problem, 2 + 1 etc. The first team to drive their dash to the 3 card gets to collect it.
Lay down sight words, parts of speech, genres whatever your students will be engaged. Need more help please come and ask me! Melissa

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It is the same as Dash although this ball moves, you can paint with him, put it in a little bit of water. It is the same set up, either drive the ball or use blockly to code. He is great for mazes, coordinates, whatever you can imagine. Pinterst has many STEAM ideas for both robots. Have fun!

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Here is a reflection for the students to use. Again I print these as 9 to 1 page so they are nice and small. I print these on orange paper. Students can reflect during conference time, alongside the teacher, sometimes I will ask everyone to reflect and other times, students will come and get their own reflection card and do it when they are ready. These are in a place that is accessible to them whenever they are writing.

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I am also introducing more reading goals with my students. Here are some resources I am using.

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Print as 9 to 1 page, I print these on blue paper. These are used in the same way as writing goals and then students can also use the reflecting sheet during their reading time.

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Teachers Teaching Teachers - Presentation

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Teachers Teaching Teachers - Presentation

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Check out this A2 (Landscape) in mm designed by Tania Mansfield.

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These can be displayed in the classroom and help students to select a goal they need at any given time.

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PYP & Inquiry - What woudl you like to START doing?

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PYP & Inquiry - What woudl you like to START doing?

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Environments - What would you like to START doing?

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Environments - What would you like to START doing?

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Evidence of Learning - What would you like to START doing?

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Evidence of Learning - What would you like to START doing?

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This is a recap of the Plenary presentation recently given at the SAIBSA PYP Job-Alike Conference hosted by NEEV Academy through virtual Conference. (March 2021)

Rethinking Assessment

When considering how we as educators may begin to “Rethink Assessment” especially at this time, I think, we should first pause to consider how COVID-19 has affected our learning communities worldwide. COVID19 has been a game changer for all of us as it has presented a myriad of both challenges and opportunities to not just the world of education, but for business, for hospitality and travel and for those in the creative and technology industries.

2020 and now 2021 has been a year for learning, unlearning and relearning for all of our community….. leadership, teachers, learners and parents.

It has been a time where we have had to rethink the roles in education as home based learning and social distancing have meant that our families and parents have taken on some of the teachers’ role, and we as educators have had to support not just our learners but also our parents as we have had to take on role of techsperts, movie makers, performer, and counselors.

But these different times have brought us together and made us stronger learning communities full of care and compassion – developing an empathy and appreciation for each other, our situation, our individual and collective challenges, have also highlighted the strengths we each bring , leading to growing partnerships in learning – as true learning communities.

COVID-19 has been a time of re-evaluating, re-creating, and re-thinking our pedagogical practice and approach to teaching and learning and illuminated the necessity for this change as our learners have become increasingly more self-directed in their learning and with that more self-aware of themselves as learners.

So, how can we use all we have learned through COVID-19 and apply this to our assessment practice? First, let’s explore what our shared understanding is of ‘Assessment’?

Beginning with a pre-assesment using Menti Meter to inquire into our shared understanding

What are the first TWO words you think of when we say “ASSESSMENT” ?

From Menti Meter…

The root definition of Assessment – is To Sit Beside…….

As in: To engage, to involve, to share, to trust

This conjures up visions of team learning, of collaboration, and partnership, working together to discuss, reflect,and build community and a culture of coaching and support.

The definition Implies a presence of dialogue, discourse, one person trying to understand the other’s perspective before giving value judgements…..
(Breakamp & Ory 1994)

It aligns so closely with our values as IB PYP Schools – Putting our learners first….and our shared beliefs and our ‘image of the child’ as competent, capable young humans and able and through agency – have voice, choice and ownership of their learning ….

So, if we as PYP Schools believe this about our learners then, how are our current practices supporting these values?

And the big question …. Are they?

I believe that we have somehow, as educators, got lost – and instead of something we do with our learners, as in “Sit beside” we somehow have gone down the pathway to viewing assessment as something we do TO our Learners, something we as adults control and plan assessment in isolation from our learners.

I wonder if we have maybe got too caught up in the cycle of planning, teaching,and assessing and that possibly we have forgotten to pause, reflect and consider our learners and ‘learning’ rather than teaching.

Have we caught up in the ‘noise’ of edutalk and the cycle of doing and been blinded a little by the flood of Edu myths and edu sales that we have in fact lost our way and rather than ‘rethink’ we maybe just need to actually take time to pause, to consider and to revisit the original purpose and thoughts on assessment?

So, as we pause and consider WHY we assess?

What is the purpose of Assessment?

Using Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle and referring to the IB Documents:

The purpose of Assessment:

is to inform learning and teaching.

involves the gathering and analysis of information about learner learning to inform teaching practice. (Please note this is about  the learner’s LEARNING and not about the learner as an individual- which is an important clarification to make)

supports educators as we track progress and plan next steps

supports educators in reporting

And most importantly, supports our learners and informs students of their progress.

Assessment should identify what learners know, understand and can do at different stages throughout the learning process.

If our learning communities do not work together to ensure we have a shared understanding of Assessment and that these values are reflected in our practice, we can actually be doing harm to our learners – having an impact on their motivation to learn, their passion for learning and their ideal of school…. To be honest…

This quote from Stiggins and the potential for doing harm to those we are entrusted to care for and support is very actually quite scary

Somewhere along the way we may have blurred the lines between what is Assessment and what is EVALUATION.

ASSESSMENT | EVALUATION

INCREASES
Quality of Learning and Teaching

JUDGES
Quality of Learning and Teaching

Benefits the LEARNER | Benefits External Stakeholders and Decision Makers
Monitors Learning | Assigns grades
Leads to improvement | Analyses success in a finite manner
Provides Accountability | Forms decisions
Ongoing | Provides Closure
Positive | Is at one moment in time
Individualised | Judgemental
Valuable | Applied against standards
Provides Feedback | Shows Short falls and works on a deficit model.

Think back to our own practice  and reflect… Are we sitting beside our learners?

Are we taking time to understand our learners, and their perspectives? Have we got a little lost ourselves along the way? Have we become a society obsessed with measuring? With ranking? With metrics?? With EVALUATING?

At the moment we seem to be obsessed with assessing everything…

We actually have so much data – we don’t quite know what to do with it. There’s Too much ‘noise’ and we need to identify the ‘signals’ – what is important to ‘know’?

Howard Gardner said that the greatest enemy to UNDERSTANDING is coverage” – I believe we’ve got too focused on ‘hitting’ all the standards that we’ve lost our way a little…..

Home based / Remote learning created an understandable scramble for “keeping learners busy” and has revealed cracks in our assessment policies and practices and we found ourselves in danger of slipping back into what is easy to assess rather than what we need to assess.

When there are too many quizzes and tests, exams and summatives – learners come to perceive assessments as something that others – be it teachers, parents, test makers and administrators – people outside themselves – do to them.

When we as the educators sit in the driver’s seat our learners feel insecure and stop trusting themselves and trusting their own judgment about the quality of their work and start believing that the opinions of  others carry more influence and power then their own

Those same questions are applicable to a discussion of assessment choices.

This goes back to our view on our role as educators – our role in learning and teaching.

So where is our responsibility as educators?

How can we ensure, as learning communities  that our assessment practices are reflecting our beliefs and values and at the same time are effective and provide valuable information to understand what constitutes learning. How we can support learning, and  ensure it is meaningful to all members of the learning community, and honours our learners and THEIR growth and THEIR learning?

The PYP approach to assessment gives the learners a vital role in the assessment process and engages the teachers in considering assessment as fit for purpose.

Lets’ review our IB PYP documents:

In Learning & Teaching (Page 67) we read:

“As IB PYP Schools our goal is to thoughtfully and effectively support learners as they successfully acquire knowledge, develop skills and build conceptual understanding and this  requires that both teachers and learners develop and demonstrate assessment capability.“

In The Learner – (Pg 2) we are reminded:

“When learners have agency, the role of the teacher and learner changes; the relationship between a teacher and a learner is viewed as a partnership.

Working within this partnership, learners become more self-aware of themselves as learners, are actively engaged in their learning and have ownership of their learning goals whilst being encouraged to take initiative, ask questions and monitor and adjust their learning as needed.

It is the learners that take responsibility for their learning and collaborate with teachers and other learners to plan, present and assess learning needs.”

So – as educators, If we truly honour agency we need to reconsider our role as educators and shift our practice to ensure we truly are ‘Sitting beside’ our learners in a partnership.

BUT HOW?  How can we work together to make this SHIFT, not just in our personal classroom practices but also in our school wide understanding and approach to assessment that honours our capable and competent learners?

Continuum of Assessment (Harlen, Johnson 2014)

The Assessment Continuum reflects the beliefs of the IB PYP in that when we have effective PYP assessment practice we can holistically integrate assessment for, of and as learning (Harlen, Johnson 2014) to support effective learning and teaching.

However, again I think that we may have lost our way and need to renavigate and evaluate where we are spending most of our time and energy and who is involved in this continuum and when.

When we look at some of our current practices, our continuum looks more like this,

when research – especially that with the learner as being a partner in learning –  should look more like this….

In 2012, Clark stated that “All members of the learning community develop assessment capability (Absolum et al. 2009) to make the “tacit knowledge that is ‘hidden’ within the learner transparent, explicit and available” (Clark 2012).

This quote takes us back to the traditional sense of teaching where the adult was at the front of the room – the expert, the fountain of all knowledge and there was so much “Secret Teacher Business” – Again we must continue to shift our practice from top down, to one to a partnership in the learning process.

Let us pause to define – Assessment Capable –

When we, as members of our learning community are ‘Assessment capable”, we:

are aware of, and understand, why we are assessing and what we are assessing.

have a shared understanding of what constitutes quality learning and the criteria for success.

have a shared understanding of how to assess and what data is being collected, recorded, analysed and shared.

All members of of the learning community are assessment capable when the assessment process is collaborative and inclusive of all members of the learning community. (Hipkins 2009; Booth, Hill, Dixon 2014)

So how can we support our teachers in their journey to becoming Assessment Capable Teachers?

Learning & Teaching, Fig. AS02, Page 71

Our teachers are viewed as Assessment Capable when

they have a positive mindset – When we believe in our learners and are open to developing partnerships and relationships with our learners

they take time to monitor their learners’ knowledge, skills and understanding and get to know their learners and what they know and can do.

they use assessment practices to reflect and self-assess their teaching practice as educators and adapt  as needed to support the learning and learners.

This means a lot of “letting go” especially in planning as we need, as educators, to be adaptable and flexible, responding to the needs of the learners as evidenced in our assessment data.

Assessment Capable practitioners:

take time to co construct with our learners what ‘success’ might look like

provide multiple opportunities for learners to apply their learning and demonstrate their Understanding, Knowledge and skills.

Now, let’s pause here to talk cricket. We are, afterall, the majority of us, in India.

And what a great home series India is having under the captaincy of Virat Kohli, and with stars like Ravichandran Ashwin .

As I was watching the cricket, I watched how Kohli, as the captain, responded to what was happening on the pitch throughout the match and I was reminded of our role as educators and assessment.

When fielding, the captain and his team go out with a game plan in mind, but as captain, Kohli’s role is to continually monitor the game, assessing his player performance, analysing the batsmen – considering which type of bowler is going to be most effective against the batsman, and then adjusting where he needs to direct his fielders.

As captain, he is continually consulting with his bowlers, adapting and adjusting to the conditions, to the wicket and to the opposition. It is a skill of ‘juggling’ many factors, many players and many options all towards a shared goal of minimising the success of the opposition batsmen.

Kohli, his bowlers and his team have a shared understanding of the game, their chosen strategies and have a shared language in which they continually monitor, document and measure their success and thus make informed decisions together that contribute to the success of their game.

We too, as educators need to be ‘Kohli” continually assessing in partnership with our learners and adapting our plan towards a shared goal. We need to be continually monitoring the learning and using the data to adapt and adjust our teaching practice as best suits the learners and their learning.

This graphic below is from Page 76 of Learning and Teaching and represents the four dimensions of Assessment.

That is

Monitoring,

Documenting,

Recording,

Reporting

The four diimensions of Assessment (Learning and Teaching)

Although the four dimensions of assessment are not weighted the same; each dimension has its own value. The PYP chooses to put emphasis on MONITORING and DOCUMENTING learning as these dimensions are critical in providing actionable feedback for the learner.

Monitoring learning

Monitoring employs a plethora of techniques that are centered around the learner and guide the teacher in planning next steps;

It aims to check the progress of learning against personal learning goals and success criteria. It is continuous and occurs daily through a variety of strategies be it through observations of planned activities that  provide a wealth of information produced in a more relaxed, informal environment.

Through monitoring, It is entirely possible for a teacher to assess a child’s understanding even during a pair or group task, without the child being aware of it and can provide the teacher with an opportunity to assess a child’s social development by the way that they are able, or unable, to work collaboratively as part of a team.

We can monitor through conversations and conferences with teachers, learners and parents – providing our learners with opportunities to understand more about themselves as learners.

Questioning is a skill that supports the monitoring of learning – as we ask questions to gauge understanding or to guide to a more detailed response. Questions allow our learners to clarify their thinking and can stimulate a response or further discussion from a peer.

Monitoring learning and the reflections that follow – involves both the learners and the teachers using the data to then co construct feedback to feed forward for next steps in learning.

As we can see from the graphic above, THIS is where we should be spending most of our time and energy – monitoring learning.

Documenting learning

Documenting learning is the compilation of the evidence of learning, it can be physical or digital and is shared with others to make learning visible and apparent.

It reveals insights into learning and provides opportunities to reconnect with learning goals and success criteria. Both our young learners and our teachers are involved in the documentation of learning along with reflections to support the evidence of learning.

As well as the evidence piece itself, the learner may include the documentation tools that may include checklists, rubrics, or anecdotal records.

Documentation of learning is the second dimension where we should be spending time and energy.

Through both monitoring and documenting learning we can collect evidence of understanding and ‘check in’ with the learner .

I’ve included here some of the ‘check ins’ our ISHCMC teachers, under the guidance of our Pedagogical Coach, @fi_Hurtado have used to check understanding of the concepts throughout the unit of inquiry.

Measuring learning

Measuring learning is to capture what a learner has learned at a particular “point in time”.

This is what we seem to LOVE to do – as a society,  we love to measure, to mark, to grade. We love to compare – and our society full of social media likes and followers and streaks.

But we have to remember that not all learning can be, or needs to be, measured.

Measurement tools can be teacher, school or commercially designed – and provide multiple data points to evaluate learner progress.

Examples could be running records, maths interviews, independent writing samples and associated tools or MAP and ACER assessments.

When we measure learning our aim is to analyse the data to support evidence-based decision-making – this could be decisions for individual learners, grade levels and across the school to identify patterns and trends in learner learning.

While these results can useful to the teacher for planning and writing reports or as starting point for their next teacher, they are often of limited value to the learner themselves.

We no longer have this term ‘ Summative’ within our PYP vocabulary, on our planners or as part of our planning process. We may have a project or inquiry towards the end of the unit that provides our learners with the opportunity to demonstrate their understanding or transfer of the concepts, but we have moved away from this paradigm of teach, teach, learn, assess.

Although measurement can be completely teacher driven as in ‘pen and paper tests’ and ‘running records’ there are many opportunities that we could, with a shift in mindset, also be co-constructed with the learner and teh process itself used as part of the assessment.

Reporting learning

Our fourth dimension and the smallest dimension is Reporting on learning which serves to inform the learning community.

Reporting provides opportunities to describe the progress and achievement of the learners’ learning and identifies areas for growth. Also important to remember here that “REPORTING LEARNING” is not just the written report and that reporting learning includes conferencing, sharing of portfolios, presentations such as our PYPx and also assemblies and learning journeys.

So, as we Rethink Assessment as educators and learning communities this graphic is a great reference to use when considering current practices.

As a school, at ISHCMC, under the guidance of @fi_hurtado,we embarked on a self-audit of our current classroom practices. We began the audit with a brainstorm of all the ways we assessed learners and learning within the classroom. As a brainstorm – all ideas and reflections were encouraged.

Our next steps were to sort this data – where would this practice sit within the matrix ? Would it be part of Monitoring, Documenting, Measuring or Reporting?

Once the data was sorted, we then worked out our ratios and proportions. If the whole was 16 (4 x 4) then what would be the proportion of each dimension?

As teaching teams, we then created visual models to represent our practice – where were we spending the most time and energy?

As a school – this self-audit highlighted to us two things:

1. That we were spending lots of time and energy on Measuring learning

2. That we had so many different ways of assessing – there was more quantity rather than quality – we were ‘drowning in data’ but not taking time to analyse and use that data to inform our teaching and learning.

Through our reflection process we also discovered that we did not, as educators or as a school, value Monitoring learning enough. As educators – especially our EY practitioners we are continuously monitoring our learners and learning and adapting and adjusting our practice in response to monitoring – but we were not as a learning community, valuing this data.

So for us as a school – this audit supported us to rethink our assessment practices and also our understanding of assessment.

Shifting our mindset to view our learners as partners in learning, partners in planning and partners in assessment, how can we support the development of Assessment capable Learners?

Trevor Mackenzie asks similar questions ….

By taking an active role in their own assessment, learners analyse how they think and learn. They develop skills to move from being self-assessors to self-monitors, with the aim of becoming self-adjusters.

As IB PYP Schools, our framework is conceptual, and our scope & sequence documents are organised over phases – designed with the learner in mind to support the individual and their learning – and not the curriculum.  Learner first always………

There are no year level expectations in a series of achievement standards. No one is at, on, above or below expectations. Every learner is simply at a level of development defined by what learning is developmentally appropriate.
Griffin 2009

When considering our practice, and our beliefs in agency and our learners as capable and competent – how can we ensure we are developing the independence of learning, of reflection, of self- assessment and that meta-cognition skill of being able to self-adjust? What scaffolds and support can we provide our learners with as they move along the continuum with the goal being to put the control back into the hands of the learner leading to independence and competence?

If we as educatorrs can work along assessment continuums we will be able to support our learners as they develop confidence in becoming assessment capable learners who can confidently state “I Can…..:” , provide evidence to support their learning and identify next steps in their learning.

Learners take the initiative, with or without the assistance of others, in diagnosing their learning needs, formulating learning goals, identifying resources for learning, choosing and implementing appropriate learning strategies, and evaluating learning outcomes.
Malcolm knowles, 1972

This quote is from 1972, over 49 years ago – why has it taken us as educators and as schools so long to adjust and find our way back?

We at ISHCMC have been using the Gradual Increase of Indepence for about 5 years now , where our learners are able to self-assess and provide evidence for their self- assessment and are able to place themselves long the continuum and discuss WHY they have placed themselves there.

Educators at Nexus Singapore have been working with their learner to provide opportunities for self-reflection and assessment and have their “Agent Awesome”. These criteria co-constructed by learners and teachers – leading to a shared understanding of expectations and quality. (Thank you to Aaron Dustow for the share.)

We as educators, in partnership with our learners need to be designing opportunities for co-constructed goal setting, and providing learners with opportunities to identify their learning needs and developing not only goals – but also who, what and how they will need to support them in reaching those learning goals.

We need to also consider our assessment tools and consider that, Instead of rubrics – which can be text heavy, difficult to navigate and subjective – and possible moving towards Single point rubrics where the expectation can be co constructed and agreed on and as learners self assess, identify where they are in their learning and what they need to do to take next steps.

So action? What do we need to rethink? None of this matters if only one of two of our educators begin this journey – to benefit for our learners we need to ensure we are on a collective journey –  we need to develop – as learning communities – a CULTURE OF ASSESSMENT  and do as Sunflowers do…and move forward with a shared understanding and the same beliefs.

A school-wide assessment culture acknowledges the role assessment plays in informing the learner, learning and teaching, and the learning community about achievement, progress and in supporting decision-making.

A shared understanding across your learning community that is clearly communicated  as to your the purposes of assessment and reinforcement of the value of assessment in the monitoring, documenting, measuring and reporting of learning, is important in building a shared assessment culture. As we develop a culture of Assessment we need to ensure that all stakeholders, our learners, our parents, our leaders and our educators are aware of what and why we assess.

That ALL are aware of expectations of assessment and value the four dimensions of Assessment – and are aligned… to the balance of Monitoring, Documentin, Measuring and Reporting across dimensions.

To establish and foster a school-wide culture around assessment , we need:

to be developing assessment capability within the learning community

to develop a comprehensive assessment policy that emphasizes assessment integration

to be creating opportunities for teachers to plan, reflect and moderate assessment collaboratively

to be providing school-wide professional development opportunities around integrating effective assessment

to be reinforcing the role assessment plays in finding out what learners know and can do, and in identifying the next steps for their learning

to be reinforcing the links between monitoring, documenting, measuring and reporting of learning.

So time to reconsider and reflect. If we as PYP practioners believe that assessment is integral to everything we do, we then cannot consider assessement without also considering Learning and Teaching.

As practioners, I encourage you to take time to reflect – on your personal practice, your grade level and your school practice and carry out an honest self-reflection and audit of your practices.

How do you see our learners and our roles in the learning process?

Are you top down ?

Teacher being expert in all?

The ‘fountain’ of knowledge –

Are you as teachers doing all the planning?

Are teachers creating activities or engagements?

Are you working on a strengths based model – meeting our learners where they are – instead of where books, curriculum, companies state where they should be?

Are you providing opportunities for feedback that supports improvement and empowers the learner to make decisions in their learning?

Do you have SYSTEMS in recording, reflecting, and have established collection practice where learners have ownership over the narrative of their learning?

Are you involving parents in the process? Providing a voice for families? Educating them in what learning looks like – taking the focus off the product and shining the light on the process?

Are you ‘sitting beside?

conferencing, talking, building relationships?

Developing Assessment Capable learners?

Are you supporting growth and agency?

Are you truly – putting our learners at the centre of everything you do?

The goal of assessment for learning is not to eliminate failure, but rather to keep failure from becoming chronic and thus inevitable in the mind of the learner.

So let’s find our way back and “Rethink Assessment”……

The full recording can be found here on YOU TUBE

Thank you to SAIBSA and NEEV Academy for the opportunity to share my thinking with your educators.

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Co-constructing assessment criteria

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​Passionate PYP Educator and EdTech Integration Coach in South Korea. Former PYP Coordinator and Head of Computing Curriculum/ICT. Apple Distinguished Educator 2019, Google Educator L2, Microsoft…

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Check out this Presentation designed by Pita-Gay Nelson.