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Think-Pair-Share - Substance Use and Abuse

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Think-Pair-Share - Substance Use and Abuse

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To determine what students already know about a unit before the teacher starts a lesson a think-pair-share can be given to the students. This tool requires students to think and write about what they already know, pair up and exchange ideas and then share those ideas with the class. After the ideas have been share the teacher should collect the worksheet to examine who knows what. This tools allows a teacher to gain an understand of what the students and the class already knows.

In the future I will continue to use think pair shares as they requiring independent thinking, collaboration, and communication, which are all essential skills in life. In addition, this tool is versatile to any any subject or unit that is taught within a intermediate or senior learning environment.

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According to OME (2010), Assessment As learning refers to the ongoing process of monitoring the progress towards achieving the learning goals. Teachers use the feedback from this style of assessment to make adjustments in the learning approaches being used. The evidence of student learning and achievements are based on the curriculum expectations.

For students this type of assessment helps to develop their capacity to be independent, autonomous learners who are able to set individual goals, monitor their progress, create next steps, and reflect on thinking and learning (OME, 2010).

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Examples of tools, provided by Regier (2012b) that can be used for assessment as learning are:

Exit cards: Close to the end of class provide students with a piece of paper to answer a question. When students are leaving the class they are to hand in the piece of paper. The teacher can make adjustment to the lesson with the information that they gathered.

Examples/ Non examples: Get the students to provide examples or non examples of the topic that is being studied. Then get students to explain why it is or is not an example.

Matching activities: A quick way to check for understanding of vocabulary or facts within a certain topic. can be done with matching cards or with a handout.

3, 2, 1: Similar to an exit ticket but the questions are always going to be the same. They are:

Three things things they have learned about the topic.

Two personal connections to the topic.

One thing that in unclear or one question they have about the topic (Regier, 2012b).

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This assessment as tool is useful to see if students understand the concepts that are being taught. While on placement exit cards where used when the classes used community resources such as PUSH Fitness and the Canada Games Complex. Because Every student could not be supervised at the exact same time the exit tickets helped to gage what the students were doing each day in the community.

One the benefits of exits tickets are their versatility. In the future exit tickets will be used not only to monitor what students do in the community, but to see if students understand the content that I am trying to teach them. If they do not understand I can make the necessary changes in my teaching style, which will hopefully help. Some of the down falls of exit tickets are students do not want to complete them, they are repetitive, and students complete them at different rates and you have to keep the early people entertained and the people that answer slower from being late to their next class.

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According to the Ontario Ministry of Education (OME) (2010), this style of assessment is an ongoing process used, by teachers and students, to determine and monitor what the student has already learned, what the student will need to learn, and how to teach the student. What they learned and will learn is referring to the knowledge and skills identified within the overall and specific expectations.

Assessment For Learning is typically used before starting a new lesson or unit of study. When this style of assessment is successful  it helps the teacher plan instructions and assessments that is personalized  to reach a student's learning goals (OME, 2010)

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OME (2010) states that the final type of assessment is used at or near the end of unit to summarize the learning that has taken place. It is collected in three different sources: observation, conversation, and student products. In order to use this assessment type successfully, the teacher, sometimes with the help of the students, must develop success criteria. Students then complete an assessment and have their work compared to the criteria. The result of this comparison are a statement of how well a student is learning and becomes public for parents, teacher, the student and others to see. Professional judgement is used to determine the quality of learning that took place, which could alter further instructions (OME, 2010).

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There are many different tools that can be used to determine assessment for learning. Some examples, provided by Regier (2012a), of assessment for learning are:

Drawings: This is a visual representation of all the information that the students know related to the topic.

Four Corners: This activity gets students moving around a classroom to show the level of agreement with a question/ topic. After choose the corner that they agree with more they can discuss why they picked that corner and then share it with the rest fo the class.

Fist to Five/ Thumbs: These are quick exercise where students show the level of understanding on their hands. Fist to Five is a scale from zero to five, and Thumbs is a yes or no.

One minute essays: Provide students with a question  about the topic of discussion. Give them one minute to answer the question.

Think-Pair-Share: This gets students to answer a question or questions independently, then share their answer with someone else. They then pick what they feel best answers the question and then they share that with the class (Regier, 2012a).

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Regier (2012c) provides examples of some tools that can be used to examine assessment for learning. They are as followed.

Role Play: Students can provide a visual representation of what students have learned in the unit. Prior to the role play assessment students may or may not know the scenarios that they might get.

Journals: Used to have conversations with students about a specific topic. Can provide students with follow up questions to determine the depth of their understanding.

Checklists: A checklist is used to record observations of student learning. Over the course of the unit a teacher can see what the students have mastered or need additional time with.

Projects: Students pick their own area of interest to provide evidence of learning. If it for an unit then the project would have multiple parts all pertaining to each subtopic (Regier, 2012c).

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This assessment tool would be used at the end of the unit, and show the teacher if the students understand the concepts that were taught in class. This tool would be useful to assess a large group of individual's knowledge and understanding of a unit or topic within a short period of time. In this particular example, the quiz is being used to check for knowledge and understanding of the sexual health unit. However, to check for communication, thinking and application this artifact should be pair with another assessment tool; while on placement this tool was paired with role playing scenarios.

This artifact will be beneficial in the future as it is reusable from year to year, quick and easy to make, and it is easy for the teacher to mark and hand back. However, this artifact hinders assessment of learning as it only checks for basic understanding rather than a deep understanding of the concepts, students do not like them, and some students do not test well.

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This assessment tool would be used near the end of the unit, so students can put what they learned into practice. Each group of students would pick one scenario, create an ending, and act it out in front of the class. As students perform their scenario in front of the class the teacher writes notes, which are later compared to the success criteria. This tool is great to use if your students are creative and enjoy trying new things. It is also beneficial in a health class as it puts the students in situations that they have learned about, and allows them to decide as a group the best way to hand the decision.

This artifact is a way of testing thinking, communication, application, and knowledge of understanding of a specific topic; in this example the topic is sexual decision making. Role play is a fantastic assessment of learning tool as it also addresses collaboration, self-regulation and responsibility skills of students, gets students out of their comfort zone and their seats, and has them considering real life situations.
However, there are drawbacks to this assessment tool; this includes: students may be scared to talk in front of their peers, the teacher can not write what they say fast enough, and if a student misses a day an alternate task will need to be give.

The scenarios in this example have been provided by the Alberta Health Service (2012).

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Culminating Assignment - Mental Health and Wellness

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Culminating Assignment - Mental Health and Wellness

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A culminating assessment is a form of assessment of learning that can link together multiple topics or units. Depending on how the culminating assignment is set up it can test students’ knowledge and understanding, communication, application and thinking on a topic or unit. For this particular culminating assignment mental health, physical health, the education system, and SMART Goal setting were being linked together. This tool is useful for checking for a deeper understanding of the topic; as well as, to practice grammar, writing, research, and organization skills. In culminating assignments such as this, students have the ability to express themselves and have a choice in the product that they create.

In the future culminating assignments will be used in my class room as they provide students a choice on what they research or discuss, allow the students to reflect on personal experiences, the product is the student choice, and students have class time to finish the assignment where they can access multiple resources. Although there are many benefits of this assessment tool, it is time consuming, the topic may be to broad or narrow, difficult for ELL students, and student may be required to write their answers out.

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Observation Checklist - Daily Participation

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Observation Checklist - Daily Participation

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Daily observation is an ongoing process; in a physical education class it looks at students' participation, dress code, safety, and tardiness. Daily observation is not only helpful while seeing what your students struggle or excel with, but it also helps the teacher identify risky behaviours. If a teacher is able to identify these behaviours then they can try to determine why the student is acting a certain way and try to help them.

In my future classroom I will be using daily observation rubrics and checklists in my class; however, I would like to collaborate with my students to create the participation criteria. Furthermore, I would like to have a movement rubric that tell me what grade of movement students are participating at, so I can see where additional help is needed. The downfall of this assessment tool is if students do not show up the teacher cannot see which areas a student is struggling with.

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This tool assess the whole classes knowledge and understanding on questions or topics provided by the teacher. While the students are writing down ideas about the question, the teacher should be walking around and see who is contributing to the conversation and who is not. This will give the teach an idea of who understands what concepts. If students do not know answers for the questions, they will be learning as their peers share ideas, and all the answers will be shared and discussed.

In the future I plan on using brainstorming on chart paper because it is a useful tool for promoting collaboration and teamwork within a classroom setting. It also provides a product that can be posted around the classroom as a reminder of what have have previously learned.

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Sticky notes is an assessment for learning tool that requires students to write an answer on a sticky note. To get students more engaged with this idea teachers can call it an old school twitter board. Once the question is answered the students will bring their sticky note to the front of the class and stick it onto the board. At that point the teacher can read them out loud or collect them and read them later.  From this information the teach can understand what students know, what they need to learn more about, and how they can learn.

In the future I believe that I will use the sticky notes method of assessment for learning. This tool does not require an abundance of time and materials, which is beneficial in a physical education class. The drawbacks of this assessment for tool is the sticky notes can be lost easily, students may forget to write their names, and students may no write anything and give the sticky note back.

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Using the website polleverywhere.com, the teacher can create interactive activities and questions for their class. On this website the teacher can make word clouds, Q&A, clickable images, surveys, open-ended questions, competitions, and more. This website lets the students answer anonymously, but the teacher can see the answers students post. In the classroom word clouds are very helpful as it shows what the students are sharing and the more an answer is share the larger the word appears. From this a teach can see what students know more and less about.

In the future word clouds and polleverywhere.com in the classroom as they are fun for students to watch the word cloud change in front of their faces. One of the downfalls of this assessment for tools is that it requires technology, so that would have to be signed out ahead of time or students could use their own technology.

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Alberta Health Services (2012). STI and HIV: Lesson 2. Retrieved from:  https://teachingsexualhealth.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/downloads/2012/08/CALM-STI-Lesson-2.pdf

Ontario Ministry of Education (2010). Growing success: Assessment, evaluation, and reporting in Ontario schools (First ed. ). Toronto, Ontario Canada: Queen's Printer for Ontarion.

Regier, N. (2012a). Book one: 50 Pre-assessment strategies. Focus on Student Learning- Instructional Strategies Series. [Online PDF]. Retrieved from: http://blogs.gssd.ca/csmith/files/2012/08/Book-One.pdf

Regier, N. (2012b). Book two: 60 Formative Assessment Strategies.Focus on Student Learning- Instructional Strategies Series. [Online PDF]. Retrieved from: https://portal.gssd.ca/public/mr3xg4k4nrxxq5dvfz4hq5lomq/Lists/SharedDocuments/Assessment/Formative%20Assessment%20Ideas-Natalie%20Regier.pdf

Regier, N. (2012c). Book three: Summative assessment- 50 ways to gather evidence of student learning. Focus on Student Learning- Instructional Strategies Series. [Online PDF]. Retrieved from: https://mycourselink.lakeheadu.ca/d2l/le/content/53690/viewContent/611523/View

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Assessment is important for altering instructions, providing feedback, and fostering learning, goals setting, and achievement. Without assessment there would be no way of measuring improvement within students, and no way of providing a meaningful education to students. The importance of assessment will be discussed in greater deal in the following posts.

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How instructions and assessment are linked to support learning.

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How instructions and assessment are linked to support learning.

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To support learning instructions and assessment complement each other.

Without assessment tools there is no way of getting feedback, which informs the teacher as to whether or not the instructions are efficiently working for the students.

Without instructions there would be no guided learning, which would make assessment useless because who know what students are learning.

If either the instruction and assessment is too strong or weak, then the students learning is at risk. When these two fundamental components of teaching are not equal, then the education system falls apart.

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To support learning, instruction and assessment must be linked together using feedback.

In order to provide instructions to students, teachers must use assessment for learning to determine a starting point. Once the starting place is determined than the teacher can start teaching the information that the students are going to learn.

To make sure that the students understand the teacher’s instructions, the teacher must use assessment as learning.

By using assessment as learn the teacher can provide feedback that determines whether or not the students understand the instruction, or if any adjustments need to be made to the pace, style, or delivery method of instructions.

Throughout the rest of the unit the previous two bulletin points are constantly revisited.

At the end of the unit or when assessment of learning tool is used, it is measuring two things. The first is how much content the students understood from the unit. The second is how successful the teacher’s instructions and assessment as tools were.

If a majority of the class does poor on the assessment of learning tool, then that means that the teacher did not to an adequate job delivering instructions or content to the class.

Another way to look at this process is by examining assessment and instruction as a negative feedback loop or closed loop.

The instructions are going to be given no matter what, but with the help of assessment and feedback adjustments can be made so that the teacher can do an adequate job teaching.

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How can a teacher use assessment ‘for,’ ‘as’ and ‘of’ learning to foster ownership of learning, goal setting and achievement?  Why is assessment important

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How can a teacher use assessment ‘for,’ ‘as’ and ‘of’ learning to foster ownership of learning, goal setting and achievement?  Why is assessment important

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I think that before any teaching/ learning of curriculum takes place the teacher should teach SMART goal setting, so students know how to make realistic goals to reach while getting their education.

Assessment for learning

Assessment for learning is the first step in fostering ownership of learning, goal setting and achievement. At this stage students must be honest and share how much information that they actually know. If a student’s knowledge is over represented, then they are missing information to be successful. If a student’s knowledge is under represented, then the goals they make are not challenging enough, and the student will not learn anything new.

Because everyone learns at a different pace and knows different information, adjustments need to make by a teacher. If the teacher does not know what students know then they cannot adjust.

Assessment as learning

Once a teacher knows how much the students' know, he or she can begin teaching and using assessment as learning tools. Feedback for assessment as tools gives students feedback. The feedback can let the student know if they need to apply themselves more, if they should think of strategies that would help them be successful, and get additional help if needed.

At this point the responsibility of learning is placed evenly between the teacher and the student. The teacher can adjust the instructions, and the students can recognize if they are struggling. If students can see that they are struggling early in a unit then they can get ahead of the problem early rather than when it is too late.

As more assessment as feedback comes to the students they should be able to adjust in order to reach their goals. The more information the students have the more ownership they have on their education.

Assessment of learning

When the teacher gets to the assessment of learning portion of the unit, the students can see if they learned new information and achieved their education related goals. By this point they should have had enough feedback from the assessment as learning tools to know what is working and what is not working for their learning.