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Creating and Using an Assessment Blueprint

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Creating and Using an Assessment Blueprint

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In this post we want to show you an example of a blue print created to design a reading task. You will see the blue print and the reading assessment. We hope you like it! 🥰

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In today’s post, we are going to talk about an important feature that teachers must consider when assessing students. As teachers, we can’t assess only the product that students submit, but we must consider the whole process. Therefore, feedback takes a pivotal role here. First, it needs to be effective in order for students to understand what their problems are and how they can improve them. This is something that not only can contribute to students' learning processes, but also it enhances teachers’ teaching practices, since we are able to see in which aspects students need more practice or if we need to change something in the way we deliver our lessons.

The following video gives a clear example on how to give effective feedback. We can see that the teacher starts giving positive feedback to the student, highlighting his strengths, this is helpful for him in the sense that it can motivate him to keep working on, and he realizes his progress learning the lesson. Moreover, the teacher points him out the sentences that need correction without telling him what to correct exactly, but asking him open-ended questions with a swift tone of voice (What might you do differently if you did this again?), which enables the student realizes where the mistakes are and correct them.

This video can serve as a model for you as a teacher to put into practice effective feedback. It’s better to give personal feedback to students even though this could take more time, but it’s worth it, since you and the student can see his/her progress throughout the course.

Maybe, the only thing that I could do differently here is the speed of the speech. I would slow down a bit the speech in this way students can understand better the feedback, especially if we are working in a TEFL classroom.

I hope this information helps you to deliver effective feedback to your students and improve your students’ learning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=137&v=tTNKWbhQKYQ&feature=emb_logo

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As teachers, we know the importance of feedback and the role in plays; however, not all teachers know how to provide it in a helpful way so that students can improve and reach the goals. In this post we will differentiate between two kinds of feedback and how they affect students and their learning process, so that we can figure out which one is more effective and how to apply it in our context.

According to Prof. Dylan Wiliam there are two types of feedback present in schools
Ego involving feedback: focus on person position in the class
Task involving feedback: focus on what you need to improve and how to do it

Yet, one of them is more effective than the other. Wiliam states that ego involving feedback actually lowers achievement and is rarely effective; but task involving feedback is much more helpful because it helps students move forward in their learning process and it states what they need to work on specifically.

The problem with ego based feedback is that it doesn't help students to advance in their learning, it doesn't say what is the next step. It just focuses the student in a place in the classroom.

To further analyze this idea, we decided to do a mental exercise and remember our years at school and what type of feedback was really useful for us as students. We realice that when we were given explicit and detailed feedback about our performance in a task, it was easier for us to correct our mistakes and improve.

An specific example one of us could remember was when after a speaking test, the teacher gave feedback about pronunciation of specific words and where the mistake was. The teacher explained how it was pronounced during the test and how de correct pronunciation was. That type of feedback is task involving because if focuses on the performance of the activity and explicitly mentions the mistakes made and how to correct them.

In the Chilean context, this can be really helpful because many times students feel frustrated because they feel they do everything wrong and they don't know where to start working on their performance or how to correct some errors. Giving task involving feedback, you can point out the mistakes and guide students to improve step by step.

If you want to continue learning about feedback we advise you to read The Power of Feedback by Hattie and Timperley (2007): http://area.fc.ul.pt/en/artigos%20publicados%20internacionais/The%20Power%20of%20Feedback_Hattie_Timperley2007_77_1_81_112.pdf

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Example of a Speaking Task and how to Assess it

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Example of a Speaking Task and how to Assess it

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CLICK THE LINK IF YOU WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT ASSESSMENTS :)
WE HOPE YOU LIKE IT!

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Welcome to our first post! :)

Today we will discuss about CLassroom Based Assessment and the use of the VOICES Model.

Key concepts: CBA and VOICES Model

CBA stands for Classroom Based Assessment and it consists of all methods teachers have to assess students’ learning process and learning outcomes in order to have a record and use it for future planning of lessons. Moreover this would help students improve their outcomes in the course.

The VOICES model consists of six key issues that teachers should have in mind when implementing CBA. The model is called Voices because it is a mnemonic, in other words, each letter of the word “voices” corresponds to one issue.

V stands for varied, this means that our assessments should vary in the way we assess, in the content that we assess and taking into account the different learning styles of the students.

O stands for ongoing, this means that we should have one formative assessment per lesson in order to have a real record of the students’ performance throughout the course.

I stands for integrated, this means that we should integrate the CBA in our syllabus and not only in one or two lessons.

C stands for collaborative, this means that we should include students, other teachers, and/or parents during the implementation of the CBA in the classroom.

E stands for evidenced, this means that we should have a record of students’ results and communicate them to students, in this way students have knowledge of their process.

S stands for systematic, this means that we should implement the CBA in an organised way.

How can we implement VOICES model in the classroom?
It is important to have in mind the VOICES model every time we make an assessment even when it is formative. In our personal experience, we tried to vary the kinds of assessments we did, like presentations, exit tickets, traffic light activity, formal tests, dialogs. The idea was to assess students in different ways in every lesson, and not only have summative assessments throughout the course, but also formative to have a record and evidence of students' progress. We also wanted to have in mind what students enjoyed doing and what were their preferences so that we could integrate them into the lessons' activities and evaluations.

Now we want to talk more about this, you can comment any doubts that you have regarding this topic. If you have more ideas about how to implement it in your lessons please be free to write a comment below.
We will read all your comments and answer your questions.

Thank you for reading, we hope you liked it. :)