April Vertical Alignment by Jacqui Barna

Tiffany Rubino

2024-04-10 19:27:25 UTC

Overall, I think there is a decent balance. In ELA 7, the were many formative assessments that are going to be reduced for next year. As this is the first year with this curriculum as well as in this new system, things were a bit difficult to fully understand how it works.

In the future, we're looking to drastically reduce the number of formative assessments in writing modules. Smaller chunks of writing will be used as formative assessments. The full piece of writing will be the summative assessment.

Michelle Richar

2024-04-10 19:39:47 UTC

I think so. Each module has a summative assessment (either a test or a writing assignment). Test modules have quizzes throughout and writing modules have checkpoints throughout.

I do like that we dropped a few things throughout each of the modules to help the students focus on what was most important. For example, in writing modules, we dropped all quizzes so the students could focus on the writing.

Lindsey Davis

2024-04-10 19:43:19 UTC

I think we have a good balance of formative and summative. I would like to see any modules with no direct summative changed. For example, in Module 2, our kids wrote an essay in parts but then never had to hand in the full essay at the end. I think that part needs to be included for kids to know what an essay looks like, but also appreciate that they really did just write a full essay as a new 6th grader!

Kris Matson

kmatson19 — 2024-04-10 20:14:30 UTC

I do feel like we have a good mix of formative and summative assessments. However, when students are writing essays and each individual part is graded, I feel like the summative assessment should not have a higher point total than its parts. We are in essence grading the same assessment twice. I do think it is imperative for students to see the essay written as a whole, but the grading should be modified.

Tiffany Bachart

2024-04-11 00:17:54 UTC

This year was a year of change, and I think there are things we have learned from it. I do think there has been a decent balance, but I believe that the point values of some of the summative (writing) assessments are far too high when you factor in the sum of all parts. I agree with Kris regarding the writing- we are essentially grading the same thing twice (each part individually AND then as a whole). I hope to see that changing next year and having ONLY the final product count as the summative assessment (as Tif R. stated in her post). I also think it would help to eliminate formative assessments in the writing modules that do not directly relate to the writing (i.e. Knowledge Checks). It seems that ELA (at least ELA 7) has a SIGNIFICANT amount more assignments overall than other core content classes. I would like to see that be more equal next year as well. As of right now, ELA 7 has had 60 assignments, and to my understanding, SS 7 has had only 10. This is a huge discrepancy, especially when our grading is already more time consuming than other subjects. I would also like to see more balance with the formative assessments that we had in our Grammar Bootcamp Module and pare those down to only address what is covered on the summative assessment.

Nathan Thompson

nthompson140 — 2024-04-11 11:29:01 UTC

While I agree with Tif and Tiff that we could shift many of our assignments away from formative to summative, I'm definitely more concerned with the lateral alignment. At every other school I 've been to, subjects like social studies are a big part of the writing process that the kids learn, but here, this year, it almost feels like that duty rests solely on the shoulders of ELA while SS has so few formative assignments. In meetings, I'll sometimes hear, "Catching up is easy in social studies, you only have an assignment or two per module." While I don't know the depth of this single assignment, it could be indicative of another available opportunity for the students to catch up on their writing skills gap.

Stacy Lindermuth

slindermuth1_2 — 2024-04-11 11:55:02 UTC

I think we have a balance of formative and summative assessments. I agree with Kris and Tiffany B that writing assignments grade the same assignment twice. The majority of students do not read our comments to correct mistakes for the final summative. I also agree with Nathan about lateral alignment, as in my previous school SS and science worked on the writing process too, from reports on wars/people to lab reports. I have asked this question before about SS and science, but I have not gotten a definitive answer beyond, they write a lot. I think we need to further discuss the topic and it could help with cross-curricular ideas too.

Michelle Wright

mwright2024_2 — 2024-04-11 12:03:43 UTC

I feel that we have a good mix in ELA 6. The some of the writing become redundant in grading so I would like to figure out a way to make that smoother. The students also have an issue understanding that the parts add up to a whole essay.

Meaghan Sanders

2024-04-11 12:19:21 UTC

I think this year with our new curriculum, we have a decent mix of formative and summative assessments within the modules. Personally, I use a lot of discussion questions in class and I am always having them write in real time through Nearpod or Classkick. I think moving forward, it may be beneficial to have smaller prewriting and rough draft assignments as graded on completion rather than 100 points for each.

Wendy Sheeran

wsheeran2_2 — 2024-04-11 12:35:12 UTC

We have a pretty good balance of formative and summative assessments. Like many others have said, I would like to cut back on grading "pieces" of the essays to give feedback because many of them do not read comments or read them consistently. I agree with Michelle W. about a smoother way to assess the pieces of the essay, but most of grade 8 uses text blaze which seems to help (I haven't done that yet, but I will for next year). For grading, I also agree with Michelle R. about quality instead of quantity as being the way to go.

Sam DiMauro

sdimauro11 — 2024-04-11 12:44:23 UTC

I think that the curriculum this year is better when it comes to balancing formative assessments; however, there were some modules that needed to be edited. This was mainly due to students having to not only complete individual parts of a writing assignment, but they also had to complete quizzes. This also provided more focus in our instruction, and students were able to use live lesson to write and get feedback when needed.

Kelsey Reckless

kreckless1_2 — 2024-04-11 14:41:32 UTC

I think that in many of our module, we have more formative assessments than necessary. Overall, ELA has way more assignments than other subjects, and I think the unnecessary knowledge checks and overuse of formative assessments contributes to this. I would like to see formative assessments more focused on the goals of the Modules, and more useful in assessing what students still have to master to prepare for the summative assessment.

In PBL and writing Modules specifically, we are looking to have the formative assessments completely focused on preparing students for the summative assessment at the end of the unit, and we want to cut out extraneous knowledge checks and other assignments.

Lauren Traut

ltraut3 — 2024-04-11 16:01:50 UTC

I agree with so much of what is being said on here, and I am looking at assessments from very different lenses, I can only speak to what I see. As an interventionist, I would say that in ELA, there is both formative and summative assessments being used, but I do think that things tend to lean heavier toward formative. While I really like the idea of chunking each written assignment into its parts, I wonder if it would be more beneficial for students to get teacher feedback from those sections without having to attach a grade to it.

I am wondering if there is a way that we could integrate writing assignments across various subjects for the same assignment could be looked at differently through different subjects. For example, a social studies assignment that would have students debating from one side of a war that could also be used as an ELA opinion writing. ELA could focus more on the grammar and format of the writing piece and social studies would grade it on more of on whether a student has an accurate understanding of that particular prospective of the war. Just a thought.

Robin McCoy

rmccoy44 — 2024-04-11 19:25:00 UTC

I think we have a good balance of formative and summative assessments in ELA 6. Tweaking the point values for next year will be helpful, and even it out even more. For writing modules, I like that we focus on just the writing components and do not have knowledge checks. Each part is worth so many points, and then the final essay as the larger chunk helps students view what they are writing. I also like to work through assessments verbally in class when we can. It allows for more discussion and gives the students who don't always participate a chance to at least write in chat.

Jacqui Barna

jbarna912 — 2024-04-11 19:48:46 UTC

I feel we have a good balance but I would love to see if our benchmarks could be tied into IXL. I feel IXL is a more accurate predictor for our students. I feel having benchmarks in Canvas the students are not in the habit of taking an assessment once. As far as formative this year was a change in our grading and it was difficult to grade the same project multiple times but it is nice to show students how to write step by step. Next year we are looking to breaking up the grading slightly. I personally do not mind have knowledge checks along with short writing assessments.

Kelly Thompson

kthompson02_1_2 — 2024-04-12 15:28:30 UTC

I feel like there are a balance of formative and summative assessments, but from what I've seen in my short time here is every now and again, there's a random lesson and KC that creeps in that doesn't appear to be connected directly to the big lesson in the module. I don't know if we need to look at the best places for these other lessons/skills in the curriculum or a better way to pair them and assess them in the module rather than them feeling like one more thing to do.

I feel like if we're moving towards mastery, we have to incorporate IXL into the curriculum more, and it can even be used to help in assessing student's growth. It can be embedded into Canvas. I don't remember how the grade transfers over though. (Just a thought)

As far as the writing modules, as I've worked back through them with students as they are catching up, I feel like some of those formative assessments don't need to entire paragraph, but can be an assignment that asks them to write a topic sentence or what details will you use to explain in paragraphXX, so that they are working towards the final writing piece, but by working on these steps, they are able to submit a summative assessment that we haven't seen already multiple times. Or would it be possible to add an assignment where they have to look at the feedback and at least "talk through it." It can be done as a video or reflection questions. I think this would help show them that writing is never really a final process. You can always go back to change and improve it. I do like scaffolding the pieces though to get a final product to turn in.

I like the choices in some of the projects students are working on as assessments instead of test after test. A question I have is whether students really know how to create some of these items? I feel like they choose the "easier" assignments or do the bare minimums instead of actually showing us what they might know on one of these choice projects. (Looking at the novel choice board, does a 6th grader know how to create an infographic? one pager? Etc.?) I feel like showing them how to create some of these projects might be a lesson by itself. (And maybe it's taught somewhere else.)

Jen Cole

jtreacyc2 — 2024-04-18 03:14:38 UTC

The new curriculum has a good mix of formative and summative assessments. The student who chooses to tackle each of them to the best of her or his ability is going to have a solid foundation for moving into high school. There are some weak spots in the 8th grade curriculum, but there is enough available to drop those weak lessons/assignments and still cover the standards.

The chunking into pieces helps some students and throws others off. In consideration of PSSAs and other tasks in their future, I do think they need to build writing endurance -- get flow going -- write a whole essay in one sitting on a number of occasions. (Not that those need to be graded, but there's no doubt that graded tasks get more attention and follow through.)