Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
1. What are your plans for continued professional growth and development? How will you stay updated on best practices, educational research, and advancements in your subject area?
Answer: My plan for continued professional growth and development is that I will start writing lesson plans that follow the GRR model, while keeping checks for learning in mind. I will also try to include “the world readiness standards” in my lesson planning. I was wondering if I could get feedback from our language specialists for my lesson plans. I would also like to try to write science lesson plans which would focus on both language objective and content objective.
2. Finally, take a moment to acknowledge your growth and achievements during your training. What are you most proud of? How will you celebrate your accomplishments?
Answer: I am most proud of myself in that now I can see an overall picture when I do my lesson planning. The backward design helps me see what I was not doing right before, which is a great starting point for changing. I will celebrate my accomplishments by putting what I have learned in practice, and of course I will learn more new things as I practice what I have learned.
Hi Zheng Laoshi,
You mentioned that critical thinking and constructive feedback from the assessments will engage students and encourage their active participation. I totally agree. I like the element of “critical thinking” in performance tasks, which gives students to space and freedom the think outside the box, and to approach problems from different perspectives. The constructive feedback that comes from checks for learning and formative assessments is really powerful in that students could get the prep they need for the summative assessment, in other word, teachers will set students up along the way, and a sense of success or achievement will keep students going in the journey of learning a foreign language.Hi Majda,
I like how you answered the question of what impact assessment has on student learning and achievement.
When watching the video, I have noticed the same elements, as you mentioned, that make a performance task meaningful: tasks are open – ended, and they explore read-world issues, that’s probably why they inspire students’ curiosity and encourage students to learn more about themselves and the world around them. Differentiation that comes from tasks are also great in a academically diverse classroom.1. Which video I watched:
Creating Meaningful Performance Assessment Tasks – Laura Terrill (27’30”)2 Pick 2 questions to answer
1) What was the purpose of the assessment?
There are two types of assessments: formative and summative. In the case of a unit, the purpose of the summative assessments is to check whether the unit goals are met, and the purpose of the formative assessments is to give students timely feedback, to remind students what the goals are, where students are and how to close the gap.2)How do we design assessments that measure what they intend to measure?
When designing assessments, we need to know that there are two types of assessment: formative and summative. The performance assessment tasks need to align with the unit goals, targeted performance range, theme/topic, context, essential questions, age of students, finally define a product or performance outcome to answer the essential question. .
The summative assessments should provide evidence that students have or have not yet met the unit goals. In other words, by accomplishing the assessment tasks, students show that they have or have not yet met the unit goals. If the unit goals involve 3 modes of communication, so will the summative assessments. However, the summative assessments could be further broken down into smaller chunks to be assessed along the learning journey. Checks for learning and other formative assessments need to happen before students take the summative performance assessment.Comment # 2: to Lin Lin
3 things fascinating about the post: The summary is easy to follow, the steps are clear and short, the modifications involve interpersonal speaking, which is great for a language class.
2 ideas I can adapt: I can tweak this activity to find out students’ or any celebrity’s hobbies and food; I could also design interpersonal during the process and presentational activities as follow ups.
1 question I still have: Would you have students come up with the conclusion on their own with more examples?Comment # 1 : to Yachi Yu:
3 fascinating things about the post: Your summary is brief and right to the point, the steps are easy to follow, you’ve made great modifications to suit your own teaching environment.
2 ideas I can adapt: I could probably use this idea for students to figure out length, and weight, I also would like to introduce to my students one of the modifications regarding how different cultures perceive punctuality differently.
1 question I still have: Yu Laoshi, how much time do you plan on this topic including one or more of the possible modifications?Name of the activity: Drawing with 2 hands
Activity steps:
1). Set the room with a line of tables and 2 chairs on each side facing each other.
2). Divide the participants into 2 groups. There should be 2 facilitators, so that each facilitator gives
instructions to each group. Make sure they don’t hear the other group’s instruction.
3). Give instructions to the groups:
Group 1
They will have to draw a house with doors, windows, clouds and sun. They can choose to add elements,
but each of them needs to be round.
Group 2
They will have to draw a house with doors, windows, clouds and sun. They can choose to add elements,
but each of them needs to be square.
4). When you are done giving instructions, ask the students to take any chair in front of someone from
the other group. Give each pair 1 pen and 1 sheet of paper.
Ask the students to draw in silence while holding the same pen. (5 minutes)
5). When the 5 minutes are over, ask the students to move the tables away and to sit in a circle. The teacher will ask some questions to help students reflect on their experience and think about how to solve conflicts in life:
– What happened?
– How did you feel?
– Why was there a conflict?
– How do you usually react when there is a conflict in real life?
– Do you always react the same way with everybody (friends, family, etc..)
6) What would you change if you were to do this activity again?Modifications I would make:
My students are 3rd graders. I would give students food items or sport items to choose from, but the food items or sport items are only enough for half of the students. They need to figure out how to solve the problem of having all the students play or eat at the same time.Hi Zheng Laoshi,
I agree that OPI would be a good assessment choice for your students since most of them are adults. I know that OPI has 4 stages: warm up, floor check, probe, wind down, and the purpose is to make the testees feel pleasant about the experience when the tester is eliciting language samples. For adult students, it will most likely be an empowering experience because they get to use the target to communicate during the testing process. This requires the testers’ expertise to make sure testees of different language proficiency levels feel comfortable during the test.Hi Xia Laoshi,
I chose AAPPL for the same reason that it covers four modes of communication. It will give students an overall idea of how they are doing in using the target language.I work in Chinese Dual Immersion program in Utah where most elementary schools start their Chinese Programs in 1st grade, and the program continues all the way to university level. Students take AP test in 9th and 10th grade. The majority of the students are non heritage students. The school that I work at is grades 1 to 6, and I would recommend AAPPL test for a proficiency based assessment based on the following considerations:
Firstly, the AAPPL test covers all modes of communication, which mirrors real classroom instruction, “assess what we teach and how we teach” could be a guiding principle for how to make assessment inform and improve instruction;
Secondly, the AAPPL test has detailed grade sub-levels in the grade reports. There are 4 sub-levels in each proficiency level, for example, for novice level, there is N1, N2, N3 and N4, with both N2 and N3 meaning Novice Mid, which makes perfect sense in the ice-cream cone analogy. These sub levels will give teachers a clear picture of how well each individual student can use language independently;
Thirdly, I like the feedback that comes with the grade reports. The grade reports explains what the grade means in terms of what students can do, and the reports also suggest strategies for students if they want to work toward the next higher level. This will encourage and empower students.
I think training is required for those who administer this assessment. Students will have questions or tech problems since it is computer based, if the test administers are familiar with some common problems, they can trouble shoot effectively.
