November Spotlight

November Spotlight

  

Plickers & Student-Created Assessment Items Aligned to Learning Targets Aligned to Standards

In my short time as superintendent, I have been amazed at all of the creative ideas and strategies that I have witnessed just by making time for some random classroom visits.  Because these visits are completely random and unannounced, I know these strategies and techniques are routine and occurring regularly in these classrooms.  This really says something about our staff and their relentless efforts to continuously improve student learning in their classrooms. 

One of these visits occurred early in November at Unity Elementary.  I actually dropped by Unity to observe Mr. Climan utilize Plickers with his P.E. classes.  I was recently made aware of Plicker cards and how they can be used for quick formative assessment through an online webinar.  

After asking administrators, I found that Mrs. Thomasson and Mr. Climan had both used these in their classrooms.  I was intrigued at how these could be used in P.E., which is how I ended up out at Unity.  Mr. Climan demonstrated how he utilizes this system to help track attendance and participation. 

Plicker App 

As you can see in the picture above, the students all have a unique card assigned to them.  Mr. Climan assigns the cards as well as different types of uses for them depending on what data he would like to gather.  The students simply hold up their card, and Mr. Climan’s smartphone captures their identity.  These cards could represent something as simple as present or not present or they could be plugged into different types of questions such as the multiple-choice example (See image #2).  Mr. Climan uses this system to help him save time on some of the routine tasks like attendance, which allows him to utilize his limited class time more efficiently.  The students’ cards were hanging in a shoe hanger on the wall of the gym, and the students seemed to understand the process quite well. They all retrieved their individual cards and quickly lined up so Mr. Climan could scan them with his cell.  It all worked without any glitches while I was observing.  It all went so well that I ended up observing other interesting strategies Mr. Climan uses in his classroom.For example, the dice he uses for their warm-up activities add variety to these normal routines.  The game that Mr. Climan had his students playing after those warm-up activities also kept the students very engaged and active throughout the period.

Plicker Card Holder

With all the recent brain research on physical activity and how it improves student achievement, it was nice to see these students physically active for this entire class period. 

        

Activity Dice

   








             After leaving the gym, I stopped by a few other classrooms at Unity.  I made it down to Mrs. Sharp’s classroom at just the right moment.  Her 3^rd grade students were spread out all over her classroom in small groups creating assessment questions. Upon further explanation, I learned that she had created student folders with all of her CCSS for Reading broken down to specific learning targets. 

For this group project, students were working collaboratively to create assessment questions that were specifically aligned to these standards/targets from their current story.  Simply having students create assessment questions is a very high-leverage strategy.  As most educators know, creating valid assessment items isn’t exactly an easy task.  This is especially the case when you are tasked with creating questions from new content that you are still in the process of learning.  I experienced this during an instructional design course that I took back in 2000.  In this course, the professor assigned multiple reading assignments and had us create a number of assessment items of different question types.  Personally, this was one of the most difficult assignments that I had in all of my graduate courses, but this approach ensured that students had not only read the material but also took time to grasp an understanding of the content.

            However, Mrs. Sharp took this high-leverage strategy to the next level by having students create questions from their story for specific reading standards.   I observed students discussing different ideas for questions for the various reading standards.  This activity forced students to dissect their story in order to identify topics/ideas for assessment items that fit the different learning standards.  This resulted in some pretty high-level thinking on the part of the students.  The end result of this activity were several student-created assessment questions aligned to specific Reading Informational Text Standards such as the example in the picture above.  Mrs. Sharp went on to use some of these questions on the actual assessment as bonus questions.  I think this could be expanded to other regular assessment questions as well as the students continue to work on these skills throughout the school year. 

Mrs. Sharp also demonstrated how this activity is part of the overall process that she has implemented this year in which her students identify each of the standards/targets that they have mastered in their own data folders.  As shown in the pictures of the student data folders here, these students have checked off the targets that they feel they have mastered and can do.  This activity not only reinforces the standards and learning targets with each student, it is also a great example of student self-assessment of these skills.  I have observed the impact that this type of reflection and self-assessment can have on student achievement at the high school level, but I can now see an even greater potential at the elementary level.  With the addition of a student prediction component with each unit/topic, this process would become what John Hattie has deemed as the most influential strategy on student achievement (Self-Reported Grades).  Because of Mrs. Sharp’s strategy, her third-grade students are now regularly discussing learning targets and standards and connecting them to the class content.  While the true payoff in student achievement from all of this remains to be seen, Mrs. Sharp stated that the students have responded so well to this process that she wishes she would have started it a long time ago.  The students now even remind her every morning if her learning target hasn’t been updated for the current lesson. 
Again, these are simply two more examples of the many great things going on in our classrooms across Massac Unit #1.  Thank you Mr. Climan and Mrs. Sharp for allowing me to stop by.  Feel free to contact me if you have something you would like me to observe.  Otherwise, I may just drop in someday.  Thank you again for all that you do for our students. 

Sample student-created assessment question

Mrs.Sharp's Learning Target Board

Sample Data Folder: Student Standard/Target Checklist