FOR TEACHERS - open learning & assessment

LINK to previous portion of discussion: http://sabatinifamilystories.blogspot.com/2013/03/our-home-schooling-grading-system-has.html

Michelle: ... I would like to share my situation and read about your ideas. I teach in "collégial", a order of education that only exists in Québec (Canada). My students are young adults and the courses last about 60 hours in 15 weeks. We are subject to the "Commission d'évaluation de l'enseignement collégial" who stipulate that we have to evaluate the skills of our students individually. My concern is : if I encourage (more than what i'm doing now) social creativity, what about the coherence of evaluation?

I teach web development, so the social creativity is a big part of the work the students will do, but I would like to go further with this theme...

Does someone has the same "problem"? Do you have some ideas or reflexions?

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My Response

     Michelle, I have one student. She is a prototype because she is family. My children were also homeschooled. We used our lessons with many children, but only family had to worry about grades in our homeschooling. Each of the assessments done on our children were/are done before any assignments are started. The assessment is built into the learning process structure by providing a measuable base-line starting and finishing point to determine mastery of the criteria identified. Milestones are identified and quizzed/tested or otherwise demonstrated before continuing. Achievement at each point is reinforced.

 

The baseline measurements are conducted at the beginning of school term and determines a working-level of the student’s knowledge level of in language and math. All of the lessons are then tailed to include "reading in the content areas," and "writing in the content areas" philosophy. We use English*, Math, Computers and Writing to explore and report on each subject. We may use Science as a backdrop for many theme lessons that include all the other skills. Science is also mated to social issues when subjects include the planet, geology, environmental or green energy, water or human rights and justice issues as we study, for example, how to participate in society...Social Studies. 

      Social studies is another of the theme subjects in which the reading, writing, math, and presentation is used. All of the presentations, in our Internet-based, open-education, terminate with a computer depiction of one significant element of the subject learned. It could be as simple an essay in Word, to and Internet Search for data and a review of citing and references in English. All the mechanics are driven by the interest in the subject.

 

There are variations between what you and I would come up with because you have to make assumptions based on what they can do so you know what you can ask of them. Then make sure you verify that they have the method to progress and a manner to determine whether or not the lesson is learned. The student complies with the guidelines of curriculum to achieve a passing grade (preferably within class time segments of 1 hour each lesson (even if the lesson is achieving or making progress toward a milestone).

 
 MY ADVICE:   Think about designing your lesson like you are doing a puzzle that goes into the frame. Start with frame subjects, or subject that generates investigate questions, like in our Social Studies, we are studying the Constitution. Our family believes she should learn about Constitutional Law to the degree that she may begin to actively take part in our self-governing process. This is accomplished by applying it to contemporary issues and current events. She is researching and discussing the gun laws and public outcry on many fronts. She combs the stories she finds in the media, looking for trends and common arguments. She considers her own views, looking for credible arguments to state her point. She must also state her understanding of opposing points of view. She has written essays, and the content was reviewed by a specific process. One of my favorite parts of homeschooling is my student’s willingness to humor me in my compulsion to micro-manage the editing phases of writing. Their ideas are discussed and preserved; grammar, punctuation and syntax are reviewed for the mechanics. .

·         sentence by sentence when the 1st draft is done. Construct (original content)

·          Deconstruct/Reconstruct (using English grammar lessons in applied usage)

·          Final Edit: For presentation flow and potential holes in the argument.

·         ALL work for presentation on her transcript website will go through this process.

(Science is another theme subject upon which to build and she is learning Astronomy, as her chosen elective class. I hope to have many visual projects in her lessons for astronomy because it is such a visual science now!)

 

     I showed you how to build different subjects together for a liberal arts-based education. Your modules will have to be crafted in general (for the class), and tailored for specific applications of the content you teach (for each student). Because the formation of our specific applications will differ from your subject need, you will be able to think about how the learning process itself provides the clues for incorporating the measurement of change over the course of lessons as they are made understood.

Planning ahead of time will help you 1) Determine the learning hierarchies and 2) map the milestones of progress from "pres-test understanding" through "post-test mastery." It is very process oriented. For that reason, it is measurable according to our models. The models will be reviewed, in brief, on the transcript, along with the lesson products by the student. She will also, by the way, be grading her own perception of progress as a student in each subject in an end of term self-evaluation form-- for on-going reinforcement for ownership of her own education.

      The product is the demonstration that some level of mastery has been achieved. When it must be measurable (as in math) we construct a measuring instrument based on pre/post test patterns. In the creative arts, there are guidelines for working on the craft of writing or other presentation methods. There are many on the computer. She uses math websites for math drills, and quizzes that are both graded and time calculated by the program. (free sites will be reviewed as part of her computer class). We have started working with Scratch, PowerPoint, and Google Blogs along with the old stand-bys of Microsoft Word and Google Search for graphics and other items, including links for further study.

           I am chronicling the development of the process, so that we may leave the model of it as an educational tool for other people. For you, you may just want to use the tool. However, outlining your method makes you someone with a good idea that can be taught, as well as shared. Take whatever you learn from teaching, and pass it on!

 

Thank you for your interest and for providing a very good question about our lessons.

*English includes not only reading, but also studying the vernacular of the subject.

About the Author: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/nancy-bell/30/231/855