Top Design

In the past few years LKSD has attempted to include more authentic assessment in our curriculum. The theory and ideal behind the phase system was to create more authentic assessments for students that aligned with the state and district standards. However, the implementation of the phase system has had quite a few...hiccups (I'm being nice) .

However, I applaud the LKSD's District Office staff for one very valuable experience that I really wish they would continue. Every fall, the DO would ask students to participate in a district wide writing assessment. The students would respond, on demand to a writing prompt at their phase level. We would then send the writing samples in to the DO to be assessed at the Writing Assessment Training.

I was unable to attend the writing assessment training for two years due to the fact that the river was freezing up and we were stuck in Oscarville. Last year I was fortunate to hitchhike a helicopter ride to the assessment and found it one of the most valuable trainings I have participated in since coming to work in LKSD.

For three days teachers from all over the district joined together to grade all assessments. We were trained how to assess the papers using the same analytical scoring guide we used in our classrooms. For three days we debated, argued and reasoned with each other about how to score and why we chose to score the way we did. When I was reading this chapter I kept seeing myself at the training and although I did feel that the training was valuable while I was there I now see the value of it even more so and really wish that it was something that the district chose to keep going.

I'm kind of saddened that LKSD chose to not participate in this type of training any longer because it cost too much to fly in and house teachers for the three days. However, a few teachers from neighboring villages to Oscarville have expressed interest in doing our own little writing assessment and continuing the tradition on a much smaller scale.

One idea from this reading that I thought was so important was the idea that we need to take the assessments ourselves and score our own papers. It seems like such a no brainer that we put ourselves in our students' positions to try to understand what it is we are asking them to do.

One more idea that struck home with me is the idea that not all problems with assessments are going to be solved simply by switching to authentic assessments. I find that many of the assessments created with the phase system are much harder than some of the multiple choice tests at the end of a chapter. One example is that many of the reading assessments are very highly-language dependent. I spend much of my time showing students how to construct answers to certain questions just so they know how to answer them on the test and have a model of how to answer those questions. Although I do feel that it is necessary to show students how to answer questions on a test I feel that I spend more time showing them how to answer the test questions sometimes than I do on talking about the literature or having them create a project or participate in other meaningful activities.

Grades...I feel pretty strongly about grades. I often get frustrated at the fact that I have to sit down and do so many grade calculation for each of the classes I teach but the students seem to care very little about their grades. Grades really do not motivate me as a learner and in high school and even college grades meant very little to me. I don't get motivated by seeing A's on a report card. When I was in college I often felt like I did some mediocre work that received good grades and some pretty good work that got some hard criticism from my professors.

As a teacher I find that many of my students are not really all that motivated by grades. Most of them don't come in with their parents to conferences and when I do sit down and talk to them they nod their head and tell me what I want to hear and then walk away to do something else but their homework. It's frustrating. I want students to care about their grades but more importantly I want them to be motivated to do homework and to set goals for themselves.

What I would really like to be a part of in my school and district is to design more authentic assessments for our learners. I really wish that the district would lead unserviced in how we can guide and coach students to set their own goals and to become motivated learners and how we can create better authentic assessments.

Also, after reading this article I really, really, really, want to use portfolios and have the students present their portfolios to the community at the end of the year. If anyone uses electronic portfolios I would love to pick your brain!