As an early years teacher I know the importance self-esteem plays in my classroom. Students need to feel safe and part of the learning community to take academic risks and celebrate their personal achievements. In my grade one classroom our motto is be the best you can be. As an intermediate special education teacher and tutor I know the importance that self-esteem can and continues to play in students’ lives and the evident need for assessment for learning plays in preparing for assessment of learning tasks. I’m always saying things live give it a go and what a smart mistake. I believe students do need to give it a go and that mistakes are smart; they are opportunities for learning. Mistakes show thinking, right or wrong; the student that is willing to give an answer, right or wrong, I can help be the best they can be.
Primary teachers are use to scaffolding concepts for their little learners and recognize that classroom talk or discourse is important. I know that a teacher’s observations are very important. Teachers are leaders of the curriculum in the classroom but they are also the adult and in many ways the parent in the room. The role of teacher has expanded and evolved and the curriculum that calls for skill and drill can appear outdated or archaic by today’s socio-standards. “Yesterdays education for tomorrow’s kids” (Pensky, 2005, pg. 62) seems ridiculous. In my early years classroom, teaching and learning depends greatly on two things: student self esteem and student engagement. Prensky noted that “All the students we teach have something in their lives that’s really engaging-something that they do and that they are good at, something that has an engaging, creative component to it” (2005, pg. 62). I would add, students we teach need to feel safe and valued in a classroom if they are to reach their full potential and share their literacies while learning new ones.
I ask, why change classroom assessment? I answer, because society changes, and the learning and motivation of our students change. Assessment needs to be looked at differently so that all students benefit, differentiated learning can assist in bringing about quality in classroom assessment. As teachers what have we looked at in the past?
1. Credentials
2. Manufacturing the lie: 75.8% is better than 75.4%
3. Socio-economic background: the doctor’s kids
4. Automatic reactions
Learning needs to be the higher priority and learning happens when those things we believe to be true are challenged with new evidence. Adults seem to find this harder than children.
I ask if assessment is so important, why were we not taught how to do this effectively in our teacher education programmes? I feel cheated in some ways. I really should have had a solid grasp of assessment as a graduate from an education programme! “Lacking specific training, [we] rely heavily on the assessments offered by the publisher of their textbooks or instructional material… [we] treat assessments as evaluation devices to administer when instructional activities are completed and to use primarily for assigning students’ grades” (Guskey, 2003, p. 6). It shouldn’t be this way at all! Assessment should be a large component of teacher training programmes and teachers should feel that assessment is valuable because it improves student learning, it services the students needs. Assessment should be meaningful, on going, and achievable. Do we, as teachers, really need to include the “gotcha” question on a test if our goal is to watch our students succeed? NO. There is no need for test secrecy. Students should know what is expected of them clearly so that they can meet their full potential.
We, teachers, have perpetuated the lie. Changing assessment and assessment practices is a huge shift. High quality education for all is about excellence and equity; we should not comprise this! We need to come away from excellence and equity as a privilege as it is not fair to our students. When did we move from teacher as coach to teacher as judge? “Assessment can be a vital component in our efforts to improve education. But as long as we use them only as a means to rank schools and students, we will miss their most powerful benefits” (Guskey, 2003, p. 11). There is much, I still need to learn. I recognize that education cannot stay static. Just as society continues to evolve, so must our education system for administrators, teachers and students alike. There is much to gain if we support a change in assessment practices, think of the possibilities!
Work cited:
Guskey, T. R. (2003) How classroom assessments improve learning. Eductional Leadership, 60(5), 6-11.
http://pdonline.ascd.org/pd_online/teachbehave2/el200302_guskey.html
Prensky, M. (2005). “Engage me or enrage me”: What today’s learners demand. EDUCAUSE Review, 40(5), 60, 62, 64. http//www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0553.pdf
May 4, 2009
Special Topics in Literacy: Language Literacy
There are few issues that have emerged for me from my readings that “burn” me: race, gender, and inclusion. Inclusion, I feel, bothered me most because I can discuss inclusion from perspectives of race, gender, ability, economics and the list goes on.
As a teacher who deals with special needs of students, I become frustrated by the exclusion my students’ experiences. I cannot count the number of times I have had to approach a colleague to say Mary’s IEP states this or that so that she can better complete the task you have assigned. They do not always agree with me. Sometimes, I wonder if this is how my students feel, 15 and taking on a 50 year adult as to why the process has to be changed if they are to meet their personal best and full potential as students! It is frustrating to discuss and/or debate the need for change with someone who is not ready to listen, or someone who believes teaching is a top-down process. Sometimes when a teacher stops talking is when the learning really begins. The dialogue that occurs in a classroom, the questions that are asked and the responses given, is important for a teacher to observe and use when planning. How are we to challenge our students to think critically if we don’t listen to them? How are we to know what critical tools to plan for introduction? How are we to discover the tools that we may be missing critically?
I really do believe everyone has something to contribute to the discussion and that the classroom has to be a safe place where students can be encouraged to do so. I have discovered as a teacher that I have had similar experiences as some of my students and some experiences I will never have. I have had many experiences. I have been the English as a second language student and the Latin student but I have not been the student of colour, physical disability or learning disability. I have something to share, my experiences, but also have something to learn about, the experiences of others.
In the last 3 years I have worked to foster self-advocacy in my students. I want my students to know and understand who they are and what they need to be successful and present. I want them to feel and know they are “someone”. I want them to read the world around them, examine it and question it. I do not want my IEP students to accept things as they are; they should know that in our school setting they can and should examine the world and how they fit into it, and are part of it, while being supported. They should feel that their teachers are on their side, that teachers want the best for them. When students do feel that their teachers are on their side, the classroom becomes inclusive, becomes accepting and safe. Teachers have the opportunity to be positive role models of inclusion; I feel they have the responsibility to be the best role models possible.
As a teacher who deals with special needs of students, I become frustrated by the exclusion my students’ experiences. I cannot count the number of times I have had to approach a colleague to say Mary’s IEP states this or that so that she can better complete the task you have assigned. They do not always agree with me. Sometimes, I wonder if this is how my students feel, 15 and taking on a 50 year adult as to why the process has to be changed if they are to meet their personal best and full potential as students! It is frustrating to discuss and/or debate the need for change with someone who is not ready to listen, or someone who believes teaching is a top-down process. Sometimes when a teacher stops talking is when the learning really begins. The dialogue that occurs in a classroom, the questions that are asked and the responses given, is important for a teacher to observe and use when planning. How are we to challenge our students to think critically if we don’t listen to them? How are we to know what critical tools to plan for introduction? How are we to discover the tools that we may be missing critically?
I really do believe everyone has something to contribute to the discussion and that the classroom has to be a safe place where students can be encouraged to do so. I have discovered as a teacher that I have had similar experiences as some of my students and some experiences I will never have. I have had many experiences. I have been the English as a second language student and the Latin student but I have not been the student of colour, physical disability or learning disability. I have something to share, my experiences, but also have something to learn about, the experiences of others.
In the last 3 years I have worked to foster self-advocacy in my students. I want my students to know and understand who they are and what they need to be successful and present. I want them to feel and know they are “someone”. I want them to read the world around them, examine it and question it. I do not want my IEP students to accept things as they are; they should know that in our school setting they can and should examine the world and how they fit into it, and are part of it, while being supported. They should feel that their teachers are on their side, that teachers want the best for them. When students do feel that their teachers are on their side, the classroom becomes inclusive, becomes accepting and safe. Teachers have the opportunity to be positive role models of inclusion; I feel they have the responsibility to be the best role models possible.
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