Dr. Patterson's EDTL 6800 Blogspot

In Week Eight, you are required to post your Autobiography Powerpoint Presentation. Take a look at Becca’s, attached here.

Becca LS Prez w voiceover

If you view it in Editing Mode, you can read her presenter comments. If you view it in Slideshow Mode, you can hear her voice-over comments.  It is your choice of how to present your own, but those voice-over comments are VERY nice!

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“Education makes a people

easy to lead,

but

difficult to drive;

easy to govern

but

impossible to enslave.”

-Henry Peter Brougham

I used this test with high school kids, and they were WAY off the charts with bodily-kinesthetic and SO low with verbal-linguistic. Funny, almost everything we traditionally do with them is not in their area of intelligence.

My profile shows lots of evenness across the intelligences. I think we develop strengths in the ones we need to over time, so that my verbal-linguistic skills probably look a lot different now than they did when I was in 9th grade.

What is your new approach to differentiating assessment?

I am reminded that from the Inventory that I have strong beliefs about differentiation–I am wholly committed to building a “large and diverse repertoire” (Wormeli, 2006) and doing whatever I can to help students achieve their goals. I do strive to do whatever works and not just what is most comfortable. I try a lot of things that just fall flat, but it is worth it to me, because the risks often bear fruit.

I have always been a very regular formative assessor, but the thing studying DI has taught me is that there are big payoffs to offering choice in assessments, whether by interest, learning style, or readiness. My new approach to differentiated assessment is therefor to look over each assessment before I administer and consider whether or not it can be differentiated by any of these. I  never used to do this, but I see offering choices in ways students students report what they know as high yield for low effort on my part.  I once heard the quote “Bread and milk can so easily be toast and tea.” That is how I am approaching assessment–with very little work, it can be much more interesting and nutritious:)

I also like the definition very much that Carol Ann Tomlinson’s student generated about what DI is–having your goals in sharp focus, knowing where students are in relation to those goals, and getting everyone to meet them. This is all about assessment, in my view, from pre-assessment to formative assessment to summative assessment.

I have really enjoyed using Knowledge Bar Graphs and Topic Webs (Heacox, 2010) as a new type of pre-assessment. They can be quick and easy or more complicated for a formal pre-assessment. See “Totally 25 HOT Quiz” and “Menu HOT Quiz” attached as examples of a fun way to formatively assess that offers students choice. These can also be used as pre-assessments. I can know where weaknesses are by what students choose NOT to answer as well as what they do. I have also used Heacox’s topic webs in a teacher training workshop, and found that they were a great way to get lots of information about what your students know.

Assessment is on a continuum from what we do before, to what we do during, to what we ACTUALLY DO with the information during a unit to address what we found out, to summative assessment. It is at the heart of being fair to kids and helping them learn best.

Bibliography

Wormeli, R. (2006). Fair Isn’t Always Equal: Assessing and Grading in the Differentiated Classroom. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

Heacox, D. (2010). Making Differentiation a Habit. Free Spirit.

Menu HOT Quiz–This quiz came from Wormeli’s first book on differentiation, Differentiation from Planning to Practice, 2007. I used it as choice assessment but can see it as a pre-assessment as well.

Totally 25 HOT Quiz–This quiz is adapted from our class text, pp. 55-56.

Weaving a Topic Web–This is a set of step-by-step instructions I used in a workshop I offered in Morocco when teaching practicing teachers about differentiation. English we their second or third language, and this both helped them and me see what they knew about it.

I am still coming down from having been away this spring, living in Morocco. There were lots of surprising things. Here is 30-second iMovie of my adventures with Moroccan hip-hop. Hip-hop doesn’t have the stigma there that is does here (parents here hate this music, and really wish their kids didn’t listen to it). In Morocco, everyone admires the social justice messages of the most popular groups. Parents were in fact the ones who gave the two hip-hop CDs I own.

You Tube link:

Hiphop Morocco

My first post! This is a test to make sure the category works. It’s pretty easy–just create a category for our class–make sure you type in the title exactly–EDTL6800, and then make sure you check that category for each post to our class. I will be learning along with you, for sure. This picture was taken a split second after Neil proposed–crystal clear snowy day in January. He’s such a techie geek–he brought along a tripod:) We’ll be getting hitched in October.