Edmonton, AB T5N 2R1
Phone: (780) 447-9420
Fax: (780) 447-2531
Main E-Mail: info@aac.ab.ca
Orders: aac.info@shaw.ca
Web site: www.aac.ab.ca
IMPORTANT DATES
October 30
7th Annual Leadership Day
October 31 – November 1
14th Annual
Fall Conference
Sowing the Seeds for Success
Shaw Conference Centre, Edmonton
2008 - 2009 Executive
Tom Sperling, Chair
Jean-Claude Couture
Deborah Rowley
Darlene Montgomery
Executive Director
Robert Hogg
Field Services Coordinators
Dale Armstrong
Assessment Services Consultant
Sherry Bennett
Assistants
Miranda Leeder
Holly Miller
Jennifer Hogg
Specialist Seminars
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Alberta Teachers' Association
- Jean-Claude Couture
Almadina Language Charter Academy
- Rumana Haque
Aspen View Regional Division
- Brian LeMessurier
Battle River School Division
- Maureen Parker
Beaufort-Delta Education Council
- Roy Cole
Black Gold Regional Schools
- Neil Fenske
Buffalo Trail Public Schools
- Glenn Gouthro
Calgary Board of Education
- Darlene Montgomery
Calgary Catholic Separate School District
- Tom Sullivan
Calgary Science School
- Jennifer Woodard
Canadian Rockies Regional Division
- Yvonne Machuk
Chinook's Edge School Division
- Lissa Steele
Christ the Redeemer School Division
- Gary Chiste
Clearview School Division
- Rob Rathwell
Coast Tsimshian Academy, B.C.
- Eleanor Charlton
Concordia University College of Alberta
- Mark Swanson
Conseil scolaire catholique et francophone
- Lorraine Robinson
Conseil scolaire Centre-Nord
- Denise Moulun-Pasek
Conseil scolaire du Nord Ouest
- Linda Arsenault
Dehcho Divisional Education Council
- Terry Jaffray
East Central Catholic SSRD
- Ron Lindsay
Edmonton Catholic School District
- Brenda Willis
Edmonton Public Schools
- Kathy McCabe
Education/Culture/Employ., Gov't of NT
- Don Morrison
Elk Island Catholic Separate School Div.
- Gerald Knox
Elk Island Public School Regional Division
- David Harvey
Evergreen Catholic Separate Regional Div.
- Rob Stepaniuk
Foothills School Division
- Lisa Blackstock
Fort McMurray Catholic Schools
- Kim Jenkins
Fort McMurray School District
- Phil Meagher
Fort Vermilion School District
- Kathryn Kirby
Foundations for the Future Charter School
- Lorie Skaper-Burtch
Golden Hills Regional Division
- Sue Humphry
Grande Prairie Roman Catholic S.S.D.
- Marlene Stefura
Grande Prairie School District
- Lance Therrien
Grande Yellowhead School Division
- Mike Allers
Grasslands Public Schools
- David Steele
Greater St. Albert Catholic Regional Div.
- Therese deChamplain-Good
Halifax Regional School Board
- Shannon LeBlanc
High Prairie School Division
- Anastasia Jorquera
Holy Family Catholic Reg. Division
- Dana Laliberte
Holy Spirit R.C.S. Regional Division
- Paolina Seitz
Horizon School Division
- Wilco Tymenson
Lakeland Catholic Board of Education
- JoAnne Jackson
Lethbridge School District
- Sheryl Hawkins
Living Waters Catholic Reg. Division
- David Quick
Saskatoon Public Schools, a new member of the Alberta Assessment Consortium (AAC) is conducting a multi-year Collegiate Renewal initiative that will touch the lives of every secondary student. At its core is the goal: "All collegiate students will be engaged in their learning so they will graduate as active participants in lifelong learning and as responsible and caring citizens in the community, nation, and world." The district has begun to achieve this goal through a strategic, sustained focus and by providing the necessary resources so that educators may consciously, consistently, and deliberately support all students in becoming engaged learners. In addition, Saskatoon Public Schools is finding that student engagement is directly connected with assessment methodologies used by teachers.
Understanding Engagement
Here's what the district has found in its study of educational research over the past year:- Motivation is the precursor to engagement. Motivation is the reason for being engaged. While extrinsic motivators such as grades, awards, praise and punishments, will sometimes engage, intrinsic motivators will lead to deeper, lasting learner engagement.
- Instructional practices strongly influence learner engagement. When instruction draws on students' prior knowledge, interest, culture and world experiences, the curricular goals become more meaningful.
- Engagement precedes learning. Authentic engagement is the necessary state to ensure deeper understandings and greater retention of key learnings.
- Engagement is a worthwhile end in itself. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes this end as "flow". Flow is "a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it." Such "flow", according to Csikszentmihalyi, is "optimal experience" that leads to happiness and creativity.
- Engagement is a more reliable, long-term indicator of future economic success and health and well-being than achievement. Teachers, parents, and administrators are better informed by behaviours that signal authentic engagement.
- For the district, these findings have provided a compelling rationale necessary for professionals' commitment to the goal of student engagement. Compelling also, are the power and promise of assessment of and for learning as key strategies that help the district to realize its intent.
Assessment for Learning and Learner Engagement
ETS author Rick Stiggins indicates that in the past, schools "have believed that, as the adults make better instructional decisions, schools will become more productive. But this perspective overlooks the reality that students may be even more important data-based instructional decision makers than adults."
Involving students in setting and using criteria and increasing specific, descriptive feedback (while reducing evaluative feedback), for example, help to shift the focus of control from teacher to student. Learning goals expressed in students' language and teacher-feedback that is instructive rather than judgmental are a few of the changes that have significantly affected engagement and by extension, learning. As one student observed, "I no longer feel doing well is just about getting lucky." Such an observation is the outgrowth of our examination of encoded messages such as 75%, C+, or "good job!" which can interfere, if not terminate students' interest in learning.
Assessment of Learning and Learner Engagement
"Excellence can be revealed in a multitude of ways. As the diversity increases amongst our students… teachers need to learn how to allow for [these] differences."(Davies, Herbst-Luedtke and Reynolds, 2008 p. 46).
Further to the work of Dr. Davies, Saskatoon Public Schools has chosen to develop "Quality Evidence of Success" through the use of triangulation which includes:
- Products such as:
- Student response to the written portion of individual student interviews
- Conversations such as:
- Principal interviews in spring 2008
- Student voice captured through student presentations to teachers in fall 2007
- Student voice captured in 120 individual student interviews
- Teacher and student "What Did You Do At School Today" survey results
- Formal teacher feedback related to professional development opportunities
- Observations such as:
- Learning Leader reports of evidence of progress at each of their schools
A key resource for a number of SPS teachers this past year has been the ETS book A Repair Kit for Grading: 15 Fixes for Broken Grades by Ken O'Connor, which has guided them in reflecting on their grading practices. Of particular interest has been the discussion regarding the use of poor quality evidence to report to students and parents. Teachers are recognizing the confidence range that is associated with any numerical representation of student achievement and are exploring other ways of providing academic achievement information. One collegiate staff is examining removing percentages from all midterm progress reports and replacing numbers with high quality, standards-based comments, observations and recommendations.
Other collegiates have begun to offer "markless math" courses at the Grade 9 level where specific, descriptive comments replace the traditional percent grade. Teachers who have taken this route in the past few years have indicated that parents appreciate the quality of the comments that now come home and students focus more on the learning agenda rather than the chase for a particular mark.
As teachers continue to focus on student engagement during this and successive years, we anticipate further discussions concerning the best ways to describe student progress to the students themselves, parents and the broader community. Perhaps most fascinating is the emerging paradox: as educators give away control over student learning through quality classroom assessments, the growing, quality evidence of student success has granted professionals more control of or influence over classroom learning.
Adapted from an Educational Testing Services (ETS) Canada on-line publication (http://www.etscanada.ca/afl/studentengagement.php) and based on an article composed by Mark Wilderman, Facilitator: Collegiate Renewal; and Grant Dougall, Coordinator: Student Assessment and Evaluation, Saskatoon Public Schools (2008)
References
- Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2004). Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life. Perseus Press.
- Davies, A.; Herbst, S; Reynolds, B, (2008). Transforming Barriers. Courtney, B.C.: Connections Publishing.
Practical Assessment Resources |
Conversations and Abbott Adventure will be invaluable additions to the jurisdiction's professional library and professional development program. These are intended to be read, discussed and written in. Truly reflective professional resources... full of practical ideas, engaging stories and sound assessment for learning principles and practices.
Conversations to Enhance Learning (2008)
The purpose of this resource is to provide insights about conversations that take place as teachers engage in planning, coaching, judging and reporting during the learning cycle. These conversations provide the support that enables students to become successful learners.
This resource is designed to help uncover the many opportunities for learning conversations just waiting to happen in our work with students. It will suggest how to plan for, organize and experience those conversations. Students are at the heart of the matter, but good teaching and intention will bring teachers and parents into a shared process that engages students as confident, key communicators about their learning.
The Abbott Adventure - a journey with "no excuses" (2008)
This is a story of the journey a group of educators took to help improve the learning and the lives of their students through a deep and committed approach to quality classroom assessment. Along the way, students ceased to be passive passengers, becoming active back seat, and even front seat, drivers. Their school community is unique and not all of the tools they used to create the necessary changes will apply universally to all schools. The processes, however, of identifying necessary changes and of an assessment program that will improve student learning, do apply universally to all schools, in all communities. Our hope is that you will use these processes to create your own stories.
This resource includes a wonderful short story titled, Garbage by award-winning author Colleen Heffernan and illustrated by renowned Alberta artist, Lorna Bennett. The story captures the spirit of this adventure through the classroom experiences of Del and his teacher, Ms. M.
| "I would like to congratulate Anne Mulgrew and Elisa Rawe for an extremely well written, teacher friendly book on the teacher as a Planner, Coach, Judge, and Reporter. As I was drinking my morning coffee, I began reading the book, Conversations to Enhance Learning and realized that this book is a "must read book" for all teachers as I could not put it down once I started reading it."
Sandra Duggleby, Grade 5 Teacher, Lawrence Grassi Middle School |
Leadership in Assessment |
| From Summer Workshop to the Classroom | Wendy Davidson - Battle River School Division |
This past summer marked the sixth summer that I have had an opportunity to participate in an AAC summer writing workshop. Each and every time, I have come away from this workshop saying, "That was one of the best PD experiences I have participated in!" At each summer writing workshop, teachers worked together to develop performance assessments - that is really hard "brain work"! However the struggle to unpack learner outcomes, and transfer them into meaningful assessment activities for students, has given me a much deeper understanding of programs of study. The richness of this type of professional development comes from working in a collegial atmosphere. The old adage, "two heads are better than one", is so true when it comes to writing performance assessments.
As we endeavored to gain clarity and vibrancy in a task, it required many thought-provoking discussions and many revisions to the performance assessment. The pay-off for taking time in the summer to do this type of professional development comes not only in personal growth, but also in pride of the tasks that are developed.
The next step is to use some of these performance assessments in my own classroom. Over the years, that too has brought much gratification for me and for my students. Students are so motivated to embark on a task that has real-life meaning and an open-endedness that allows for individualization and creativity. The unique student products that result from a performance assessment always amaze me. During the development of their products, students show an incredible depth of knowledge and understanding of learner outcomes. Being able to take knowledge and apply it to new situations is the true test of their understanding. Students are so excited to share what they have done and when they talk about their products, the smiles on their faces and the pride in their voices makes me think, "Oh yes, this was a worthwhile task!"
| Assessment for Learning Adult Style | Ragan Johnson - Lakeland Catholic School District |
As a former instructional programs coordinator I very quickly developed the following hypothesis: if assessment for learning makes sense for kids and helps them learn, then surely what we know about it can be applied to the adult learner. As such, I have spent the past two years as a coordinator and currently as a principal testing this hypothesis. To this end, when I am observing teachers in action I try to provide them with immediate feedback. This feedback initially took the form of "two stars and a wish", but has lately evolved into a simple email highlighting exemplary practices and questions designed to engage teachers in thoughtful reflection of their practice. Teachers also have the opportunity to visit exemplar classrooms within the school or other teacher's classes across the district. These visits usually involve more than one teacher observer so that conversations regarding the observation can take place after the visit. These conversations always involve peer feedback to the teacher whose lesson was observed and provide a forum for thoughtful discussions around how to increase student learning. With regards to setting criteria, teachers do this naturally as they talk about what works within their feedback-oriented classrooms and work together to develop a common understanding of best practice. Surely if assessment for learning works for our students, we should be using what we know with adult learners.
| One of the most important cultural shifts that must take place if schools are to perform as professional learning communities involves a shift from a primary focus on teaching to placing the primary focus on learning.
Eaker, Robert,
DuFour, Richard,
& DuFour, Rebecca, |
| Expressing Understanding | Daryl Venance - Buffalo Trail Public Schools |
I started this year using the mini-whiteboards we had talked about during the AAC summer camp. The results so far have been amazing. My grade 9 science classes love them and now just pick up one at the beginning of each class for use. I particularly like the fact that they need always to be engaged, can share with others in their group and particularly that they can give me answers in picture form rather than in words. I encourage them to draw solutions to problems I pose instead of using words if they would find it easier to reveal their thoughts. I never fully realized that some students may have the answer to questions, but find it difficult to articulate the answers in a formal written format. With diagrams and pictures they can show their understanding and can share it with others. So cool ...!