“I know for sure that what we dwell on is who we become.”
Oprah Winfrey

This quote is flashing for all to see on the electronic message board at my child’s school. While waiting for pedestrians to cross I repeated it aloud several times. Sometimes stopping traffic on a main highway creates a few minutes to ponder life. Apparently this quote holds hidden meaning in my subconscious because it keeps leaping into my thoughts of the recent Winter Assessment Camp (WAC). Refusing to sit quietly in memory, it’s shouting at me to revisit all of the “ah-ha” moments and questions to build meaning. This private inner discussion keeps me up at night and inevitably it finds a way into daily discussions with family. Perhaps the most intriguing part of this inner conversation is that it was conceived from my feelings of dissonance. 

I have been lucky to have had the experience of facilitating conversations with regard to assessment practices.  These workshops always began with the same phrase: “I am certainly no assessment expert, simply an evolver.”  There was a time when I believed that I was the assessment expert. The opening disclaimer at the workshops is new wisdom. This painful realization came one rainy day in Comox, BC when I began to dissect my assessment practices with Anne Davies. The excruciating task was necessary for my evolution. With my shattered ego in my pocket, I began to realize that my expertise had merely been a series of dabblings on the surface. I used assessment for learning primarily to make my classroom routines more precise. I was really more of an expert in dabbling than effective assessment practices.

Wisdom doesn’t always get served to us on a full plate, but in bite size snacks made available to digest when hunger hits. Sometimes processing this food for thought can be uncomfortable because it challenges us to seek out who we truly are. In seeking to find who we really are, we compare ourselves to others. It is important to have chances to be among our peers listening to success stories, sticky situations and tricks of the trade. Through reflection on our knowledge, experiences, and strengths we uncover our greatest weaknesses and find new reason to forge new learning possibilities.
 
Really making an effort to listen to our inner dialogues is a key ingredient in learning success. In modeling feedback with students, I create formats for conversations. Effective classroom assessment includes practicing these conversations which eventually leads to students internalizing the discussion process. In my mind a student is successful when fully empowered with inner conversation. Creating an era of reflection is important for students, teachers and facilitators. Although this process of seeing oneself critically can be painful, it is a necessary part of a facilitator’s growth. Despite the barriers that were discussed during WAC, what a promising practice to have set up an opportunity for facilitators to listen, tell their stories and question what we know to be true thus far. In doing so, the AAC has created an environment rich with food for thought and overflowing with reflection.
 

I am faced with the inevitable reality that this reflection process will continue for the rest of my days. Sometime down the road I will revisit this article and all the insights will seem insignificant in my new search for meaning. Future learning opportunities will be a new day, inner conversations will evolve, and I will have come closer to the lead learner/educator/facilitator that I quest to become.

Anastasia N. Jorquera, High Prairie School Division

2-4T … A Parent’s Perspective

As a parent of two high school students it has always been a challenge to find out what they were learning in their classes, if they were doing well, if there were any assignments that needed to be handed in and basically how they were doing.  I always went on the premise that “no news was good news.”

In general, everything was okay, but occasionally a “surprise” or “unexplained message” came in the form of a poor mark on an exam or an assignment not handed in. Well, the battle continued, until the wonderful invention of the 2-4T! This document became my saving grace, but it also made my teens very accountable for every aspect of their learning. 

This communication tool was a snapshot of two weeks worth of course content that covered everything from effort, attainment of objectives, missing assignments, absences and an approximate mark. The document displayed data in a rating scale where the criteria are very specific and written in “parent-friendly” language.  For each class my daughters were in, their teachers had to sign it and fill in the required areas, every 2nd and 4th Tuesday, hence the term 2-4T.  I, too, had to sign and return the document to their homeroom teachers.  This tool was a way for me to track their learning, pinpoint problem areas, ask the hard questions and to generally find out how they were doing so that by the time that report cards came, there were no surprises.  This document allowed time for any necessary intervention, allowed me to comment on certain areas, to ask questions or to set up meetings if I deemed them necessary. 

As my daughters have progressed through the years (with one graduating two years ago and the other now in Grade 12), the 2-4T has seen some changes including the name as it is now called the Progress Report because it no longer goes out on the second and fourth Tuesday, but in a varying scheduled based on the grade the students are in. However, the general idea has not changed.  It is still a tool that helps keep the lines of communication open. With my youngest daughter entering high school next year, I know I will have a far better understanding of her schooling because of this tool.

The conference theme this year is Sowing the Seeds for Success. Our distinguished keynote speakers are Pat Wolfe and Garfield Gini-Newman.

Planning for the conference is well underway! Here is a new feature planned for the conference- Assessment in Action... a showcase of effective and practical ways classroom teachers are implementing meaningful assessment strategies.

The Call for Presenters is now on the web site - http://www.aac.ab.ca/presenters.html. Deadline for applications is Friday, February 29. 

Sixty-seven assessment specialists, workshop leaders and organizers were together for a retreat at the Four Points by Sheraton at Canmore, Alberta (January 24 - 26). Following the successful pattern set during the Summer Institute in July 2007 – affectionately known as ‘Assessment Camp’, this was again a wonderful professional development experience! This was dedicated to building assessment capacity within AAC jurisdictions.

Our goal was to prepare assessment specialists to facilitate selected workshops in their own (or neighboring) jurisdictions and, in the spirit of professional learning communities, to foster a sense of camaraderie across the consortium by providing an opportunity to network and share knowledge, skills, and expertise. This was accomplished in large measure for all who participated.

Here are reflections by several participants…  

“I made the trek to Winter Camp and away from my students on a leap of faith. As someone who has had a fair amount of professional development around assessment, I questioned leaving my students with a sub and traveling all the way to Canmore. The reason I did it was because of the value I found in the summer workshops.” 

“Winter Camp did not disappoint.  The workshops themselves are quality experiences, effectively mixing theory and practice, and encouraging conversation and reflection. It is interesting in that, no matter how many times I've heard the same message and wonder what I could possibly add to that knowledge, I hear another point of view that gets me thinking all over again.”

Noreen Holt, Pembina Hills

“I don’t think you can ever have too much PD if you are serious about learning something so well that it becomes second nature. I have learned so much over these past few months by taking advantage of the PD that is being offered by the AAC, and by the Learning Network-sponsored AAC workshops. By continually revisiting the vocabulary, the concepts and the professional references/research that supports the AAC mandate I am getting to the point where I don’t have to work quite so hard to keep the picture in focus.”

“The Winter Camp was the perfect venue for meeting like-minded educators, individuals who believe that the effort they invest in assessment is worthwhile. It was reassuring to meet with others who are taking the same journey and to have a common ground on which to meet and have those professional dialogues that are so important to our growth. I can hardly wait until I can start getting into schools to begin helping teachers take this journey with us. I plan to continue participating in as many conferences and institutes as my mind and my budget can handle.”

Glenn Gouthro, Buffalo Trail

“The experience at the Winter Assessment Camp was engaging and informative.  It was an authentic opportunity to discuss assessment in education with other teachers who are focused on the same issues. I really appreciated the efforts of the session facilitators and their willingness to be open to discussion that was valuable for us. It was an opportunity to validate existing knowledge as well as learn some new things. Through discussion and learning activities we were able to work through tough questions and become clearer in our own understanding. Thank you for the positive learning experience.”

Leslee Jodry, Northern Gateway

“Winter Assessment Camp provided another outstanding opportunity to further my assessment knowledge, allowing me to expand my understandings, and continue to grow and develop my abilities. Although the time was short, we were able to fill our time with high quality workshops. Once again the setting was beautiful, providing an added bonus to the learning experience. It amazed me that nearly seventy educators converged for two days in the middle of winter and the school year, to focus their attention on issues of assessment, with the sole purpose of improvement of student learning.” 

Jill Aman, Horizon

Thank you for the opportunity to attend.  The camp was a first time experience for us and we enjoyed every minute of it.  It gave us a new perspective on facilitating, new ideas for sharing and a new outlook for our assessment commitments.  The sessions were valuable but so were the “hot tub” conversations, it is all about networking!  We spent the drive home creating a plan and are very excited to carry it out!

Lori-Ann Betton and Crystal Riou, Lloydminster Catholic

The session on Teacher as Planner, Coach, Judge and Reporter was very well presented. The information was current and had immediate applications for my work with our teachers. The facilitators provided excellent alternative activities to meet the range of needs when presenting.

Beverley Barca, Foothills

Webinar on Sound Grading Practices

The grades students receive should reflect what they have actually learned. What should teachers eliminate in the grading process for that to happen? What should they do to make grades support learning?

Ken O'Connor, author of A Repair Kit for Grading: 15 Fixes for Broken Grades, will explore the answers to these questions, and describe grading practices that result in accurate and meaningful communications about student learning.

"Fifteen Fixes for Broken Grades." 

Register now for the free webinar at www.ets.org/webinar/fifteenfixes.html

Feedback: How Learning Occurs

“Feedback is a word we use unthinkingly and inaccurately.  We smile at a student, say ‘good job!’ and call it feedback.  We write ‘B-‘at the top of a paper and consider it feedback.  We share a score on the (provincial) test with a student and his parents and consider it feedback.”

“But feedback is something different. It is useful information about performance. It is not praise, it is not evaluation, it is not a number on a standardized test. So, true feedback is critical—perhaps the key element—in effective learning.   No goal worth meeting is ever met without good feedback and opportunities to use it.   What, then, is ‘useful information about performance’?”
Read the rest of this informative article by Grant Wiggins –http://www.authenticeducation.org/bigideas/article.lasso?artId=61

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