It's been a couple of days since I posted last, so please excuse me if I repeat anything said in the last post....
Last week, I gave my comprehension assessment, as outlined in the last post. Then, I got them back and I was confused again...How in the world do I grade this?? Here is what I did:
I looked at the matching section and I graded that and wrote a number correct. If they got 20 or more, I wrote a star, because I knew that they had met my goal for that section and received at least a 2 on the assessment.
On the back, I realized that some of the students were able to answer quite a few questions from section 3 without doing so well on the 2 (matching) section. I realized that some of my questions were too easy. Questions where they have to know a single vocab word to get it correct do not work...that's what the matching section is for! So, I threw those questions out and focused my attention on the questions that required actual comprehension of the reading. Questions like Why? How? Describe? really seemed to show me how much my students were understanding.
For section 4, I wrote questions that really tested whether or not my students were super-stars. I embedded some new vocabulary and asked them to define the words, using context clues and prior knowledge. I also asked some grammar questions...but I think those might have been too easy. So when I graded this section, I used my gut. If a student really impressed me with their insightfullness, I gave them a 4...and thus a 100%. If they were almost there, they got a 3.5.
So a 4 is 100%, 3.5 is 96%, 3 is 92%, 2.5 is 84%, 2 is 76%, 1.5 is 70%, 1 is 60%, .5 is 50% and a zero is 40%.
What this grading scale does is it allows you to give lots of credit to those students who are trying, but just haven't gotten it...yet. They can re-take the test as many times as they need to once they "get" the information (I'll probably write another story...) Another thing that I loved/hated is that it really showed me where my students really are. Sometimes in class, they can pass my comprehension quizzes (because there is so much English on the board)...but they haven't internalized the words yet. This is a great communication tool because they are telling me what they're not getting and I can then pass that on to parents. It's a bummer because students who were feeling very successful might now have a B or a C. But I bet if I gave them the same assessment in a month, they would do much better. But they are SO freaked out because their grades might be "tanked" for a few weeks.
All-in-all, I LOVED this process. I am going to do a speaking assessment tomorrow where the objective is to talk about 5 friends preferred activities. A two will be if they struggle or miss one or two. A 3 will be that they gave me 5 activities, but didn't really expand much. A 3.5 will be if they can answer English questions in French about where they do the activity or when and a 4 will be if we can talk back and forth in the TL about the activities. We'll see!!!
Excited to hear about the speaking test! You're doing great! Go you!
ReplyDeleteMy district is also moving to Stds based assessments. This is our first year of implementation. We're doing one level at a time.
ReplyDeleteMy question to you is, did your district require you to use TPRS? Did your department decide? How did you learn it? How important is TPRS to this type of teaching and assessment? Is it necessary to take a course in order to do this effectively? Now that you've been using it, what do you feel are the pros and cons?
Although I am on board with the Stds based idea, I find that implementation is A LOT of work, especially because, like many FL teachers, I have 4 preps and teach two languages. Do you have any suggestions for us newbies?
My district does not require me to use TPRS and I am the only one in the school who is using TPRS exclusively. I learned TPRS by reading as much as I could about it and attending the NTPRS convention last summer. I don't think that TPRS is important at all in relation to stds based assessment. I think what is necessary is an ability to think outside the box. A standards-based teacher has to think beyond fill-in-the-blank and really ask "What should my kids know and how am I going to really know that they know it and how am I going to know when they're getting close and how am I going to know when they are going way above and beyond." I've found that some teachers are opposed because they don't like the idea of offering re-takes. Or they don't like the idea that homework and other non-standards assessing things don't count for much. If there is a conference on std based assessment in your area, I would recommend going, just to get an idea of why so many teachers and districts are going to this.
ReplyDeleteYou are right, implementation is a lot of work. Especially if your district doesn't have clear, concise standards (mine doesn't...which is a good thing because I can basically teach what I want and a bad thing because it's hard to know exactly what I should be teaching).
For the pros and cons...the pros are that it takes almost no time at all to grade. If you have a well-written assessment, it's really easy to see where a student is at the time the test is given. Cons...it takes some serious time to write a test. You are more than welcome to "steal" my format and tweak it to your language and level.
If your district is just starting with one level at a time...just do what you can! So far, I think I will only have one or two big assessments a semester. I teach two levels and each level has had a comprehension assessment and my level 1s have had a speaking assessment. They also have written assessments every week of a 5-word spelling test (which is the only time I count spelling at this level).
I am a newbie too...so don't hesitate to ask questions and maybe we can help each other!!