February 17 - Week 5

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Based on what you have heard, read and discussed, how will you approach questioning and formative assessment in your classroom?

            I recently used a vector quantity as an analogy for how a teacher should influence a classroom.  A vector is a physics term for a quantity that has both a direction and a magnitude.  I think it serves as a way of thinking about how questions can be used to direct student thinking in a classroom.  Questions, when properly used, can be effective tools to focus and direct student thinking.  Like a vector they have a direction component, seeking out an answer.    They also have a magnitude component in the amount of information they require to answer.  A closed knowledge question seeks only one specific answer or definition, while an open-ended application question can have a multitude of possible answers.

            Formative assessment can be thought of as the way teachers and students evaluate their ability to answer these questions.  Growing success argues assessment should be “ongoing descriptive feedback that is clear, specific, meaningful, and timely to support improved learning and achievement” (Ontario, 2010 p .6).  Formative assessment is done during the learning process, an when properly used and implemented it allows adaptive modifications on behave of both students and teachers to ensure better learning outcomes.  It can provide information about misconceptions, interests, efficacy, readiness, self-regulation, strengths and weaknesses.  It is essential to a learning environment that strives to be inclusive, equitable and responsive to student needs.

            Through my practicum and lessons at the Faculty of Education I’ve gained a greater understanding of the importance of questioning strategies and formative assessment.  Questioning strategies learned from Bloom’s taxonomy and the Edugains website allow teachers to direct, focus and modulate the intensity of student thought.  It sets a stage upon which learning can be observed and assessed.  Formative assessment provides a framework to observe and provide feedback for that learning.  It provides information that we teachers can use to improve or adapt our teaching in response to the specific needs of our students.  Teachers also need to engage students in formative self-assessment, helping them become independent learners.

Describe how are you thinking differently about teaching and learning now than you were in September of 2019.

            As I progress through the program, I am gaining a greater understanding of how the learning process should be focused on encouraging independent learners.  I think I was always aware of its importance, but I am becoming more aware of strategies, techniques and philosophies designed to encourage independent learners.  For example, I had an aversion to using learning goals and success criteria in my lessons during my first practicum placement.  I found them awkward to use and integrate into a lesson, preferring instead to use a guiding question to focus and direct my lessons to a class.  With more classroom experience and better knowledge of documents like Growing Success, I have a much better understanding of their potential usefulness and the proper way to implement.  They can be powerful tools to promote independent learning skills in students.  They can be used to compliment self-assessment skills (assessment as learning).  Through experience, repetition and practice I can better see how using learning goals and success criteria can be a valuable learning tool.  I have had similar experiences with many other instructional strategies and teaching tools.  Since September 2019 I’ve become better at self-assessing my own skills and weaknesses as an educator and as a student.  I continue to learn how to teach learners.

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Word cloud:  Important words from researcher quotes on descriptive feedback.  The image is an example of our class work and serves to make our learning and progress explicit to us students. 

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