Assessment Observation

Last week in SED 406 we had the opportunity to spend some observation time in classrooms in Central Falls High. We were asked specifically to pay attention to assessment strategies used by the teachers we observed. In other words, how did they hold their students accountable during class? How did they make sure that students were actively involved in whatever learning activity was happening?

Before we were let loose to observe, we talked about some things to look for in the classrooms. We discussed how moving about the room and using students’ names while teaching is one way of making sure that students are keeping their heads up off their desks and their attention on you. Another strategy is to give students a worksheet to fill out during lecture segments or reading assignments, or to instruct them to take notes. However, this is only effective if you collect worksheets and notes afterwards – to make students truly accountable, they need to know that their teacher will know if they are actively involved or not. Effective assessment also requires an understanding of how to assess without disrupting class or taking up too much teaching time and of how to collect data on assessment – how will you keep track of each student’s assessment from day to day?

We also discussed things that teachers should avoid when it comes to assessment. Teachers need to be conscious of both the tendency to teach something and then not assess it or assess something that was not taught – both of these situations can turn students off from classroom engagement. Another pitfall of assessing is mismatching the level of learning objectives with the level of an assessment strategy.

The first class I visited was an engineering class. The students were watching a ’60 Minutes’ video about the design and construction of a protective dome for the Chernobyl disaster site. The teacher informed us that the students would be asked to write a reflection, given a prompt, after viewing the video. However, the students did not have the reflection prompt before them as they watched the video and I did not see any students taking notes. I think it would have been more effective to have given the students the prompt during the viewing or to have had them take notes. This would have focused their attention and likely led to more meaningful reflections. As the video played, the teacher did move around the room a bit, tapping inattentive students on the shoulder and directing their attention back to the video. But as the video played on, attention seemed to wane in general. As the Chernobyl segment of the video ended, I expected the teacher to have a brief follow-up discussion with the class about what they had just seen, but this did not happen – he quickly moved on to the next segment. It seemed to me that the students were not being effectively assessed on what they were (or were not) learning from the video – there was little accountability and therefore little learning happening.

The second class I visited was an English class. When I entered the classroom, the students were working quietly with their textbooks open, some alone and some in small groups. They were reading ‘The Devil and Tom Walker’ and were working on answering questions on the worksheet about what they had read up until that point. The teacher in this classroom was more experienced and he seemed to have an excellent rapport with his students. The classroom had a friendly, playful atmosphere but there was also real work being done. As the students worked, the teacher walked about the room, checking in with groups and individuals, talking with them about the questions. From time to time, he would say things to keep the class on track like, “You should be working on question seven by now.” After a few minutes of this, the teacher called the class’ attention back to him. He gave a synopsis of what they had read so far, asking the class questions as he did so. If the class had no response to his question, he would direct them to particular parts of the text, guiding them to find the answer. Then he read the next part of the story aloud to the class, but before he did so, he directed their attention to question 8, telling them they would be expected to answer this question after the reading. As he read, he interjected with questions for the class, such as “Anyone want to make a prediction?” At the end of the segment, he called on a student by name and asked them to sum up what he had just read.  I left this classroom with a sense that this teacher was very effective at assessment and holding his students accountable. I noticed that as he read, most students were taking notes on their worksheets. They were also willing to answer and ask questions. They were paying attention and actively involved – it was clear that they had learned that in this class, they were accountable. I think this had a lot to do with the teacher’s behaviors of moving about the room, asking questions, continually checking that students were on track. There also seemed to be mutual respect between the teacher and his students and I think this is hugely important when it comes to holding students accountable.