Voicethread Tips for our Upcoming Conversation

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As anyone who visits this blog from time to time is probably aware, I will be moderating an asynchronous discussion about grading and assessment later this week. The conversation will include several noted authors, including Tom Guskey, Doug Reeves, Kim Bailey, Dylan Wiliam, and Chris Jakicic. We will be using one of the most phenomenal digital learning tools that I have ever come across: Voicethread.

For those new to Voicethread, here are a few tips:

Voicethread is one of the easiest—and most engaging—digital forums for discussions available to educators today. It’s a tool that my students have embraced completely and that I’ve used to participate in conversations with other teachers and experts on Web 2.0, Professional Learning Communities, and 21st Century Skills.

Our conversation entitled “Formative Assessment and Grading: Creating a System of Quality Feedback for Improved Student Learning” will begin on October 6 and end on October 8.

During that time, the authors will be stopping by our Voicethread a few times a day to lend their advice and to answer your questions about the challenges of collecting data, analyzing it, and using it to improve our practice–but the real value in our conversation comes from the collective wisdom of all of our participants! My hope is that we’ll wrestle with challenging topics together for three days—-answering and asking questions, pushing back against controversial ideas, and letting our own preconceived notions be challenged.

The cool part about Voicethread is that there are no set times for participating in our conversation. Far from a full three days of constant interaction, Voicethread conversations allow users to choose when they’d like to stop by and learn.

That means you can stop by as your schedule allows–before school, after changing the baby’s diaper, just before bed–to read comments from other participants and to share your wisdom with the digital peers that join together to reflect on assessment.

It should be a great example of what collaborative dialogue between accomplished teachers can look like–and it should bring out some ideas and issues that affect the future of everyone in education.

To be best prepared to use Voicethread during our conversation, consider:

  1. Creating a free educator account by visiting http://voicethread.com
  2. Viewing this Voicethread tutorial, which will show you how to add comments to a conversation.
  3. Viewing this Voicethread tutorial, which will introduce you to the idea of Voicethread identities.

You can also practice by adding a comment to one of the following professional development Voicethreads. Some are created by Bill Ferriter and others by me:

You might also be interested in these “digital conversation suggestions” that Bill uses to introduce to teachers and students whenever they tackle new tools:

While commenting, try to respond directly to other readers. Begin by quoting some part of the comment that you are responding to help other listeners know what it is that has caught your attention. Then, explain your own thinking in a few short sentences. Elaboration is important when you’re trying to make a point. Finally, finish your comment with a question that other listeners can reply to.

Questions help to keep digital conversations going!

When responding to another participant, don’t be afraid to disagree with something that they have said. Challenging the thinking of someone else will help them to reconsider their own thinking—and will force you to explain yours! Just be sure to disagree agreeably—impolite people are rarely influential.

If your thinking gets challenged by another participant in a conversation, don’t be offended. Listen to your peers, consider their positions and decide whether or not you agree with them. You might discover that they’ve got good ideas you hadn’t thought about. Either way, be sure to respond—let your challengers know how their ideas have influenced you.

Finally, know that you can always leave questions for me in the comment section of this entry. I’m really excited about our upcoming conversation and want to make sure that everyone feels comfortable with the tool that we’ll be using to interact with one another.

Will It Blend?

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It seems that the Educational “Meme of the Month” is blended learning.  Thanks to plugs from NBC’s Education Nation event and high-profile articles in the Huffington Post, Grand Rapids Press, and other news outlets, blended education is seriously “trending”.

As an educator, I see great promise in an education system that mixes self-paced online education with classroom instruction.  I recognize the potential for loosening the chains on our high-performing students, giving them the freedom to learn in an accelerated way.  I see the opportunity for more attention to be placed on the lowest achieving students as a teacher’s workload is diminished (by those advanced students “teaching themselves”).

I witness all of this and I wonder: Will this change ever really come to public education?

I have every right to be skeptical.  I’ve seen my share of doomed initiatives and watered-down reforms fail miserably.  I’ve gotten excited about upcoming changes, only to see those changes derailed and postponed and eventually cancelled due to lack of funding.  It’s ridiculously depressing and it has led me to be uncharacteristically jaded about new ideas in education.

And, that’s why–for now–I’m going to keep my head down, keep my feet on the ground, and avoid gazing up at those sparkly lights in the sky.  I’ll just have to wait and see.

Am I being too cynical?

More Assessment Author Samples

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As our conversation with several noted authors approaches, I have been attempting to showcase some of their work related to the topic:  ”Formative Assessment and Grading: Creating a System of Quality Feedback for Improved Student Learning”.  The only author who is slated to participate that I have had the pleasure of meeting in person is Tom Guskey.

Last year, Mr. Guskey spoke as part of a regional grading and assessment workshop and I managed to finagle a ticket and a substitute teacher for two days.  It was well worth the effort.  On one hand, he spent much of the time talking about the purpose of grades and the implications of teachers focusing on the communication and reporting aspect of them.  This I thoroughly agreed with, and found myself nodding along as he spoke.

Then, Guskey described how he implements this philosophy in his own college classroom (although he has also used it at every other level of education from Kindergarten to high school).  This is where my opinion and his differed.

He described his “second chance” policy for retakes of major (summative) assessments.  I disagree about limiting the number of retake opportunities, but I noticed that the resistant teachers who were in my group began to agree with him.  In the years that I had tried to convince them of the value of this view of grades and assessments, I had encountered tremendous opposition.  When Guskey recounted his simple system, however, more and more of these same teachers recognized its advantage.

Before I left that event, I picked up a copy of “Ahead of the Curve: The Power of Assessment to Transform Teaching and Learning” which is edited by Doug Reeves.  It contains chapters written by a Who’s Who of assessment experts.  Tom Guskey pens a chapter on making assessments useful to both teachers and students.  This may sound a bit like Dylan Wiliam’s take on student involvement in assessment, but I think that’s a good thing.

In speaking about the strength of teacher-created authentic assessments, Guskey writes

“If desired learning goals or standards are the foundation of students’ instructional experiences, then assessments of student learning are simply extensions of those same goals and standards.  Instead of teaching to the test, teachers are more accurately ‘testing or assessing what they teach’.”

That’s a pretty clear way to explain the importance of appropriately created assessments, right?

I highly recommend Ahead of the Curve, not just for Guskey’s chapter but also for essays by Ken O’Connor, Rick Stiggins, Dylan Wiliam, Doug Reeves, Bob Marzano, Linda Gregg, and even Rick DuFour.  Each essay/chapter is perfect for a short book study in a PLC, or simply to read before planning out your next instructional unit.

If these topics get you thinking and make you want to explore them more deeply, I encourage you to join us here from October 6-8 for the Voicethread conversation about assessment and grading.  Look for more information about how to use Voicethread and some tips for making the most of a digital conversation later this week and early next week.

Book Review: Embedded Formative Assessment

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The upcoming Voicethread conversation that I’ll be moderating will explore the issues related to assessment and grading, with some special emphasis on formative assessment.  In preparation for this event–which you are all strongly encouraged to join–I have been reading some of the new books by several of the authors who will be part of the discussion.  A few days ago, I reviewed Doug Reeves’ Elements of Grading, and now I want to introduce you to a very different short book about assessment.

Dylan Wiliam’s new book “Embedded Formative Assessment” focuses on two fundamental ideas: why is student achievement important and how can we use formative assessment in everything we do.

If I can make one criticism of the book, it’s that it focuses a bit too much on what school leaders need to do and less on what teachers can accomplish.  Then again, this might be one of my weaknesses as a teacher leader: I get frustrated with looking at the big picture yet not being able to make real change in my classroom.

I like that Wiliam describes more than fifty different techniques, yet pulls them all together in Chapter 2.  This well-reasoned section deals with the argument supporting the importance of formative assessment, as well as the fundamental issue of how we define the term.  I especially like the emphasis that he puts on the role that formative assessment plays in informing students about their own academic progress.  I think that this is a goal of formative assessment that is lacking in many instances, including my own instructional practices.

At its core, Embedded Formative Assessment really focuses on the five key strategies that Wiliam presents as the function of formative assessment:

  1. Communicating learning outcomes (the author prefers “intentions”) and expectations
  2. Choosing the best instructional strategies
  3. Providing opportunities for feedback
  4. Engaging students in the role of peer instructor
  5. Providing opportunities for student ownership of their learning

For me, the most striking aspect of this new book is the strong case that Dylan Wiliam makes for teachers integrating formative assessment into our daily lessons, and the importance of teaching students to take responsibility for their own learning.  These are the two lessons that I think we all need to learn, and this book does a great job of convincing teachers.

How do you use formative assessment on a regular basis?

 

Don’t forget to join us here at Scripted Spontaneity on October 6 for a chance to interact with Dylan Wiliam and several other assessment gurus on our latest Voicethread conversation.

Book Review: Elements of Grading

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In a couple of weeks, I’ll be moderating an online discussion about assessment and grading, which has really got me excited.  While I think of myself as knowledgeable in this area, and others have praised my ability to speak about it, I can’t hold a candle to the way that some accomplished researchers and writers handle it.

Thanks to the good folks at Solution Tree, some of the foremost experts in the field of assessment will be joining us for the Voicethread conversation October 6-8.  First among these is Doug Reeves, whose work I have been reading for most of my professional life.  In fact, after reading Ken O’Connor’s “The Mindful School”, I immediately grabbed a copy of Reeves’ “Accountability for Learning” and devoured it.

While some of his work has been aimed at administrators and district leaders, Doug’s most recent book, “Elements of Grading: A Guide to Effective Practice” is a truly useful book for teachers.  He writes in a style that teachers can relate to, and he backs up everything with sound research and references.  Some of what you will find in this book is beyond the scope of what an individual teacher can do in her classroom, but most of the issues and questions that he discusses are within the wheelhouse of teachers and PLTs.

From the Introduction, Reeves describes a clear mission for what grades ought to be in the form of four “boundaries”:

  1. Grades must be accurate.
  2. Grades must be fair.
  3. Grades must be specific.
  4. Grades must be timely.

From there, Reeves lays out the importance of grading and the implications for discussions and changes to grading.  In the second chapter, which I read and re-read several times, he makes the case for how critical the current grading debate is and how it can be compared to changes in the medical profession over the last 60 years.  He suggests a simple exercise to help teachers assess their own philosophy on assessment:

“Ask your colleagues to complete the following sentence:  The differences between a student who earns A’s and B’s and the student who earns D’s and F’s are…“

This really struck me as a powerful way to force each of us to think about how we look at students, and then discuss the similarities and differences within our school.

Aware of the burden that this type of change places on teachers, though, Reeves includes an entire chapter on ways that busy teachers can implement grading reform in their own classes.  He even addresses the issue of Special Education students and the concerns that teachers have about equitable grading for them.

Elements of Grading ends with advice for administrators about how to successfully conduct these conversations in their schools without alienating large parts of their faculty.  At 140 pages, this book is a quick read that is perfectly suitable for a PLT-based book study.  I strongly recommend it for those educators who want to examine their own grading practices and influence the views of others.  What do you think?