Category: Blog’s journey through EDUC 394 (Page 1 of 2)

I decided to make my last post of EDUC 394 a look at assessment as I learned it through my journey in the education program this past year. This is a long one. Please be patient with this blog as assessment is extremely complicated and all teachers have one way of doing it or another. I will try my hardest to keep away from bias but the opinions of assessment on here are my own and not a tell-all! Please comment your ways of assessment and any other opinions as collaboration between teachers and students is what makes assessment better and more clear! This will make it easier for both teachers and students. 🙂

Assessment comes in many different forms. Lately, we have heard of formative and formal assessments. We have also been introduced to classic assessments such as exams, percentages, and grade scales. But lately, we also have the proficiency scale that rates the students in where they sit on the knowledge and how they understand it rather than a percentage weight within the amount they “need” to know (percentage).

I remember when my school in Mexico tried to change from percentage to letter grades. There was an uproar from parents and teachers. How will I know what my kid knows? Should we do it like in the USA? What does the letter mean? – These were all valid questions. But they all come down to this, what is it that the child knows and how can I compare them to others? Parents loved the percentage as it told them the amount of information their child was able to memorize and the “clear” amount they were missing. Was this true?

It all came down to testing.

Testing for me is a skill. One that was very imperative when it came to my Biomedical degree. We needed the highest grades in order to apply to further education and “be competitive”. Therefore, knowing how to take a test and for what style one particular professor liked was an essential skill. This took away from my love of learning. It became a game of getting the best mark so I can apply to medical school and took all of the joy in how I approached the material. More and more I just became an information-regurgitating machine.
The laboratories were my favourite! I always excelled at hands-on work in chemistry and biology. But my peers were better at memorizing information and they couldn’t process it later. Yet, they got better grades than I did. This didn’t seem fair and it took me a long time to understand the need for all of that.

One of the skills I gained from memorizing information was scaffolding. Which then became important for the higher classes. Which then became important for the labs as I grasped higher concepts better. This type of learning at the end was more difficult for my peers who had only memorized the information for their tests and then forgot about most of it.

This brings me to extrinsic vs intrinsic learning.

According to Charlott Nickerson at SimplyPsychology, “Intrinsic motivation comes from within the individual, while extrinsic motivation comes from outside the individual”.

We need to balance both and count them as learning! One is what we present the student and how we expect them to present their evidence. The other one is the way they approach their learning and how they want to present it.

We need certain balances in our classroom so we keep a good learning culture and do not exhaust our student’s learning ability:

• Do we make final exams the only way of assessing student’s learning?
• Does testing feel like a punishment to the students? or a way to present their knowledge? Should testing only improve their mark?
• We need to separate work habits from learning outcomes. Moreover, they need to be separated from final assessments of knowledge. This can improve our bias in marking students and how we approach their assessment.
• We also need to decouple summative assessment from participation. Some students just do not have the social skills to participate. What have we done to make the culture in the room a safe space to participate? are the students feeling pressured to participate from us? This can hinder their learning and make them feel uncomfortable and unsafe in our space.
• Lastly, what does success look like? Is it really only one paper? one test? one lab? It is important to remember that it is important that the student is enjoying academia and grows love for it as they mature and their scaffolding becomes more intricate.

Differentiated assessment: Triangulation!

Triangulation in assessment: all parts are equally important for the student’s education as a whole.
When we think of triangulation, product-observation-communication (conversation), and how they all fit as a whole.

Triangulation needs these types of expectations:

• The assessment rubric or code needs to be simple, accessible, focused, and with clear expectations
• Record all conversations and observations as part of assessment to compare the different products the students are providing. This can be in the form of reflections or tickets out the door. They do not need to be formal assessments or quizzes only.
• Triangulation needs to express differentiation.
• and it needs to align with the Indigenous Ways of Learning.

Formative assessment vs summative – which one is more important? BOTH!

Formative assessment can be explained as all of the things you do for the student to reach a learning outcome (goal). Summative is the accumulation of all formative assessment evidence presented with a formal assessment (testing, lab, etc.) in order to give the student a grade, usually on the proficiency scale.

The Proficiency Scale

This is how I have learned to see the different types of learning and why they matter. These are for them to know where their learning stands and how to improve.

• Emerging: The student still needs to find their way of learning and how they approach it. Maybe there can be a new way to reach their goals.
• Developing: The student is starting to grasp the concepts but they have opportunities for growth.
• Proficient: The student has enough knowledge of the subject/skill to continue on their own later in life.
• Extending: The student has knowledge of the subject/skill (core competency) and is beyond just knowing the subject but can display connections to other materials and build further.

The proficiency scale allows the student to know where they stand and how they can improve their learning themselves, rather than an amount or percentage of knowledge they need to memorize and repeat. Critical thinking on all subjects can also be replaced with knowledge.

How critically can they think about this material? – When we approach the proficiency scale like that, we better understand the skills the students have to build further later as they approach the material again.

The assessment then is found in the spiral of inquiry as it follows:

The What: assessment
How can I have better assessment practices? or how?

The Hunch: make an assessment plan that fits your teaching goals! -What do we do?
Adapting your assessment to your goals is much easier and has a more organic flow when learning a specific subject. Adapting yourself to a type of assessment for the sake of “how we have done it” can make your learning feel stuck and could leave a disingenuous feeling within yourself and your students.

Take action – set your intentions for learning!
Did the students demonstrate at any point that they knew the material? Is it perhaps the environment in which they are taking the testing that they are not comfortable with and they may have testing anxiety? Does that mean they don’t know the material any less than any other student? Taking a test is a skill, and sometimes one that we can manipulate to do well in tests without actually fully understanding the material.

Check: What is the result of differentiated assessment?
Do we count student’s work (formative) as part of their overall assessment?
If it is not working, try a different approach!

Old ways of assessment are not completely discontinued; they however have taken the same place as other differentiated assessments and they are just as valuable.

My thoughts on the possibilities of why some teachers might hate assessment

1. It takes a long time to provide substantive feedback to students about their work instead of just a mark. Sitting with the student and providing feedback is difficult and time-consuming. However, it is the best way to let the students know that we care for them and their learning. Most importantly, how we are providing our knowledge to them and how they can grow theirs most efficiently.
2. Reading students’ work that is not meeting expectations reminds teachers that their instructional practices might not be as effective as they might think it is.

We have to remember to provide feedback more often instead of just marks. Give the student the option for self-assessment vs yours. Introspection allows you to reflect on your knowledge and review what has been done. Moreover, they might see where they went wrong, correct it themselves, and understand how to approach the material without hand-holding from the teacher!

Providing marks all the time can feel like a punishment when they get it wrong and not give them a safe space for failure. When doing the work, is it important to get to the right answer alone? in group? only the teacher’s answer? Feedback allows them to find the answer themselves, and then differentiate their learning from the group.

This is the thing I believe the most. Assessment can be fun for the student and the teacher! It is a collaboration between the two of them as much as their learning. The goal of what the student needs to learn cannot be lost and most importantly the student itself!

I like to repeat to myself: Do not be a dream/academic path crusher!
Instill a love for learning in the students and prepare them for whatever will swing their way and how to defend and approach their learning. Those skills are more essential than any amount of information I can repeat over and over from a textbook.

My thoughts on the teacher recruitment for the town of Fort Ware and how remote Indigenous communities struggle to retain essential services and workers.

The school in Fort Ware, B.C. – K-12 in one.

The team from Fort Ware came to show us their beautiful town and make the block one teacher candidates aware of remote opportunities for teaching in small communities. They offer a competitive salary, living quarters, one-year short contracts, and transportation to and from the town on holidays. They keep the contracts year-by-year so that the teacher has the opportunity to leave; or if they are not the right fit for the small community, they will not renew their contract.

I grew up in Lillooet, BC which at the time I thought was small. My graduating class of 2005 had 45 graduates and my brother’s 2024 had now 24. Small towns are struggling to find people to work in them, especially essential workers like teachers and healthcare professionals. These towns still have people and need these services fulfilled.

Remote living is not for everyone. Lillooet had Vancouver just four hours away. However, it did not have any type of public transportation services to get out of town. Fort Ware is also only accessible by car and during the winter only by plane. This town has had to build their public services. The Indigenous communities have had to build their education, fire department, police department, etc. Their tight community is important to them and having the right person to teach their children is imperative to them!

I believe a year in a community like Fort Ware would be an amazing experience. For me, it would not be a place I would like to settle in for the rest of my life. However, even spending a year in a small community has lasting impacts for decades. It is important to always remember you are a guest to that community and your impression will last there way longer than it would last for you. Whatever we say or do makes a mark in those lives. Make sure that if you ever visit or educate students in a small community, you have the best intentions and you are ready to immerse yourself in their culture. You can show them yours but it is their land and their customs that are important there for them to continue to flourish even after you leave.

Fort Ware, B.C. Location on the red pin. Sometimes only accessible by plane.

Shane Safir (pictured above giving her Keynote),

I had the privilege to attend another Professional Development session hosted by School District 57 on October 20th.

Her introduction was quite interesting. She identifies as a queer woman but also explained that Safir, when used as a noun, means scribe in Hebrew.

This seemed irrelevant to me, but it was quite impactful by the end. What information do we use to describe ourselves? If she wasn’t doing a keynote or practicing as a teacher, would she describe herself as a scribe?

She then made us think of ourselves as learners; this is who we are after all… how else would a teacher describe themselves? But now I see many possibilities depending on what is important in that particular teacher’s pedagogy. What data do we use to describe ourselves? A simple statement like “by name, I am a scribe” makes it so much more impactful that she is there giving us that lecture as our teacher for the day. Would this simple introduction help me understand the rest of her keynote and open me up to a better understanding?

“Street data” to Safir is “data that cannot be measured but it’s valuable”. The data that can be measured and it is usually presented as the one-and-all to understand students and schools is the “big data”. This big data includes tests and grades only; they are questions answered “correctly” and produce a bell curve.

Street data includes “the missing insights missing from big data” – Trisha Wang.

These particular data sets include:

• Abundance mindset: such as joy, wellbeing, dignity, student voices, etc.
• Agency: efficacy, mastery, belonging, identity.
• Authentic assessment: this is done for the individual students and usually by the students to prove their knowledge their way

This amount of agency can be messy for assessment and takes a lot of time. It can also be unpredictable and it requires the teacher to RELINQUISH CONTROL. This is particularly hard for most teachers. However, the students deserve to have the chance to feel identity within their learning. Student agency is a crucial skill as they enter the “real world”. Memorizing information is necessary for scaffolding knowledge, but the students should be able to choose how they memorize it and present it.

Dr. Sidney Stone Brown says that counting creates measurement, which creates a hierarchy. “With student agency, we can BE instead of measure”.

During her presentation, she left us with various questions. I would like to say what the questions were and a simple answer. If you have the chance to read this blog, I would like for you to think of these questions and adapt them to your pedagogy and how we teach. All answers will be different and mould themselves to serve us better.

• What is the dominant language of data in our field?
• What does it sound like?
• How are standardized tests constructed?
• What is the purpose of education anyway?

I would like to say as a scientist that data has multiplied exponentially in the past 100 years. The amount of information we are asking students to learn in high school is the same amount, or sometimes more, than a professor in the late 1890s and early 1900s. The branches of science have become overwhelming and we expect students to know university-level material by grade 12 before entering university.

There is a problem when we focus on only academics and knowledge. For example, my doctor friends complain that they do not know how to run their personal lives and lack certain social skills because as they say, “I did not have time to live! I had so much to study”. This is good for a doctor as we want people to know what they are doing, but what about that person’s interpersonal skills? How will they approach empathy and know about diversity? Will they be able to rent a car or know how to get a proper mortgage?

There is one particular skill I would have wanted when studying, how am I happy? What is the measurement for happiness? When I graduate high school? When I finally move out? When I finish my degrees needed for a job? When I get a mortgage? When I get married? When I have a steady job? When I retire? When… Can learning immense amounts of data answer these questions and are they important to making a “good citizen”?

A picture I took after the presentation. It seemed like they were organizing themselves and telling me to organize my learning into a row to lead me in the right direction.

https://www.pgpl.ca/

The Prince George Public Library graciously hosted us and gave us a presentation. They focused on services, kits available for teachers, how to do anything there, and a tour of the building.

The biggest surprise was that they host adult education and provide them with tutoring and internet services. The library is a place for everyone. Learning and entertainment. There were also games, movies, and music!

For teachers, there are a huge array of kits for teaching. They can provide resources that might not be otherwise available at your current school. This way, resources can be equal in the community and be available for anyone for free!

Online resources are also a huge part of the library. The world is moving more and more towards online technology. The library is there to facilitate resources but also teach anyone how to use them.

A library is more than a compilation of books. It is also resources that might be expensive or unaccessible for some, community building art and other events, education and literacy of physical resources and digital media, and entertainment to take a break that includes magazines, music, movies, etc.

Going to the library can be a solo discovery or a group activity. Looking up the events the library offers can help you find community in a new town. If you are new to Prince George, visit the local library and talk to a librarian, they could set you on a new adventure to find like-minded individuals who enjoy the same subjects as you. They don’t only sort books but can also catalogue your interests!

Noelle Pepin presented us with the opportunity to integrate beading and the binary code. It was an amazing experience! I get compliments on my necklace all the time.

I chose the word purpose because I have found purpose in my teaching, why I am teaching, and the reminder to continue with purpose every day!

The teaching perfectly summarized the spirit of the First People’s Principal of Learning in the BC Curriculum. It is hands-on beading that is entertaining, builds a conversational piece, and shows students the binary code. The restriction of the necklace also shows the students actively the rules of “space” in data saved using binary. It was a great conversation with my peers to understand a new digital language that it is usually unavailable in our reality but only digital, but now in our hands!

My Indigenous friends and I from various First Nations communities have discussed how there is a fine line that might be crossed by the introduction of Indigenous culture that is being adapted and then resold to them as part of education. This is a topic of discussion that has perplexed everyone I ask. It is important to remember the intention of why we teach something and to not appropriate culture. We can avoid this by asking the people who are part of that culture to present it to our students or at least for permission from the community we intend to quote. The least we can always do is to mention where it comes from and how it is practiced. Some of these communities have not had the chance to practice their culture and we need to remember the privilege it is to share these spaces with them.

The artist in this case was portraying how she felt about the overuse of plastics and how it affects the ocean. Climate change is upon us and an art piece can make you feel things and reflect on things that might not be here yet but are in the close future.

We do not always understand what the artists want to portray right away, but the art in front of us is a reflection of how they see the world. It is important to see the art, admire it, understand how it makes us feel, then see the name of the piece, admire it again and see if we see it in a different light, then read the description and analyze your feelings of what you analyzed and what the artist meant to convey.

This art installation was close to my heart. The town I grew up in Acapulco always had art installations about the use of plastic and how pollution was affecting the oceans. My fondest memory is of my mom and I going to clean reafs since I was in the first grade. The old memory of the impactful pieces of the past brought back memories but also made me hypercritical of the art. I had to fight my bias and see it with fresh eyes to find enjoyment with my peers.

The town of Acapulco was just completely devastated by one of the strongest hurricanes the world has ever seen. The town that saw me grow up and gave my childhood so much meaning will take decades to recover from such a tragedy. Some close relatives have not recovered from it. Climate change is here and it is devastating our reality. It is not a thing of when, but where you will be when it affects you and your loved ones.

The visit from Science World made me realize (AHA) a couple of things:

Aha: Digital literacy is about being able to read and know what is been presented on a website and about 79% of students only judge what we see in front of us.

Aha: Lateral reading is a skill that can be taught to students to debunk fake websites. Skills that they can practice getting better at filtering the information that is presented to them online.

But it left me with a couple of questions:

Hmmm:

• How do we teach digital literacy if the students don’t always have access?
• How do we teach this to K-5?
• How do we help the students when the parents give them too much access? the problem)

It is important to always talk about advancements in technology with our peers, but also with our students and younger people; they are usually the ones who hear about those technologies faster than us as they have more time to access information online. We also get used to what we have and work, but younger generations always want what is newest and brightest to get away from adults.

There is a saying from kids I’ve heard, “Once my parents find that platform and learn to use it, we need to find a new one”. As they get older they want to reach older or more targetted generations, they join different websites meant for the “aging people”. I was there when MySpace was the “it” thing and facebook was first invented…

SparkLab: “It’s a community driven initiative, born out of a passion for sparking positive change”

• Vision: catalyst for transformative innovation.
• The sessions are designed to kindle curiosity.

Some machines are unaffordable, and they cannot be placed in each classroom or school. Access to places like WIDC that have machines like 3D printers, lasers, high-tech engineering machines, etc. is important so students have access to see what technology can bring to the future.

• The combination of expertise, high-end hardware, and latest software all in one place is easily incorporated in the Curriculum with Educational Plans and field trips.
• This brings accessibility to the community and inspires the kids to join the field of technology.

3D-Printing can bring cheap access to different pieces of engineering and topographical maps that would not be accessible in other ways and the feel and touch parts bring it to their other senses in ways that pictures can’t. The software needed to create the 3D models also teaches the students how to program and create something in digital space and time, which then can be printed into our own reality.

Digital literacy is an important skill to have in today’s technology-based world.

The Ministry of Education and Childcare defines digital literacy as “the interest, attitude and ability of individuals to appropriately use digital technology and communication tools to access, manage, integrate, analyze and evaluate information, construct new knowledge, create and communicate with others”.

The Digital Literacy Framework is also mentioned, and it elaborates in six characteristics identified by BC educational leaders. They are based on National Educations Technology Standards for Students (NETS*S) developed by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE).

The characteristics are:

1. Research and Information Literacy: Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information.
2. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making: Students use critical thinking skills to plan and conduct research, manage projects, solve problems, and make informed decisions using appropriate digital tools and resources.
3. Creativity and Innovation: Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology.
4. Digital Citizenship: Students understand human, cultural, and societal issues related to technology and practice legal and ethical behavior.
5. Communication and Collaboration: Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others.
6. Technology Operations and Concepts: Students demonstrate a sound understanding of technology concepts, systems, and operations.

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/education-training/k-12/teach/resources-for-teachers/digital-literacy

“A digital footprint – sometimes called a digital shadow or an electronic footprint – refers to the trail of data you leave when using the internet. It includes websites you visit, emails you send, and information you submit online. A digital footprint can be used to track a person’s online activities and devices. Internet users create their digital footprint either actively or passively.”

I have learnt about digital footprint for a long time. We have all heard of the one friend who is good at tracking people through pictures on social media and other posts and basically finds anything about them… I was one of those people!

The realization that I and some friends were so good at doing that made me aware of how easy it could be for other people to find you. Continuously clearing my cookies and not accepting everything online should always be in our minds, “what am I really agreeing to in order to see this content?”

This is when I went through a long couple of days to delete myself from as many newsletters and go through the process of not just closing or suspending my account, but deleting my information as much as I could. I also constantly “clean” my social media friend’s list, eliminate anyone I am not close to and carefully add only people I trust. This way only people that I have added can google or find me.

I then realized I had given my email way too many times to retailers, websites, social media, etc. and now they had access to my email, then I gave my email and phone number somewhere else, and now they had access to that as well. The thing we do not realize is that data sets of our information can be sold by the people we provide our information to. We never sit and read the whole “Apple privacy contract”, they sell our activity to businesses and then flood us with advertisements that are targeted to us, then we are surprised they know us… spoiler alert! you permitted them to pry into your life.

Creating this website has been a challenge for me as I do not like to share too much online. But I overshare in person… However, not all digital footprints are bad either! Companies use their digital footprint so you can find them more easily. Posting a popular dance on TikTok can lead them to see your bio, then other social media platforms or websites that they can access to acquire your services or purchase your products.

We have to remember that footprints are left everywhere we go, in real life and digitally and we have to be careful what doors we open and what we access.

Here are some tips for you to be careful about what you portray with your digital footprint:
– Be careful about what you share, where you share it and with whom!
– Be smart about the sites you visit (fake ones are hard to spot! Learn the subtle differences), do not open emails that aren’t from someone you didn’t ask, and very importantly DO NOT click on links you receive!!

Here are some tips for your students to manage their digital footprint:

1. Be kind, helpful, and understanding
2. Use privacy settings
3. Keep a list of accounts you own – do not leave any open!
4. Don’t overshare! particularly in open websites or where strangers can access them
5. Use a password keeper (Apple or Google have safe encryption)
6. Google yourself – you can see what others can see!
7. Monitor linking accounts – facebook can link with Instagram and TikTok, etc. providing them with more information that you might want to give.
8. Consider using an anonymous secondary email.
9. At least skim the terms and conditions – key words such as “sale or will never sell” are important.
10. Know that sending is like publishing-forever – someone could keep that information as screenshots, etc.
11. Understand that searches are social – You could ask your students to google each other and see what they come up with.
12. Use digital tools to manage your digital footprint

Always tell your students about the consequences of online footprints. You might learn something you didn’t know yourself!

Reference is taken from the following website:
https://www.kaspersky.com/resource-center/definitions/what-is-a-digital-footprint