Elements in Planning

Instructional Planning: Backwards Design                                       Grade Group:  6
ELEMENTS	GROWING SUCCESS MESSAGE	TEACHER CANDIDATE FRIENDLY LANGUAGE
Achievement Chart Categories	A standard, province-wide guide to be used by teachers to make judgements about student work based on clear performance standards. The categories of knowledge and skills are as follows: • Knowledge and Understanding: Subject-specific content acquired in each grade/course (knowledge), and the comprehension of its meaning and significance (understanding) • Thinking: The use of critical and creative thinking skills and/or processes • Communication: The conveying of meaning through various forms • Application: The use of knowledge and skills to make connections within and between various contexts	Set of guideline to follow when looking at performance standards of the students. These include; Knowledge and understand: do they understand the subject-specific content for each grade and unit? Thinking; are they using skills and/or processes to think critically and creatively? Communication: Are they able to conveying meaning through various forms? Application: Are they able to make connections with the knowledge and skills within and between various contexts?
Learning Skills and Work Habits	The skills and habits that can be demonstrated by a student across all subjects, courses, and grades and in other behaviour at school. These learning skills and work habits promote student achievement of the curriculum expectations. The six skills and habits are: responsibility, organization, independent work, collaboration, initiative, and self-regulation.	There are 6 skills and habits that students need to demonstrate across all subjects, courses and grades that promote student achievement in the curriculum and other school/ life behaviours. They include; responsibility, organization, independent work, collaboration, initiative and self-regulation.
Learning Goals	Learning Goals: brief statements that describe for a student what he or she should know and be able to do by the end of a period of instruction. The goals represent subsets or clusters of knowledge and skills that the student must master to successfully achieve the overall curriculum expectations	Learning goals clearly identify what students are expected to know and be able to do, in language that students can readily understand ·      Teachers develop learning goals based on the curriculum expectations and share them with students at or near the beginning of a cycle of learning ·      Teachers and students come to a common understanding of the learning goals through discussion and clarification during instruction
Purpose and Nature of Assessment	Purpose of Assessment: to improve student learning. Includes assessment for, as and of learning Nature of Assessment: how students are being assessed, based on the purpose of assessment (for/as/of). Can be diagnostic, formative, or summative	Purpose of Assessment: to improve student learning. Includes assessment for, as and of learning Nature of Assessment: how students are being assessed, based on the purpose of assessment (for/as/of). Can be diagnostic, formative, or summative
Success Criteria	Describe in specific terms what successful attainment of the learning goals looks like. The success criteria are used to develop an assessment tool.	An outline of expectations for the student to be successful when the assignment is completed. Success Criteria helps the teacher develop how the project will be assessed.
Assessment Strategies	To elicit information about student learning. These strategies should be triangulated to include observation, student-teacher conversations, and student products	Ways in which teachers evaluate the students. The assessment strategies should include observation of the student, conversations with the student and assignments.
Assessment Tools	The success criteria are used to develop an assessment tool, such as a checklist, a rubric, or an exit card (i.e., a student’s self-assessment of learning)	Tools that are used to assess students such as: rubrics, exit card, checklist, ect.
Differentiated Instruction	An approach to instruction designed to maximize growth by considering the needs of each student at his or her current stage of development and offering that student a learning experience that responds to his or her individual needs. Differentiated instruction recognizes that equity of opportunity is not achieved through equal treatment and takes into account factors such as the student’s readiness, interest, and learning preferences	Instruction based on student’s readiness. Each child is unique and learns at their own individual pace. Teacher’s must be able to accommodate this and adjust lessons where necessary.

Types of Assessment

	Assessment FOR Learning	Assessment AS Learning	Assessment OF Learning
Who Is Responsible	Teachers are responsible for this part of assessment – the teacher is to understand what the students still need to learn.	Students are responsible for this aspect and should help them understand their strengths in learning.	Teachers are responsible for this aspect as it will produce the mark for the student. The teacher should always have evidence (work) as to why the student received a certain grade.
What Is the Information Used for?	When teachers use assessment to find out what students are thinking and what they will teach next To personalize or individualize learning Allow access for teacher to present information in distinct ways.	Children are able to self-assess and become self-monitoring thinkers. Students are able to see where they need to go next in the learning criteria Students being able to understand the information themselves. Intentionally working with younger people to show them where they are good at learning. .	Is what teachers do in most classrooms. Assessment for accreditation or decision making – reports for parents. We need evidence to make the judgement and make the judgement well.

My Assessment Experience

Introduction

Welcome to my blog on assessment evaluation and reporting. I am a teacher Candidate at Brock University and am currently enrolled in a course that explains the importance of assessment in the elementary school system. Over the semester in this course we will be learning the purpose of assessment as well as what the responsibilities that we take as teachers when assessing students. This blog will keep you updated on my reflection of the importance of assessment and the beliefs that I have based on my past experiences. The blog will also explain how this course impacts my belief in assessment.

Past Experience

            In elementary and high school assessment always created a sense of fear inside me. The evaluation of my work and the mark that I would be given caused me to be nervous about if the work that I had completed would be good enough. During elementary my experiences with assessment were not as bad as teachers seemed to have more connection with me as I was in their class for an extended period of time. This time in their class created a relationship where the teacher was more willing to provide feedback while assessing my work. The feedback that was given to me caused some of the fears of not being good enough to reside as they gave me a way to improve on my work. The fear of assessment was highly present in high school as the relationship was not created with teachers that you would only see once a day for a single class. The assessment that was given usually was just a percentage mark without any feedback on which I can improve on. My assessment experience was one in which I was fearful that I was not going to receive a good mark and have negative feedback from my teachers.

Current beliefs about assessment in elementary classrooms

            My current belief about assessment in elementary school classrooms is that it needs to be modified to take in account the work that students put in. In the current system students are assessed on the final project and not the work that they have done to get to this product. By only evaluating the product that is produced the work that they have done to get there is not considered if the answer is wrong. Assessment should include the work that is done so that students are able to get marks for the work that they put in to get to the final solution.

            I also believe that assessment should provide positive feedback that students are able to benefit from. Students that receive feedback on their work should be given the chance to put that feedback into action. By giving the students a chance to improve on the work they do by giving them an assignment that can use similar concepts will allow the students to improve on the feedback. Feedback should be an important part of the assessment process in elementary school. Giving feedback to students can be an example of what is expected of them in future assignments.

A look ahead

            Looking ahead to the rest of the semester I look forward to learning more about assessment. By learning about assessment I hope that I will be able to improve on aspects of assessment that I believe need to be changed. Learning about assessment evaluation and reporting will inform me as to what students need in order to enhance their education.