You have to begin to weigh formative versus summative assessment.”
Rick Wormeli, author of Fair Isn’t Always Equal and Differentiation, explains the difference between the two and how formative assessment helps you offer better feedback to your students. Formative assessments are on-going assessments, reviews, and observations in a classroom. Teachers use formative assessment to improve instructional methods and student feedback throughout the teaching and learning process. Dr. Robert J. Marzano details the specific benefits of formative assessment—assessment that is used during instruction rather than at the end of a course or unit in his book “Formative Assessment & Standard based grading“

Dylan Williams

Students do not learn what we teach. No matter how carefully we prepare and deliver our lessons, it is impossible to predict with any certainty what students will learn as a result. That is why the most effective formative assessment does not happen after the learning. It happens within and between lessons. In other words, it is embedded in the minute-to-minute and day-by-day practice of teachers. Video about this here.

Related articles

• Is REAL Formative Assessment Even Possible? (teacherleaders.typepad.com)

What can we learn from other countries?

In this video they take a look at countries making the big strides when it comes to 21st century learning skills. What happens when kids are teaching kids and no adults are present? In this video they take a look at the project “a hole in the wall”, and the results are staggering. Students are performing better on tests, and they learn by interacting with one another. And that is the main idea here. Empower the kids and let them take the lead in their own learning. Wake up folks; this is how kids learn! From each other. All we have to do is provide the tools. If you are looking for creativity this is the way to go.What if kids were actually empowered to be the change they wish to see in the world?

The design for giving contest

Announcing 100 change makers!

1. Feel;  is there anything you feel strongly about and want to change?
2. Imagine: brainstorming different ideas on what to do, finalize a solution: and come up with an idea on what to do
3. Do: final step, go and do it!

The Infinite Thinking Machine, shows an episode where they highlight innovative ideas from across the globe, from the Hole-in-the-Wall experiment in India to the Design for Giving Contest at the Riverside School, to the progressive teaching and learning in San Francisco’s Urban School. Found at MindShift.

In Hans Rosling’s hands, data sings. Global trends in health and economics come to vivid life. And the big picture of global development—with some surprisingly good news—snaps into sharp focus. Full bio

All through this school year our main theme has been how to make a difference, concentrating on examples from around the world. This spring 4 students got to go to Africa to see how they can learn from others and make a difference! I hope these two videos can be used as an inspiration to keep up the good work! Everyone can do something significant if they set their minds to it!

Natalie Warne did not let being too young stop her from running a successful campaign for the Invisible Children project In this talk, she calls on young people everywhere not to let age stop them from changing the world.

Nick Vujcic

You are gorgeous just the way you are! How to overcome challenges and see the new perspectives in life. How to focus on what you can do, and not spend time on what you can’t. When it comes to Nick it seems everything is possible!

Sal Khan, of the Khan Academy, states:

There was nothing practical that anyone could do about this broken “learning” model until recently. But we can now deliver on-demand content to any student for nearly zero incremental cost. The video content can be paused and repeated as needed.  Students can focus on exactly what they need to know. They don’t have to be embarrassed to fill in remedial gaps. They don’t need to take notes. Crucially, the lectures can be given by superb communicators, with a deep, intuitive understanding of the material.

Ten years from today, students will be learning at their own pace.  The classroom will be a place for active interaction, not passive listening and daydreaming. The role of the teacher will be that of a mentor or coach as opposed to a lecturer, test writer, and grader. The institutions that will remain relevant will be those that leverage this paradigm, not fight it

In a few weeks time my students will be sitting for their English exam expected to answer questions about theses topics:

1. The English language, grammar, text types, analyze poetry, how to analyze a novel,
2. Verb Tense Tutorial
   
3. Global issues and media
4. Work or study abroad , why study abroad
5. Culture, social media
6. Literature, film and music, how to analyze a film

You will be asked to write an essay.

• How to write an essay
• Working with international conflicts

Search engines to use, remember 3 sources if possible

1. Reference.com
2. Clusty
3. About.com
4. Sweet search
5. Refseek
6. Wolfram|alpha
7. Google scholar
8. National Geographic

Planning your exam

1. Divide your time between reading the task making sure you understand what to do and choose the topic you want to write about (approx 10 %)
2. Answer the two short answers first. If you need, search for additional info online. Look at points above for text types and grammar. Remember to write in a formal tone and explain all your points thoroughly  (approx 30 %)
3. Before starting with your essay write a short outline.
4. • What is the topic do you know what they are asking you to write about?
   • Think of a thesis, is it given or should you make one that you attempt to answer. Highlight it! Try Thesis builder. Or try this ProCon.org page for ideas
   • Research your topic, if you want start with wikipedia but use 2 others listed above
   • Start writing remember; introduction, body of essay, conclusion
   • Research some more if your essay lacks good points, numbers, statistics
5. Look over your work and be sure to use spell check
6. Write all your references at the end of the essay. Use Word’s APA style, see video on how here
7. When you are done use PaperRater to see if you need improvements

Related articles

• A Few Basic Things About Academic Essay Writing (socyberty.com)

Most educators agree that students must meet certain requirements if they’re going to succeed as citizens and workers. “The term ’21st-century skills’ is generally used to refer to certain core competencies such as collaboration, digital literacy, critical thinking, and problem-solving that advocates believe schools need to teach to help students thrive in today’s world, according to Education Week.

But when you look closely at these competencies and think about how students perform on exams, it starts getting complicated. What qualifies as cheating and what qualifies as a natural extension of learning, when students are increasingly expected to apply online research skills to find specific information in the vast ocean of facts and data?

via For Exams, is Using the Internet Considered Cheating? | MindShift.

Related articles

• Connected Test-Taking: Is It Cheating? (annmic.wordpress.com)

• http://plpnetwork.com/2012/05/03/connected-test-taking-is-it-cheating/

Enjoy!

One curriculum goal for us this year is Elaborate on and discuss a number of international and global challenges. Here is an interesting topic: how many people can live on Planet Earth?

While searching for information I found this page on BBC explore earth. Many great videos to be found and used in class!

Would you like to have access to the internet when taking your exam?

Since our school has been chosen to participate in a national trial for using the internet during examinations, l attended a meeting at the “Utdanningsdirektoratet” Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training to learn more about the project and how to prepare students, teachers and our ict tech department. I went to the meeting full of enthusiasm and was surprised to learn that many of the other participants were very sceptical. In fact some didn’t seem that eager to participate at all. When you invite a bunch of ict people (here meaning the tech people how are almost always guys!) into a room and start discussing the use of laptops in the classroom it usually end up with a depressing discussion about cheating and how we should never trust the students. You often leave meetings like that quite frustrated with the notion that all students want to cheat and that they are quite devious about doing it too!I

2012 – 21st century skills?

I refuse to think like that. I refuse to think that we should carry on testing the way we are now! I know I’m not being naive here. It’s 2012. The internet has been widely available and expanding exponentially for 20 years or more. Why is looking up information during an exam or test considered cheating? When preparing posts for this blog I rely on information found online. That is the way everyone works these days. No one is expected to know or remember all the facts and information available out there. We should be testing  “21st-century skills” meaning core competencies such as collaboration, digital literacy, critical thinking, and problem-solving.

Learning from your students?

I think it is great that we are able to test using the internet during exams. I look forward to discussing this with my students before and after the exam. They have already written about this on their blogs and that is a great way to find out what they think about the topic, and to learn more about all the different ways to use the internet when writing. Like Sara wrote:  When writing, I also try to avoid using the same words repeatedly. I’ll often use  Google to find synonyms. For example, I could write “Lucky + synonym”. It gives me 184,000 results, in 0.29 seconds. Now I know that other alternatives to the word “lucky”, could be: advantageous, beneficial, blessed, serendipitous, or fortunate. Sometimes I like to finish with a good question or quote, like the this one that I found at www.quotegarden.com:

Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach that person to use the Internet and they won’t bother you for weeks.  ~Author Unknown