What have you learned?

I have learned a lot over the EDUC 491 practicum about behaviour management, planning, and assessment.

However, my biggest take away was the use of proficiency scale and standards-based grading in my grade 10 course. Making the test in sections based on the competencies that students are using in the unit allows more targeted feedback on how they are doing. It also allows the students to re-write specific sections of the test to demonstrate the skill that was require improvement.

Who am I as an educator?

Pedagogy – I really value the constructivist approach to learning. Student needs to actively construct their own learning. I think that the way we learn is through interpreting information, taking what we know and applying it to a new context. I feel this leads to students developing a deeper connection of what concepts are, how they are related to others, and what we can do with them.  The way that I feel that students can create these connections are through giving them curricular competency-based activities where students are using a specific set of skills to interact wit the content.

Assessment – I value assessment for learning. I like to only give students summative assessment at the end of the learning. Whereas throughout the learning we are going to be give lots of opportunities for formative assessment and feedback. For example, I like to use exit slips as a way to assess how student have taken in the learning of the lesson. It gives me feedback on where students are at and where we need to start the next day. We also do frequent quizzes that are also formative. So, the students can put themselves in a test situation, and see what they know, and what concepts they need to keep working on. On the quizzes I can also give them targeted feedback in what specific mistakes they are making or need to pay attention to. After students have these learning opportunities, then they can come into the test, and we can assess what they have learned.

What’s next:

  • My main goals going forward are about assessment.
    • I would like to find a way to create an assessment for math and science that are not centered around tests. I know that all students cannot best show their learning in a test scenario. However, at the same time, when students show their learning on assignments and projects there is the opportunity to use the internet, answer keys, help from others. So I feel at the same time that these are not truly demonstrating what a single student can do. Therefore I have some work to do.