Tech Tip - Nearpod

Nearpod
We had a couple sessions on Nearpod at the MELT.  In a nutshell, Nearpod makes your presentations interactive for students.  It works great in a 1:1 environment.  You can watch the video below for a short explanation.

Tech Tip - Quizizz Chrome Apps

Quizizz Chrome App
One of the newest formative assessment tools Quizizz, just got better (if you use Google Chrome).  They have now created a Quizizz Chrome App for teachers and for students.  This will now allow for users to get to the games quicker.  If you have Chromebooks in your school, talk to your tech coordinator today about getting the App pushed out to your devices.

You can read more about the App and download it HERE.

Tech Tip - Formative Assessment Tools

Formative Assessment Tools
If you are like many teachers and are looking for a quick and easy way to use the devices in your classroom or school, Formative Assessment tools can be the answer.  All these tools are device agnostic (they work on any device with an internet browser), and are fairly easy to learn.  Each tool has it's advantages and disadvantages.  Try a couple of them in the next couple weeks to see what you think.  Most of these tools can be used in a K-12 environment.

Quizizz - Game-based quiz game

Kahoot - Game-based quiz game

Socrative - More formal formative assessment

GoFormative - Much like Socrative, but offers a couple other types of assessment

Tech Tip - Quiziz

Quiziz
If you are familiar with Kahoot and loved Kahoot, you will LOVE Quiziz!  Quiziz follows the same premise as Kahoot, but in a slightly different way.  With Kahoot the questions are completed one at a time, meaning the questions do not move on until all answers have been collected, or the timer runs out.  With Quiziz, the students can go through the questions at their own pace (with a timer).  The cool thing is the teacher can still see real-time data, so it can be used as a formative assessment tool.  The other stark difference between Kahoot and Quiziz is that with Quiziz the questions appear on the student screens.  Whereas in Kahoot, the question appears on the screen in front, and the student devices are essentially clickers.  Quiziz is awesome if your students are getting tired of Kahoot.  Give it a try today!

Repair Kit for Grading - Fix 13

The past 12 weeks we have been focusing on Ken O'Connor's 15 Fixes for Broken Grades.  I highly suggest reading through the whole book, it will change the way you approach grading in your classroom.  It's a very quick read, and well worth the time!

Fixes 1-6: Fixes for practices that distort achievement
Fixes 7-10: Fixes for low-quality or poorly organized evidence
Fixes 11-12: Fixes for Inappropriate Grade Calculation

1. Don't include student behaviors in grades; include only achievement.
2. Don't reduce marks on "work" submitted late; provide support for the learner.
3. Don't give points for extra credit or use bonus points; seek only evidence that more work has resulted in a higher level of achievement.
4. Don't punish academic dishonesty with reduced grades; apply other consequences and reassess to determine actual level of achievement.
5. Don't consider attendance in grade determination; report absences separately.
6. Don't include group scores in grades; use only individual achievement evidence.
7. Don't organize information in grading records by assessment methods or simply summarize into a single grade; organize and report evidence by standards/learning goal.
8. Don't assign grades using inappropriate or unclear performance standards; provide clear descriptions of achievement expectations.
9. Don't assign grades based on student's achievement compared to other students; compare each student's performance to preset standards.
10. Don't rely on evidence gathered using assessments that fail to meet standards of quality; rely only on quality assessments.
11. Don't rely only on the mean; consider other measures of central tendency and use professional judgment.
12. Don't include zeros in grade determination when evidence is missing or as punishment; use alternatives, such as reassessing to determine real achievement, or use "I" for incomplete or insufficient evidence.

The last 3 fixes are fixes to support learning.

Fix 13: Don't use information from formative assessments and practice to determine grades; use only summative evidence.

Formative assessments are assessments for learning.  They are used to gather information about what to do next in the classroom.  FA's primary purpose is to see if and who needs reteaching.  It is not punitive or rewarding for the student, so why would you use them for points?  Formative assessments should never be used to determine grades.  Once a teacher does an assessment of learning (summative) those can be counted towards a grade.  As mentioned in previous weeks though, in a standards-based reporting system, this is a non-issue.  You either exceed, meet, partially meet, or do not meet the standard.

Also a part of this issue is the debate as to what should truly be graded.  There are some teachers that grade everything and there are some teachers that grade very little.  So what is the magic formula?  The answer lies in your philosophy of teaching and learning.  The one piece of advice that has swayed my thinking, and I do not recall who it came from,, "learning is a process and we make mistakes through this process".

This makes me think about what am I grading, the learning, or what has been learned?  Why are we punishing kids for making mistakes along the way to learning something?  Grades do not need to be punitive or rewarding.  They should reflect what students know and are able to do.