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What's the difference?

Thoughts on making a real difference in the lives of learners...

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Is Earth Day on life support?

4/22/2015

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"Stephen Harper doesn't care about our planet." Those were the first words out of the mouth of a Grade 4 student in our weekly assembly this morning. Our student leadership group was leading a discussion of Earth Day and outlining the initiatives that they were undertaking. The focus for them this year was reforestation, including planting trees strategically around our campus. Now, sitting at the base of the heavily wooded Mount Seymour, and looking north towards thousands of kilometres of untouched forest, it would seem a bit like "bringing coals to Newcastle" (as my grandfather used to say). But for them, it didn't matter. Inaction was not an option. They are frustrated by a generation that knows what needs to be done, but has become paralyzed by political posturing. As one student said to me, they feel that everyone is against something - whether it is governments and industry versus environmentalists; or protestors against pipelines or tankers or fracking; or politicians against "job killing" carbon taxes. To them, adults seem more comfortable stopping things from happening than they are in actually proactively doing something to make a difference.

Kids, however, see this problem clearly. Today at recess, a small group of elementary students sat outside of my office selling raffle tickets on a stuffed tiger that belonged to one of them. Their goal was to raise enough money to adopt one endangered polar bear. Baby steps, but if we all took them then we would be a lot closer to turning things around for the future of our planet.

Although we all know that the price of inaction is incredibly high, in practice it seems to be becoming easier and easier to avoid taking personal responsibility by off-loading the blame and responsibility somewhere else. These days I regularly hear on the radio statements like, "why should I agree to an increase in the provincial sales tax to improve transit in the lower mainland? That's the government's job not mine!"  Or, listen to some of my Albertan friends complain that the rest of Canada must "hate" Alberta because they refuse to let pipelines be built to exploit the wealth of the oil sands. As the video which my students showed to their peers this morning so graphically illustrated, simply being a denier or even a vocal supporter of the reality of climate change won't stop the inevitable from happening. Only direct action can do that.

Perhaps that is why public displays of collective environmental awareness like Earth Hour and Earth Day seem to be losing some momentum. Here in British Columbia, where we pride ourselves on our commitment to environmental issues, participation in Earth Hour has been steadily declining. B.C. Hydro noted that overall, British Columbians saved about 65 megawatt hours of electricity and reduced the provincial electricity load by one per cent during Earth Hour this year, the equivalent of turning off about 1.4 million lights. However, 136 megawatts were reduced last year across the province during the event. In fact, participation in Earth Hour has been steadily declining in B.C. since 2008, when the province saw an overall two per cent in energy savings compared to just one per cent in 2014. Even my children were incensed as we doused our lights, put away electronics and played Carcassone by candlelight. They looked across Burrard Inlet from the windows of our mountainside house on the North Shore and were quite vocal about the fact that downtown Vancouver was ablaze in light.


"Don't they know that it is Earth Hour?", they asked. The unspoken answer was, "they do, but they just don't care." In too many minds, it is becoming someone else's problem to solve.






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Assessment without leaving a mark

4/2/2015

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At our school we are outcomes-focused. We use an Understanding by Design (UbD) approach to designing curriculum and have carefully mapped our outcomes, assessments, enduring understandings, knowledge and skills horizontally and vertically across academic areas and through grades. Students receive lots of anecdotal feedback on their performance and achievement and we share student successes according to provincial learning outcomes with parents. Overall, I think that we do a great job!
Having said that, as we sit as a staff and talk about the nature of assessment and how we use it to enhance learning it is clear that we still struggle with effectively unleashing all of its power to support our students and their learning. The challenge is that we are trying to balance the three critically important roles of assessment: assessment FOR learning; assessment AS learning; and, assessment OF learning. Any form of assessment can fall into any or all of the categories. It is not a matter of type or category of assessment technique, but rather the purpose behind it. 
Theoretically, the differences are quite clear:

In assessment for learning, assessment is used to see where the student is at present when determining a course of action for instruction. It could take the form of a pre-test or some other form of diagnostic assessment or maybe a formative task part-way through the process to make sure that we are on track. There are lots of vehicles for this; student portfolios, teacher observation; mini-quizzes; interviews; notebook checks; etc. Feedback to the student at this point is usually anecdotal highlighting current successes and challenges and suggesting next steps along the learning path. For the student and the teacher it suggests (in the case of pre-tests) an initial strategy or in later assessments it might provide information indicating a "mid-course correction" in the learning journey.

For us, assessment as learning, is just as important. Our students need an understanding of the concrete goals that they are trying to achieve and what criteria will be used to measure their performance. Students take ownership of their learning, set their own goals, and reflect on their results. The on-going result is that the student gains power over the learning experience and takes responsibility for moving her or his own learning forward.

Finally, assessment of learning is that process with which we are all familiar. It is the one that is most often used to provide a grade on a report card; or shared with parents in an interview; or used to determine completion of a course or grade. Most of the education system is focused on assessment of learning. Whether is through FSAs or Provincial exams and other high stakes tests, assessment of learning is a snapshot of student performance that often carries far more weight than it deserves. It is so powerful and intimidating that it can often run roughshod over the other two forms of assessment. In the worst case, assessment for learning can be hi-jacked and used to restrict admission to a programme or school for a student based on a prediction of how they will do on a final assessment of learning ("the exam"). Or, as we often see, the power of assessments as learning are taken away from students and those tools are used as "prep" for the final, high stakes performance.


As educators, the more that we can use our assessments to inform the learning process rather than use them to sit in judgement on students, the more likely we are to not only improve student achievement, but also to more fully engage the learner in her or his own growth.

In the final analysis, we would rather that our assessments left a positive and productive mark on our students, than an arbitrary one on a report card or transcript.





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    Author

    Dr. Jim Christopher is recently retired Head of Kenneth Gordon Maplewood School and Maplewood Alternative High School in North Vancouver. A parent, author and long-time teacher, and educational administrator across Canada, he has been actively involved in the drive to differentiate learning experiences to meet the needs of all learners.

    View my profile on LinkedIn

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