Using the UOIT lesson plan template as a tool to guide your planning, where would you start? Why? Consider the manner in which you would work through the template. Be prepared to explain your rationale.

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Using the UOIT lesson plan, I believe that I would start the planning process with the formation of big ideas, goals and expectations for the students. My reasoning for this is because as we learned in foundations, it is important to consider backwards design when planning lessons. Every classroom is unique and consists of students from many different backgrounds. You cannot just pull out a lesson plan that was successful before or was “fun” because it may not be effective with these students. You must consider the students first and what their needs and skills are. By looking at the learning goals and expectations first, you can see where your students are at and where you want them to be by the end of the lesson. From there you can design an engaging learning experience that will help meet the learning goals.

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What is the overarching purpose of assessment within the K – 12 context?

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Assessment according to Growing Success is assessment “as learning”. Assessment is about creating goals and seeing how students can improve to close the gap between what they know now and what we want them to achieve through the learning goals. Growing success states that “teachers engage in assessment as learning by helping all students develop their capacity to be independent, autonomous learners who are able to set individual goals, monitor their own progress, determine next steps, and reflect on their thinking and learning.” I think the big idea around assessment is the creation of learning goals and success criteria so that all students can succeed.

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Compare assessment ‘for’ and ‘of’ learning. How are the different? Similar?

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Assessment for learning is when teachers provide students with descriptive feedback and coaching for improvement. Assessment of learning is a summative assessment or evaluation of a student where they are typically given a letter grade or symbol to denote their success. These kinds of assessment are different in the timing of when they occur. Assessment for learning typically happens during the learning and creation process so that students can improve and grow. Assessment of learning happens at the end of the process and is a cumulative assessment of everything the student has done. They are similar in the sense that they both give students an idea of how well they reached the learning goals and if they need to improve. In the end, I prefer the use of assessment for learning as if gives students the opportunity to reflect on their learning and try again so that they can improve.

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What is assessment as learning?

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Assessment as learning is assessment that is student led rather than teacher led. Growing success states that “teachers engage in assessment as learning by helping all students develop their capacity to be independent, autonomous learners who are able to set individual goals, monitor their own progress, determine next steps, and reflect on their thinking and learning.” The first step in creating assessment as learning is to state learning goals and success criteria with students so that they become familiar with what they need to do to succeed and what they will achieve from success. After this it is important to allow students to be reflective in their own work and to gain practice in giving feedback to other students so that they can learn how to internalize that feedback for their own work. In the end, assessment as learning teaches children how to take control of their own success.

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Consider your previous K – 12 experiences. How was assessment ‘as learning’ integrated into your experiences?

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When I think about assessment as learning, I think back to my high school English classes where assessment as learning was a big part of the editing process. This was probably the only class where the majority of my assignments were peer assessed or self assessed before being handed to the teacher for grading. I really valued the times I got to peer assess student’s essays because it helped me to see what the teacher was looking for (or not looking for) within the work and it also gave me new perspective in assessment. Before doing self and peer assessments, I would not understand why I got a certain grade and what that grade meant exactly. With this new form of assessment, I was able to use criteria to check the quality of work. I think that assessment as learning should be part of every subject and that children should always get learning goals and success criteria so that students have the tools they need to succeed and not be confused about grades like I was at times.

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Why do some authors claim that assessment ‘as learning’ benefits students more than other types of learning?

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I believe that some authors claim that assessment as learning is the most beneficial to students because it allows students to be fully engaged in their own learning process. By being independent learners, students are able to realize and discover their potential for learning as well as take action to improve. I want to use the analogy of learning an instrument for this question. If your parents force you to play the piano and practice it every day, you may get better at it but you may be reluctant or unenthusiastic. If you decide on your own that you want to play the piano and you tell yourself that you want to practice everyday, it becomes something that is passionate and exciting. The same is for assessment as learning. If students learn through assessment by themselves, then they can become passionate about learning and want to improve to meet their own goals.