Are you interested in incorporating peer assessment into your instruction? Are you wondering what peer assessment looks like for your grade level and/or content area? Are you not quite sure what peer assessment really means?
 
Peer assessment is actually just one of the four clusters of the Keeping Learning on Track Activating Peers pyramid. This pyramid refers to ways that students can act as instructional resources for each other. The four clusters are outlined in a bit more detail below.
 
Sounding Board

• Students use each other to work our their ideas or questions
• No expertise is required of the peer resource
• There is no expectation of student understanding or proficiency

 
Pooling Thinking

• Students work cooperatively to develop the best product
• Does not assume that any one student has a better understanding or higher proficiency than another
• Does assume students can work together to identify quality work
• All students participate and provide a portion of the ideas, questions, and/or final product

 
Peer Assessment

• Students provide feedback on each other’s work
• All students have some level of understanding of content or proficiency with the skill
• Students use shared criteria for success to assess and provide feedback to move their peers’ learning forward
• Peers must have adequate understanding of the learning expectations and success criteria.
• Students must be given time to use the feedback to improve their learning and/or the quality of their work

 
Peer Tutoring

• One student acts as teacher for another
• Assumes that at least one student has a greater level of understanding of some specific content or greater proficiency with a skill, than at least one other student does

 
These clusters are not exclusive; one technique can be listed under multiple clusters. The most important idea is to consider how the technique you are using is impacting learning and teaching.
 
How do your students act as instructional resources for each other? Share your ideas by posting comments!
 

During the months of October, November, and December teachers from around the country, including seven teachers from OCSU, participated in an action research project called the Book Basket Challenge. The purpose of the research was to measure the impact on student engagement, motivation, and enthusiasm for reading when classroom libraries were organized into topic baskets, rather than levels.
 
The project kicked off with all teachers participating in a pre-survey that asked questions about student engagement, motivation, and enthusiasm for reading. Teachers attended an after-school professional development session to learn about the research behind building knowledge and vocabulary about topics, and the effect on engagement, motivation, and enthusiasm.  During this session teachers learned about how students can have many different reading levels, depending on their knowledge of the topic. Teachers were encouraged to offer students choice in what they were reading during independent reading time, rather than insisting that they read books only at their level.
 
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As they began reorganizing their libraries, teachers asked students what topics they wanted to learn about. Some popular choices included: monster trucks, horses, weather, dinosaurs, and space. There were baskets that contained books in a series: Fly Guy, Magic Tree House, and the David books. One group of 1st grade readers was really excited about the Learn to Draw book basket.

 Teachers collected observations, photos and quotes from their students during the course of the project.
 
"Just wanted to let you know that the library workstation went GREAT!!! The kids were so excited when they walked in and saw how different the library looked. They have been finishing their work quickly all day so they could get to the library during transition times.”
 
“Can we do this the whole time?” “Can I read this later?”
 
“I like the book boxes because then I can learn about different things.”
 
“ I like the boxes because they are in with “like” books instead of being scrambled about.”
 
“I like the book bins because I like to discover new topics.”
 
“I like the book bins because it doesn’t take that long to find a certain book.”
 
“It is good because I can find the books that I really like, like dinosaurs.”
 
I love this observation from a 1st grade classroom:
 
"I changed up some of my book baskets yesterday and I thought I would share a quote with you. HR came in this morning and was enjoying some free time in the library when he noticed that I had added a horse basket. He came running over, "There is a basket about horses, that’s what I asked for!" So funny, it was almost like Christmas morning and Santa had brought exactly what he wanted. I'm still not convinced he knows that it is me that is changing the library. Maybe a library fairy!"
 
Teachers involved in the project all noticed a positive impact on engagement, motivation, and enthusiasm for reading after reorganizing their libraries. More about the research behind book baskets and the survey results can be found here:
http://achievethecore.org/aligned/designing-classroom-libraries-that-build-knowledge-vocabulary-and-engagement/
 
Reflections from a 1st grade teacher on the west coast about the project can be found here:
http://achievethecore.org/aligned/how-to-create-book-baskets/
 
How is your classroom library organized?

To conclude our focus on the formative assessment strategy of sharing learning expectations we consider a couple of common misconceptions and some tactics for avoiding them.

Misconception #1: Informing the students of the learning target by telling them what it is or by writing it on the board is sufficient. The assumption behind this practice is that writing the objective on the board puts the objective inside the students' heads.

Misconception #2: Sharing a rubric with students will ensure they understand the criteria for success. Sharing a rubric with students is a good start, but as with the objective, you need to check for student understanding of what the criteria mean.

                                                Tactics for Avoiding Misconceptions
Questioning:

• Teachers check for understanding by asking for student questions or by asking students to put learning goals in their own words.
• Teachers use directed discussion or warm-up questions.
• Students think-pair-share what they think they will be learning, why it's important, and how it relates to previous learning.

Examples:

• Kevin, can you tell me one thing about the water cycle you already know? … Jacob, can you tell me one other thing about the water cycle? … Jaden, can you put those two things together so we have a definition of the water cycle?
• Why is it important to know about the water cycle?
• What would a good report on the water cycle look like?
• Donna, what do you think of Matthew's idea about the way to do a picture of the water cycle?

Planning and Envisioning:

• Students list what they know and want to know.
• Students make planning charts for individual or group work.

Examples:

• Groups working on water cycle reports plan a week of work, including library research, reading, writing, drawing, editing, and planning a presentation.
• Students use these planning charts to keep track of progress. The teacher uses these planning charts for interim assessment of student progress and for asking questions about what students learn along the way.
• The teacher asks for interim assessments as checkpoints along the way—for example, a list of sources after library day, an outline as the report is planned, a draft as the report is written, a list of students' roles for an oral presentation.

Using Examples:

• Students look at good examples and make a list of what makes them good.
• Students look at a range of examples, sort them into quality levels, and write descriptions of the levels that turn into draft rubrics.

Examples:

• Here are the five best water cycle reports from last year. What do you notice about them?
• Can you organize these things you notice into categories?
• Put these water cycle reports into three piles: Good, OK, and Not Good.
• What makes the Good ones good? How are the OK reports different from the Good ones? From the Not Good ones?

Using Rubrics:

• Students use teacher-made rubrics to assess examples.
• Students rephrase teacher-made rubrics into their own words.
• Students use rubrics to assess their own work and revise.

Examples:

• Here are some water cycle reports from last year. Discuss with your group how you would evaluate them using this rubric, and why.
• Here is the rubric we will use for your water cycle reports. How would you describe these qualities to another student?
• How do you think your water cycle report measures up on this rubric? Use a highlighter to show the descriptions in the rubric that you think describe your work. Is there anything you want to revise?

Information from this post comes from:
http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/109031/chapters/Leveling-the-Playing-Field@-Sharing-Learning-Targets-and-Criteria-for-Success.aspx
 
More information about formative assessment can be found in the professional development school on the OCSU Rubicon Atlas site.

This blog post is from the Identity and Education group. We'd love to know how you will be celebrating Black History Month with your students. Please leave comments at the bottom of this page to share your stories!

The OCSU Identity and Education working group encourages you to remember that February is Black History Month! We would ask you to incorporate some recognition of black history in a meaningful way into your lessons and conversations with students. Posters, book displays, read-alouds, conversations, poems, music, art, content… all are great ways to celebrate black heritage and recognize the diversity in our schools, our country, and our planet. Especially in our majority white community, it’s important to expose students to the diversity that surrounds them.

Here are some lessons and resources you could look through for ideas:

• PBS
• The Smithsonian
• NEA
• Teaching History
• Scholastic
• Scholastic Teachers

If you want some more background, here’s a quick intro to the idea of multiculturalism in your classroom. If you want to dive a little deeper, check out this essay exploring the question, “what if all the students are white?”

If this is a topic that interests you, all are welcome to future meetings of the group! The next meeting will be Thursday February 9th at 4:30pm in the Lake Region Library. Agenda to follow.

Thanks for all your work!
Sincerely,
Identity and Education working group