Cycle #2: Reflection

Is there potential for students to engage in assessment of their own competencies?

To answer the question simple, yes.  If students are able to recognize their progress of curricular knowledge based outcomes, they are also able to recognize how well they are applying their skills.  The challenge in regards of the self-assessment of skills is the variety of perspectives of what successful application of skills looks like.  To go further, does successful application of a competency like information management look the same to all students.

When analyzing effective use of skills there is more of a range in what successful application looks like.  First of all, this is a good problem to have because it opens the door to creativity and different forms presenting and/or communicating information.  This openness for applying skills is what creates opportunities for innovation.  Unlike a concept where there is right and wrong or better and best, there is absolutely room for diversity and creativity in how students apply that knowledge. 

Reflecting on how to establish expectations and measurements of success, perhaps it is more important to recognize what ineffective application looks like.  Students may be better able to recognize shortfalls of what they see.  For example, students may have observed a performance that did not meet their standards.  Instead of criticizing, it would be important to determine what was missing and how could it be improved.  

I do believe that with appropriate guidance students have the potential to recognize the difference between effective and ineffective application of skills.  The best way to allow students to develop this ability to self-assess these competencies is to experience it.  While students may have life experiences to grow their skills, it is also important to give all students the opportunity to practice and reflect on their skills in schools through projects and real world experiences.

Cycle #2: Data Collection

How do students view effective information management skills?

Similar to understanding expectations for the knowledge and understanding of curricular outcomes, I think it is equally important to understand the expectations for effective practice of skills and compensation.  Preparing students and collaborating to build what concrete definition of what effective application of a competency looks like is important for skill development and ultimately a contributing factor to exemplary student work.  Both of these components play a crucial role in educating students for their future. 

I was able to pass out the chart related to the competency of information management discussed in the last post.  After a brief introduction and class discussion, students worked in small groups to establish understandings of the indicators of success and share what they thought effective practice looked like.  

Observing the conversations and sorting through the responses, many students have an accurate yet somewhat superficial initial understanding of what effective information management means.  Effective access to information is about finding a variety of information, but once you have those sources what does it mean to access the information within a reading?  Effective synthesis of information does reflect logic, but how does in enhance ones understanding of the topic being studied?  Evaluating information is also more than simply using information and using information ethically is partially about giving credit but also about respect for others work and responsibility for your own.  

*some sample responses

As any other form of assessment, it is important for students to understand what success looks like.  Reflecting on indicators of success from personal and academic experience may not be enough to allow students to envision the successful application of a abstract competency like information management.  In order to promote student engagement by in for their own progression and self-assessment of their skills, there will be more thought put into how those competencies can be modelled for student observation.  Similar to knowledge based formative assessments, when students understand the expectations, they are able to understand where they are in relation to where they want to be and more accurately assess their abilities.  If this is true for knowledge, why couldn't it be true for competencies.  

Cycle #2: The Action (part 2)

Creating opportunities for self-assessment in the area of managing information.

Using the Alberta Education competencies overview I would like to look to explore ways by which students could monitor their progress or research and communicating information.  The managing information competency in this framework includes accessing, synthesizing, evaluating, and sharing information.  Using these indicators, it would benefit students to collaboratively reflect on what exactly indicates effective information management.

See all of the Competencies here

In order to accomplish this, time would be spent understanding what managing information means.  Using the model in the competencies overview, students would reflect on past experiences learning from and working with information.  Students would contribute to an alternative version of the chart above to develop their own expectations of what effective information management looks like.  Students can co-construct goals to ensure they are providing themselves with the direction needed to successfully refine this competency.  The student version of this chart could potentially look something like this:

* Chart has been modified from the Alberta Education Competency Description, Indicators and Examples.

Using this model of assessment students would begin to understand their comfort level with this particular competency.  It also would work to build the understanding of what effective practice of this competency looks like.  From here, students would be able to incorporate their understandings of the competency into their research and communication process as they complete classroom activities or projects.  Ideally their understanding and application of using information would develop and continue to be refined throughout this process. 

Knowledge is not the only thing that needs to be assessed in schools.  If students and teachers can work together develop their competencies of managing information throughout the progression of a task, students can holistically increase skills and build knowledge at the same time.  This process ideally will help students and educators enhance the competencies required to accomplish learning outcomes.  

Cycle #2: The Action

Creating Opportunities for Self-assessment

In the previous cycle of this plan, I worked with a method of assessment where students co-constructed criteria for a final product.  In this cycle, the priority is shifting to how students are monitoring their use off competencies as they are working towards and end goal.  

An image that came across my twitter feed that compared formative and summative assessments to who is tasting a soup.  I thought this analogy related to the idea of promoting self-reflection on how students are progressing through a task.  Before a chef would serve his soup, he would taste, add spices, let it simmer, or potentially even restart.  In the same way, students would be able to monitor their their progress and reflect on what they can add or change as they approach their final goal.  

In relation to learning competencies, I think it would be important to find ways that students could recognize themselves the steps and ideas required for improvement.  The action at this stage is to create opportunities to recognize the quality of their product before it is complete and refine the actions needed to enhance the product.  

Similar co-constructing criteria for a summative assessments, I would want to look for opportunities for students to recognize space for improvement and determine what effective practice of these competencies are.  

In what ways can teachers create opportunities for students to self-monitor their application of skills and competencies in their tasks?

Cycle #2: The Plan

The next steps in building engagement in assessment.

In my first action research section, I focused on something that I would consider a traditional task.  There were straightforward questions from the curriculum that students were expected to respond to.  That is not on its own innovative or revolutionary, however, I want to continue to find ways to increase student engagement in their own progression of learning.  The goal would be to establish the confidence of students to understand where they are in the learning process in relation to the goals or expectations they have for themselves. 

The more novel strategy I want to consider in relation to engagement in assessment goes beyond how students assess their performance on class questions or tests.  The next steps in building engagement in assessment relates to how students monitor their in projects and long-term or real-life applications. The intention behind this next progression is to find a balance in achieving learning outcomes and developing skills.  

If students can be successfully engaged in in their assessment of traditional assessment practices, they also have the potential to be successful monitoring their own skills and competencies.  Students have the potential to use their background, experiences, and understandings establish criteria and expectations of what they feel success looks like in multiple applications.  

The main question for this cycle of research will be:

How can students assess their execution of competencies that would be required to accomplish learning outcomes? 

Cycle #1: Reflection

How do I as a teacher feel about the co-construction of criteria for assessments?  (Is student learning enhanced by this process?)

This first cycle of reflection related to engaging students in the assessment process.  The intention of this engagement was to give students an opportunity to better understand their learning goals.  Therefore, the process of sharing outcomes and co-constructing criteria would ensure that students understand expectations and are not surprised in the assessment process.  

In this process, students have increased responsibility not only in their assessment of their learning, but they also demonstrated an increased effort in the learning process.  Is any assessment there are criteria that students are measured against.  However, in this process, students were measured by the criteria that they created, which contributed positively to a commitment to learning the necessary outcomes.  This demonstrates that using assessment as a collaborative effort not only has the potential to increase engagement, but also have a positive impact on individual initiative in the learning process. 

This assessment process represents the final stages of assessment at the end of the topic or unit.  If this process can be effective based on largely traditional teaching practices, how much more of an impact with students are participating in challenging, realistic, and thought provoking learning experiences?  The learning goals and questions can be established and learning experiences can be designed to match those goals to provide students a better opportunity to build their understandings about a particular topic or issue.  

Moving forward, it will be interesting to investigate the effectiveness of this engagement in assessment process.  An innovative assessment idea is to reflect on the accuracy of this engagement and if student have the ability to accurately assess their own learning throughout the process.  As well, in what ways can students be encouraged to make the most out of their engagement with assessment practices?

Cycle #1: Data Collection

The Accuracy of Student Self-Assessment

Does increased engagement of criteria building contribute to accurate self-assessment of curricular outcomes?

There are a few reasons why there may be hesitations in regards to self-assessment.  These reservations include inaccurate measures of ones ability (high or low), neglect aspects of what is supposed to be assessed, as well as being in an environment that is not conducive to honest assessment practices.

The data does seem to be mixed.  There are sources which determine that self-assessment date is inaccurate and should not be used.  On the other hand, promoting the skill of self-assessment has a positive effect on student learning.  A priority of engaging students in assessment practices is to enhance student learning.   

In regards to responding to social studies open ended written response questions, students are given the task of building and communicating knowledge to a certain level.  In the process of engagement I have taken in this first cycle of investigation, students would be creating their own criteria, building their knowledge to match that criteria, and determine a way to communicate that information effectively.  In these three stages, control is in the hands of the students.  

To go one step further in this process, students may also be in a position to now self-assess their final product in relation to their uniquely created criteria.  If they are confident in communicating their understandings to a certain level, they would be in a position to assess their product.  

In order to reflect on this process, it will be important to determine how engaged students were in the process of building their understandings to meet the criteria.  It will also be important to determine if this increased responsibility in the assessment process had a positive or meaningful impact on student achievement.  

Brown, G., Andrade, H., & Chen, F. (2005). Accuracy in Student Self-Assessment : Directions and Cautions for Research. Assessment in Education Principles Policy and Practice, 22(4). Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271270642_Accuracy_in_student_self-assessment_Directions_and_cautions_for_research.

(2007). Student Self-Assessment. The Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat CAPACITY BUILDING SERIES, (4). Retrieved from http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/research/studentselfassessment.pdf