Ok, been a bit of a hiatus while we finished school – too much to do and too tired. But I’ve had a few days off so ready to catchup now.
Ok, 4th Module – Recording and reporting Assessment Data.
Ok, this is an area that’s a bit of an issue – I find this challenging, or at least the first part, recording. I’m willing to admit I’m probably a bit limited in the strategies I use here.
I use tests for evaluation of criterion A, that’s generally the main tool, occasionally a quiz but that’s really just a variation of a test. And I use written assignments which generally take up to 2 weeks to develop for evaluation of criteria B, C, and D. I have used, and intend to be using again asap, blogs for developing criteria C & D, but I’ve not really done any proper evaluation on them before, though I’ve been seeing how I can do that now (We use moodle at school, it’s going to make the evaluation process a lot easier).
Obviously as a teacher I do lots of informal observation just wandering around the classroom, and I know who’s doing well and who is not, but I don’t keep records of it. I occasionally make some notes, but not in an organised fashion. My excuse is that it is time-consuming, and with one class after another when do I have a moment to make notes. I tried doing this with a checklist rubric years ago, but I found I didn’t like wandering around the classroom with a clipboard. But maybe this is something I need to look into. It would be fun to use some sort of handheld for this, but I think I need to play with the idea a bit and see what I can come up with before wasting more money on a fancy toy I might end up not using.
Recording assessment data isn’t an issue – I’ve used Asylum’s Markbook program before which I love but I haven’t found it lends itself amazingly to best-fit MYP rubric based marking, though I’d love to be convinced otherwise. So I use Excel now, which does just fine, and we have SERCO’s ePortal system at school into which we put that data which will appear on reports.
As for reporting, we do this two or three times a year per grade level, we hold parent conferences a couple of times a year. Ideally these come just after a report has gone out. ePortal also permits students to see their grades at any time, I believe, though how much that is being used at present I’m not sure.
So that’s what we’re up to at present at our school. Be interesting to see what comes out of this module.
