Meaningful feedback for continuous improvement in school.

 NZCER had a great webinar today by Professor Brent Duckor and Carrie Holmbry on Formative assessment. 

It was based around the book they have written on Feedback for continuous improvement in the classroom. 

They are based in San Jose State University in the centre for Innovation in applied education policy.

They acknowledged and recognised Hattie and Timperleys work in assessment. 

They had a framework which I liked: the the Focal points of Directionality-who is most responsible and who is the primary driver? The teacher, student, self driven or peer to peer. 

Configeruration -the spatial arrangement and interpersonal dynamics- coaching how to talk? Being positive and collaborative. 

Modality- non verbal, written and spoken. Blended both written and spoken. Digital a new schema. 

It is about building and creating dialogue, trust and resilience. Using concrete visible scaffolds to invite opportunities for self. 

1) setting the purpose

2)agree on goals

3) developing drafts 

4) planning next moves 

5) Evaluating the project.

We should focus on evidence and they use progress guides. 

Qualitative descriptors

Progress guide

My current draft demonstrates, a column on graded simple goals  and a column opposite Next steps are To improve my draft I will..... 1) 2).    This is the performance. Can invite conversations with peers, teacher and class for some examples and discuss ideas. 

I liked their reference to circling back. 

It is about communicating learning goals with visible processes. Engaging in multiple information exchanges(just in time, nudges, scaffolds)

Focusing on closing the gap.

Moment of pause to unpack the language. Using multi context. 

I totally agree that the students need to be part of the construction and have their say in the progress guide. I also like the clear guide that we can not assess everything we teach to this degree and depth we need to decide on which big idea we will assess. I can see the use of google forms to make this much easier to monitor and review with all the information appearing on a single sheet and using sheets to have individual students' progress guide being sent to its own sheet. It was a great reminder of formative assessment and the purpose and processes. I am thinking about how I can create a progress guide in my cybersmart lessons with the students.