Now that we are in November our (school) mind begins to shift towards the reporting process. Later this month (November 25 and 26) we will be structuring our formal parent/teacher conferences. This is an opportunity to discuss your child's progress over the course of the first term and to help in setting some goals for the second term.
Reporting is an important part of our assessment, evaluation, and reporting cycle but sits slightly outside the regular use of assessment and evaluation. The true value of carefully selected assessments and professional evaluative judgements is to influence the teaching-learning cycle. That is, a teacher gathers information about student understanding, makes a judgement about where the student is in relation to the criteria selected for that unit or grade, teaches, and assesses again to see if the learning happened. This cycle is continuous throughout the year as teachers make decisions about re-teaching a concept or moving ahead to something new or deeper. The reporting part allows us to communicate beyond the classroom about a students progress at a particular point in time. A variety of assessments and evaluations are made over the course of the term that allow us to create a "picture" of student learning at that time. Because student learning is not static, by the time report cards come out students have continued to move forward with their learning. For some students a concept that they have been struggling with suddenly becomes clear later when it is re-visited in another way or at another time.
The assessment/evaluation cycle is important for students to know what they did well and what they can improve upon. Clear and descriptive feedback is important to assist with this. Letter grades or numerical scores present only a summary judgement at one time in their year. So when your child brings home their report card talk to them about what they can do well and areas that they could improve upon and focus less on numbers or letter grades.
No comments:
Post a Comment