Reflect on Standards Based Assessment and Grading

Video Transcription

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you are having a wonderful day today. Today we are going to have a nice, quick lesson that really focuses on the benefits of reflecting on standards based assessment and grading. For today's lesson I've chosen a quote by Thomas Paine, which I absolutely love.

Which states, "The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection." I think reflection is such a key element of what we do as educators and should be constantly reinforced with our students. So it's important for us as teachers to go back and reflect on what we're doing and the benefits of what we are doing. Today, we're focusing in on reflecting on those standards based assessments and grading.

By the end of today's lesson, you will be able to reflect on how proficiency based instruction and evaluation will change your practice as an educator. This is a huge shift that is taking place in education now. An understanding of the benefits and how it can work for you is really important. So let's take a look at what is important to reflect upon, especially in how we are reflecting and how proficiency based instruction evaluation change our practices.

Today, we're going to use the Marzano teaching evaluation framework, looking at evaluating personal performance. Marzano breaks down our evaluation of our personal performance into three main areas. First, identifying areas of pedagogical strength and weakness.

This is indicator 50. What I find really important when I am looking through and reflecting on my practices is looking at where not only is my knowledge of something strong or weak, but where is my ability to teach that information strong or weak. It's so important, as we look to shifting towards standards, that we see what are the areas that I am teaching that I know a lot about, what are the methods in which I can teach that information that I am particularly strong or weak in, and what are the areas that I can anticipate my students will be able to pick up easily and areas where it will be difficult for them? Again, that pedagogical element is really the teaching of the material.

We also want to look at what is indicator 51, evaluating the effectiveness of individual lessons and units. This is something that I find so important, especially for teachers who have been working for a while, or if you are a new teacher adopting material from older teachers. It is a wonderful idea, as I often say, to not reinvent the wheel. So much has been done before you that is beneficial and works really well.

However, there are also many lessons and theories and ways of teaching that are not as relevant to students today or to the content that we are looking to instruct them in, the standards we are hoping that they will meet. And evaluating the effectiveness of those individual lessons in units, really coming at it from a different perspective, saying, I know I love to teach this, but am I really helping them to meet the standards that I've established? That can really help freshen up your teaching curriculum.

Finally, indicator 52 of Marzano's teacher evaluation framework looks at evaluating the effectiveness of specific pedagogical strategies and behaviors. This sounds very similar to the first one. However, in the first one, we are looking at pedagogical strengths and weaknesses. What am I doing as a teacher that is a strength or weakness?

And this looks at the specific strategies and behaviors that are being put into place and evaluating how effective those are, not necessarily your strength or weakness, but how effective they are in getting those students to meet the specific standards that you are hoping that they will achieve. All of this reflection goes back to the constant question we are asking. Which is how can using proficiency based instruction help to improve the way in which I am getting my students to comprehend the material?

Now that we've reached the end of today's lesson, hopefully you have a better idea of how to reflect on how proficiency based instruction and evaluation can help to change your practice as an educator and what are those questions you should keep going back and asking yourself so that you can continually make sure you are putting the best educational elements forward.

Now I'd like to take just a moment for reflection. Now that you have learned about reflecting on standards based assessment and grading, what would be the first step that you might take to begin implementing this reflection using Marzano's framework for the lessons that you are teaching?

Now I want to take a moment for reflection. For more information on how to apply what you learned in this video, please view the additional resources section that accompanies this video's presentation. The additional resources section includes hyperlinks useful for applications of the course material, including a brief description of each resource.