Assessing Student Work
Looking at Students’ Work to Guide Planning & Decision-Making
If we want to know what students know and are able to do so that we can plan meaningful, responsive instruction going forward, using proximity to get up close to students’ work is essential. In this workshop, participants will learn new ways of getting to know students through conversations and work products. Together, we will learn new formative assessment tools, explore different types of work that can guide our planning and decision-making.
If we want to know what students know and are able to do so that we can plan meaningful, responsive instruction going forward, using proximity to get up close to students’ work is essential. Student work comes in lots of different forms. To put it simply—the stuff students talk about and the stuff students make. For example:
Student conversations: The stuff kids talk about -- dialogue between and among students and teachers. Talk is an authentic source of data for understanding what kids know and what they need next. This might be student talk during mini lessons or shared experiences. It could also be the talk that happens as kids share out during mid process or at the end of workshop. This is particularly insightful is students share how they process understandings during whole group, small group, and one-to-one interactions.
Student work samples: The stuff kids make, create, write, or design. Student work can be short (annotations, jots, blurbs, reflections) or longer in nature (paragraphs, projects, models). The in process, along the way, work helps us create a focus for instruction and know what to do next in the moment. The end of learning work helps us assess culminating learning where we can look back in order to plan forward.
In this workshop, participants will learn new ways of getting to know students through conversations and work products. Together, we will learn new formative assessment tools, explore different types of work that can guide our planning and decision-making.