Thursday, July 5, 2012

An Assessment Cycle in a Flipped-Mastery(ish) History Class

As I see it right now, my 9th grade modern world history class next year will be self-paced and mastery(ish) based. I’d love to say that I will have time to go through all of my curriculum this summer and map it onto California state content and analysis standards and provide students multiple opportunities to meet each content and analysis standard I am focusing on in a unit, but I’m not going to get there. I’m nervous about trying to do too much this summer: all my flipped classroom thinking, collaboration, and work has been incredibly rewarding but I’m going to need to let next year be a part of the evolution of what I want my class to eventually look like. I’m okay with that. Plus, I’ll enjoy my vacation a lot more! But back to the point: what does assessment in a self-paced, mastery(ish) history class look like?

At the beginning of each unit, students will be given a list of assignment that they are expected to show mastery on as they move through the unit. Students will also receive the short answer questions they must show mastery on at the end of the unit. They will work through these assignments at their own pace and must show mastery of a given topic in order to move on to the next assignment. I will be creating checklists with suggested completion dates on them so that their progress can be tracked throughout the unit.

Upon demonstrating mastery on the classwork for each unit, students will receive an 85% for their classwork grade for that unit. (More about getting that missing 15% in the last paragraph.) If students complete the classwork in a unit early, they may work on the extension activities that are outlined below (that final 15% in their classwork grade) or they may choose to work on homework for other classes.

Once students demonstrate mastery on their classwork for a unit, they are ready to take the short answer section of their unit test. They may take this short answer portion of the test whenever they are ready, and may retake the test as many times as they want. All students must demonstrate mastery (score 75% or higher) on the short answer section of a test before they are allowed to move on to the content of the next unit.

Additionally, all students will take a multiple-choice test covering the content of a unit. This test will be administered on the same day for all students in an attempt to keep the results for this portion of the test as fair as possible. Two things about this: yes, I know that Moodle does some crazy cool stuff with randomizing multiple choice questions for tests, so theoretically I could have thousands of versions of the same multiple choice tests. (Again, I’m worried about biting off more than I can chew next year.) And yes, multiple-choice tests are less than awesome for numerous reasons that I won’t go into. However, given the fact that my students need to pass the CAHSEE (California state high school exit exam) and if I could keep my STAR scores somewhat respectable, well, I’m going to bow to the man on this one. Yes, I never take multiple-choice tests in the real world. It isn’t a life skill. Sorry – no teacher is perfect. I’m working to minimize the impact these multiple-choice tests will have on my students’ grades.

Retakes will not be allowed on the multiple-choice test (again, I don’t want to bite off too much next year). However, multiple-choice questions will only account for 1/3 of the points on any given test. Students will have to show mastery on the short answer section (2/3 of the unit test grade) before they move on to the next unit of a test. Plus, I want students to focus on the short answer questions as they move through the unit: this is why they receive these questions at the beginning of the unit.

All students will complete test corrections on their multiple-choice test. In an attempt to have students evaluate their study habits, they will also reflect on each test (both the short answer and multiple choice section). I got some great ideas from Jen Gray about this at FlipCon12. I will ask students to predict whether they think they got a given question correct before they hand their tests in. Upon receiving the test back, they will classify why they got a question wrong. They will also reflect on which of their study strategies seem to be working and which seem to be less effective through this process by looking at what helped them get answers correct – or partially correct. This will become a blog post, and hopefully over the course of the two years that I have my students, they will become more metacognitive about what test strategies work for them.

Finally, what about that final 15% students will not get credit for when they demonstrate mastery on their assigned classwork for a unit? For some, getting a solid B on their classwork will be satisfactory and they will choose to do no more work. For others, they may have been intrigued by the big ideas from the unit or just want to get more than a B on their classwork. To make up this last 15%, students can do several things, all of which revolve around choice and their interests:
  • dig deeper into the historical content of a unit and create a product to show the understanding they have gained from this work,
  • look into where the big ideas from the unit are currently still appearing in the world today and create a product to show the understanding they have gained from this work,
  • or they work on answering a question from the collaborative Blank White Paper project (outline of the BWP project is located here).

That’s how I see assessment looking in my flipped-mastery(ish) class next year. What am I missing? What should I rethink? Thanks in advance for pushing my thinking on this.

6 comments:

  1. Karl,

    Great post. My colleagues and I also teach 9th grade world history in the great state of Michigan. We are pushing towards a self-paced mastery class this year as well, so to come across your blog and especially this article is very interesting.

    A few question for you:
    1. You describe your grading system quite thoroughly in this post, and the difference between your assessments and classwork. My question for you is what percentage of a student's grade is classwork and also the assessments? We were leaning heavily weighting assessments (80%) but I'd like to hear your insight.

    2. Roughly how long do you anticipate each of your units lasting? We are aiming at 12 units of study, and about three class weeks for students to complete.

    3. What type of activities will your classwork consist of? We are looking at incorporating more project-based instruction throughout the course of the unit, while also maintaining more traditional classwork as well. I'm also interested in this because we would like to foster as much collaborative work as possible, and a self-paced environment could be difficult to do that in with students working at their own pace.

    Anyways, trying to stir the discussion. I really appreciate this post and your ideas.

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    1. Mr. Moore-

      1. Classwork is 25% of their grade, tests 25%, and major assessments (papers and oral presentations, always with multiple drafts) are 50%. Given the emphasis my school puts on oral and written presentation, I want to highlight these skills to my students early in their career. I may knock down the major assessment percentage to somewhere in the 40% range this year, but it will still have the biggest slice of the pie.

      2. I have two years to teach the world history standards - most CA high schools get 1.5 years, so I am lucky. Given that, each unit lasts about 6 weeks and I do 12 units with them, including an introduction to how to think, read, and write like a historian.

      3. From what I've heard about self-paced classrooms, from those who have run them, students still work in groups with classmates who are at similar places. For classwork, it will consist of: exploratory activities early in the unit (done as a class, see an earlier blog post about Explore-Flip-Apply), smaller screencasted lectures that build the context needed to do the work of historians, and then content extension and the work of historians that focus on building close reading and historical interpretation while adding depth on their content knowledge. There is a project that is associated with each unit that is semi-based in PBL. I need to do more research around PBL to get a better understanding of what it is and how I can implement it in my classroom! Finally, my kids are going to be working on the Blank White Page project (check out goo.gl/TxeR7 for more information - let me know if you want to join us on it).

      Your point about groupwork is one I am interested in as well. In my past, as a 'traditional' teacher, my students always worked in groups. The 6 weeks of being the intro to being a historian - mentioned above - is all group based. I am hopeful that this element stays as we move into historical content and students continue to learn from each other - I know I will be pushing them to use each other before they come to me with questions.

      Sorry, long-winded answer that may not have been the most coherent. Continuing the discussion though.

      -Karl

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  2. Karl,

    First...my name is Chase, I didn't realize I was logged into my school gmail account! That sounds a little better than Mr. Moore.

    Second, I really appreciate the ideas you are putting forth. I have learned a lot in a brief amount of time from reading through your blog and through Tom Driscolls as well.

    I am envious of the amount of time you have with students. In Michigan, we are given one school year to essentially cover from the Neolithic Rev. to present day...it is a daunting task. We have narrowed our scope down, but with our push towards a mastery classroom we are refining even more.

    I really like your idea on extending a students knowledge on a specific topic in order to earn that last 15% of the classwork grade. I think this is an area I will present to my colleagues as I believe it will greatly benefit students who may need maximum time for classroom work in order to master it.

    Our greatest enemy is time in our classrooms. I am still trying to focus our curriculum even more in order for students to be able to interact with a topic to the depth that is needed.

    I read through your E-F-A article and was greatly intrigued as I have been trying to research more into inquiry/question in my classroom as well. Also like you I do not want to overload myself as well.

    I look forward to more posts in the future, you've provided some great insight.

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    1. Chase-

      Yeah, I consider myself really lucky to be able to go in depth with a lot of topics but also to cover the material that the state of California tells me needs to be covered. It's a pretty unique situation. Thanks for continuing to ask good questions - you're pushing my thinking as well. Much appreciated!

      -Karl

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  3. A lot of great ideas here.

    I too plan on starting each unit with a list of learning goals/objectives/learning tasks that the students will need to master. I was wondering how you were going to format it, could you post your first unit once complete?

    I have a draft of one that I will be revising for Unit 1. I basically took a template from Brian Bennett's science class, but it seems universal for SBG and mastery learning.

    Here is the link: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0VIwE5hKSWtaV92SUJwd1ktNkk/edit

    This could be a topic for tomorrow's google+ chat.

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  4. Tom,

    I am struggling with this same thing at this moment. I have definitely hit a rut.

    Are either of you considering giving students option "classwork" assignments. Which would be level 1 assignments for you Tom? I was considering doing this but I've hit a snag in what kinds of assignments students should have a choice on. I really like the way you have formatted your first unit Tom, the numbering system makes total sense and would allow for further organization.

    I would love to talk with both of you more on this topic.

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