COLLABORATIVE INQUIRY 2012-13 Assessment for Learning in Full Day Early Learning Kindergarten Classrooms How does assessment information help us to foster independent and collaborative learners who use feedback to self-assess and set goals? Jennifer McIlmoyle Parsons on behalf of KPR CIP 2012-13 (Educators from Prince of Wales PS and RF Downey PS) 7/16/2013
Collaborative Inquiry 2012-13 Assessment for Learning in Full Day Early Learning Kindergarten Classrooms How does assessment information help us to foster independent and collaborative learners who use feedback to self-assess and set goals? Introduction The collaborative inquiry team from Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board, consisted of three teachers: Peter Ens, Lisa Gutoskie Payne and Diane Istead, three Early Childhood Educators (ECE s): Denise Hambleton-Fisher, Shelley McLaughlin and Lisa Potter and two Instructional Leadership Consultants: Jamie Smith (Early Learning Lead) and Jennifer McIlmoyle Parsons (Assessment & Evaluation K-12 ). The structure of the inquiry process this year took on a new dimension of visiting team classrooms regularly as the authentic learning context for our conversations. The team borrowed aspects of the Instructional Rounds model (e.g., descriptive observations, looking for trends in the evidence) and used a focus of learning derived from the theory of action to ensure observations were intentional. The focus of learning ensured that hosts were aware of what guests were making observations about and helped guests be specific in the types of evidence gathered. Each day usually also contained an opportunity to make connections with professional resources. In between our learning opportunities together, teams also took time to reflect upon the next level of work as they could see it in their own classrooms with their learners. This action demanded a lot of commitment from the team but the results provided us with powerful reflections contained within this summary of learning. This report and the accompanying video report will offer the reflections of learning about what constitutes assessment information, how are process oriented learning goals dependent on educators seeing the interconnectedness of learning within the program document, what independent and collaborative learners look like, how to make assessment information available for students to use, how to use feedback from students to inform next steps, creating the culture of collaboration between educators and students and what goal setting looks like in the FDK context. Inquiry Question and Theory of Action The learning this year was brand new for one of the educator teams and an opportunity to continue to challenge and focus intentional practice for two other educator teams. The team took care to incorporate the learning of the past two years into the work of this year while allowing room for the new team to make their own meaning of the learning. With the experience of developing a supportive road map in our theory of action the year before, the team recognized the value of ensuring the theory of action accurately reflected the path they expected to take while learning more about assessment information and the way it is gathered, shared and used to inform instructional decisions contributes to self directed learners. At times versions of the inquiry question and 1
theory of action felt like the team had included everything but the kitchen sink, but eventually it was refined in a way that reflected the critical path the team was on. The theory of action was then distilled into three areas that we named our focus of learning. This supported our intentional focus in between times together and our focus for the information we gathered during class visits. Professional Reading and Resources This year we returned to a number of Capacity Building Series resources to re-activate our learning. Resources like Primary Assessment (September 2010), Asking Effective Questions (June 2011), The Third Teacher (July 2012) and Pedagogical Documentation (October 2012) all served to raise new questions and offered practical strategies that educators tried on in their classrooms throughout this inquiry. Having the opportunity to have conversations about the ways others were employing some strategies created important moments of clarification and learning within the team. We also spent some time engaged in discussions about aspects of Emergent Curriculum in Early Childhood Settings From Theory to Practice by Susan Stacey. Growing Success, Assessment, Evaluation and Reporting in Ontario Schools, 2010 and The Full-Day Early Learning Kindergarten Program, Draft Version, 2010-11, were constant supports and reference points as we looked for clarification, support and considerations in next steps Theory of Action If we (educators & students) have a clear understanding of what children are learning and if we understand the interconnectedness of program expectations if we have a clear sense of how to coconstruct criteria if we help students to recognize when learning is happening if we design the learning (opportunities/contexts/environment) while reflecting upon assessment information, program expectations and children s thinking, ideas and interests if we create a learning culture that focuses on children and educators as collaborative partners in the learning, and children are engaged in this collaboration, by having input into learning and documentation of their thinking if we document the learning and use it to help children see where they are in the learning while identifying next steps to further their learning then our children will recognize themselves as learners and become increasingly independent in their learning. Focus of Learning 1. How can sharing learning goals and success criteria help students to recognize where they are in the learning? 2. How can we design a learning culture that engages educators and students in collaboration while supporting learning and independence? 3. How can we document learning to support student reflection and goal setting? 2
Team Learning Observations and Impact on Practice I have come to believe that the kind of assessment information you choose has a direct impact on how students become independent and collaborative learners. It also has an impact on how they interpret and use feedback to selfassess and set goals. The team s understanding of assessment information changed through this inquiry as they became much more purposeful about what it was that they were documenting and the learning of students they were documenting. They report that uncovering what attaining the process oriented learning goals (based on program expectations) looked like and knowing the learner had to go hand in hand with the collection of assessment information. Knowing the learner the whole child, they used their professional judgement to decide on what type of evidence would support informed next steps. They sometimes chose to collect physical evidence, take a picture or have a conversation and add a supportive, growth next step to the learning of the observation. This practice was based on the deep understanding that each child develops along a continuum and they arrive at the classroom with varying degrees of foundational skill sets. How can sharing learning goals and success criteria help students to recognize where they are in the learning? Process Oriented Learning Goals allow for learning to be generalized in a play and inquiry based classroom offer teachers time to observe and students to demonstrate learning in many different contexts provide teachers and students common language to talk about the learning Last year, many team members observed that process oriented learning goals supported thinking skills as well as specific content knowledge from program goals. Focusing on processes addresses knowledge and skills across a broad continuum, supporting all students to find an entry point into the learning and be successful. Developing and collecting success criteria over time with students while engaged in the goals also allowed for intentional differentiation of student responses as children could access the success criteria in any centre or learning opportunity. Process oriented learning goals in the inquiry based classroom provide increased entry points for students which the team observed relates to increased engagement and opportunities for success. It was observed that such goals helped children feel the connections between learning opportunities (e.g., literacy, numeracy, inquiry in varied centres), carry the same language about learning to the different learning centres which ultimately allowed for deeper conversations with students about their learning. This year teams reported the time they invested getting to know the interconnected aspects of the program document allowed them to use their knowledge of student interests to define meaningful and engaging learning goals. These goals reflected and honoured student interests and program expectations married to the big ideas of the document. These three dimensions of planning were critical for the team ensuring that the focus of their time with students was spent on learning, empowering students to know what they are learning, how they are 3
learning, where they are in the learning while still allowing students to direct their learning. When learning goals and success criteria were not too narrow or task oriented, the team found that modeling by reflecting on what the goals meant, helped students to build deeper understanding of what learning was occurring. When a group of children guide the direction of the learning and the educator can act as a facilitator and moderate the learning, knowing the program document and the cluster of expectations addressed in goals guides the educators questions. Learning goals like I use pictures when exploring reading encompassed many different types of reading (e.g., books, posters, websites, signs) and the application of the process of reading whereas I can read books using pictures narrowed the thinking and the application of the process to only books which some learners may not be demonstrating an interest in yet. Learning goals based on student interest helped the team to gather relevant assessment information that informed their next steps. This meant they were looking for learning surfacing and fostered the development of the learning instead of teaching in a direct or detached way. Listening to what is happening and what is being said to help students to make connections between their play and the learning focus. Listening to the learners over time allowed educators opportunities to add to the criteria of what specific goals looked like when attained. The student may not know all the phonetic sounds however this student has learned many more sight words and what they mean. Another student who knows all the phonetic sounds is also successful in their reading. Educators found that this process helped them to reflect carefully on how they responded to student actions and learning. They repeatedly cautioned one another though in the use of this criteria they found that the structure of our learning provided a chance to practice being descriptive which built their awareness of when they might be applying judgment too quickly. They commented, what we think we are taping may not be what students say or realize they are learning. The team reported that a) when they modelled that adults and children are all learners and that collaborating with people made other people learning resources and b) children had an understanding of where they were in their learning then they were better able to be independent and collaborative learners. While using the document, student interests and the big ideas to develop process oriented learning goals that reflected opportunities for this learning in the environment demanded that educators intentionally set up the environment to foster conversations across the classroom that highlighted learning focuses and allowed students to use these tools with classmates and independently. They observed students using their 4
Putting books in all areas to compliment children s interest and encourage the use of books as resources in learning. environment as a tool to foster their learning (e.g., names on chairs, learning walls to help spell a classmate s name). Additionally, the type of feedback that educators offered students, being descriptive rather than evaluative (e.g., I can read your writing! ) served to propel student learning forward and created a culture of learning. All educators used the strategy of noticing and naming the learning and knowing based on criteria that had been developed with students over time. Students in turn then heard and saw their classmates as learners. It also allowed them to understand and know the varied paths learners could take to get from point A to point B. In this example, two students are independently collaborating on making a poster about snakes. They are using the book as a resource and working together to identify the information that they would like to include on the poster. In this example, two students have been invited to turn and talk about their learning before sharing their ideas whole group. This allows students to collaborate and discuss their thinking before independently sharing it whole group. For those who may be reluctant learners this allows them to confirm and consolidate their thinking in order to have more confidence to be independent. In this example, two students noticed that the morning message was not completed when they arrived in the morning. They took it upon themselves to write the morning message and together they collaborated, using strategies that the team had introduced in order to independently construct the message. Notice the reaction of the boy watching this taking place! He is amazed and excited to share in their learning. How can we design a learning culture that engages educators and students in collaboration while supporting learning and independence? Educators recognized the value of collecting evidence over time and articulated that while gathering evidence of learning it was the process of learning and not the product that they were making the focus of 5
What we see each day, how we respond, how we interpret and reflect has changed how we share and plan with assessment information with each other. - conversation between ECE and teacher the assessment. When they looked at something a child produced they only saw the end product. The team made note that much of the learning happened during the process of its creation and it was the process where they found gathering the assessment information from most impactful in decision making. Evidence of the processes students were engaged in gave them a more accurate picture of where a student was in their learning providing them with actionable information to support students next steps. To operationalize this intentional practice of observation, team members noted they were more reflective about what they noticed and how they might further connect it to children s interest to provoke the childrens thinking. They took steps (e.g., in choices of materials, learning tools to make available for students) to provide opportunities to have children demonstrate where they were in their learning. This systematic process for reflection was part of visible practice through sharing observations on One Note, Evernote and other software, and contributed to the sense of team for regular educators (e.g., VP, P, Instructional Coach, EA) who supported students in the classrooms. They also posted pictures and writing around the classroom on bulletin boards to help illustrate success criteria and learning goals. Some teams wrote learning stories with and for students. Some used their classroom website and the bulletin boards outside their classrooms to post information and pictures about what they did each week around learning goals. Most critically, they scheduled time to listen, observe and wonder each week. They posted artifacts that reflected the learning goals and shared student work daily with the class. They stopped at least once each week to share what they were noticing about student interest and tried to connect it to curriculum when planning. They did all of this in an attempt to create an explicit and common understanding of the what they were seeing and what they might see in the next phase of learning. Learning Goals: We are learning to solve problems. Noticed April 14-19 Shelley noticed that leaving open ended materials at the art table encouraged the creation of some original work. She also noticed that children problem solved and collaborated more with each other in trying to achieve their design ideas. Diane noticed that using the magic wand created a lot of interest in letter finding activities. We noticed an interest in building some simple machines (levers, inclined plane) prompted us to go to the library and find a bunch of new books on simple machines. We noticed Zoe reading one of the learning stories at the writing centre. Autumn showed an interest in how to use the scale to measure cookies. Gloria noticed that children were very interested in our garden and began to think of different ways to capitalize on that interest through writing and data activities. Programming decisions based on observations and reflections from last week: (child focused and reflective) 1. Continue with open ended materials at craft centre and collect evidence of problem solving to share with students. 2. put out scales in different centres to give students opportunity to compare weight/size. 3. put clipboards in garden centre and provide opportunities for tallying and writing. 4. use wands in guided activity for students needing opportunities to find letters in different contexts. 5. Introduce concept of Information books and put them in centres to have children use them as resources. 6
If we as educators along with the students, co-create an environment that is safe and meaningful to the children, and if we create a culture of celebration and understanding for the learning process, then students will be able to selfassess. Modeling the focus on learning rather than product helped educators to sustain their efforts to use program expectations, children s thinking, ideas and interests central to the experience of being in their classrooms. Students were encouraged and questioned about the processes and often challenged to explore further, discover more evidence, and assess their plan of learning. It created a language of learning in the class and this language helped to build a common understanding of goals and criteria that could be applied and observed across the classroom. Continuing to listen to students when joining them in the learning allowed for the ongoing evolution of criteria, making interactions with learners responsive rather than instructive. During such interactions, students were consistently asked where they were in their learning and what they might try next. Along the way as well, they were celebrated with their peers for finding their next steps and discovering new ways of thinking. This was followed by the encouragement to go further or discover a When Zoe first started school she appeared to be fairly timid about engaging in classroom activities. She relied on the adults in the room to facilitate all her learning opportunities. Through the process of watching her peers, giving and receiving feedback and building relationships with the people in her class, she has developed as an independent and collaborative learner. different way to go when the first was exhausted. Educators stated they felt more like they were facilitating learning and modeling that they valued the learning students were demonstrating. This practice over time impacted the partnership (between educators and students) within the classroom which spilled over into creating an environment safe for risk taking. Educators often shared with students when they were wondering about things (e.g., through think alouds, making errors and questioning why this happened, etc.) and asked students for strategies to solve or figure out the challenge. While this practice might not be unusual, their subsequent observation was what helped them to sustain this practice and see it as more than a cutsie way of interacting with young learners. Inviting students into their learning process made it a norm that extended into student to student interactions with students beginning to use the language of criteria established collectively to name, notice and support the learning of their classmates. The team suggests that when students are in an environment where the child is able When educators foster a spirit of collaboration and a culture that everyone is a learner, students become more independent as they begin to feel that they can take risks which in turn leads to fostering independence. One student asked for the materials to collect information, while outside at recess. As a result of sharing his data collection with the group, it started a conversation around collecting information (data management). As a result, children began to gather information based on their interest and experiences. We then provided the learning tools to facilitate the gathering of information and taught some lessons about how to make a t- chart and tally charts. We also facilitated opportunities for students to problem solve, around how to collect information independently. An example of this is children using classroom resources to spell their peers names. 7
to building trusting relationships, is given opportunities to explore, is given feedback to inform their learning, it inspires them to approach learning independently. Approaching learning at first by observing others, asking questions and giving and receiving feedback helps students to see each other as resources for learning. Educators report that they observed students assessing each other, receiving feedback and using each other s strengths and at times their areas of need to move their own learning forward. They reported students were able to turn to their peers for guidance and support to enhance their own learning. In this collaboration both students benefited as learning was supported, shared and solidified. How can we document learning to support student reflection and goal setting? Questions about documenting learning evolved throughout this inquiry. While some teams might find the task of documenting learning daunting and overwhelming, this team had experienced the challenges of having too much information and knew they wanted to streamline their processes while continuing to diversify the means they used to capture, document and make judgements about student learning. The key questions that surfaced and ultimately guided their processes around documentation included: 1) who is the documentation for? 2) how might this information be triangulated so the evidence is valid and reliable but accessible quickly 3) how can I gather evidence in the form of descriptive observations that can be interpreted later in collaboration with my teaching partner to inform next steps? 4) what feedback does the captured learning in the moment provide to us as educators? 5) how could this information explicitly support the student in consolidating learning? With these questions supporting the intentional decisions of educators, the team saw a shift in the way documentation was shared with students and parents. Educators reported they took into consideration what the purpose of sharing the documentation was, who the audience was, how it might relate and support student self-assessment, and how the method of sharing would be most impactful and experienced as supportive feedback. In documenting observations educators emphasized they privileged students in naming the learning ensuring that the adults waited to layer on their interpretation. These educators have long commented that the timing of confirmation of student learning is important too, so as to not intrude in the learning or end up leading the student too much. Student learning observed during play might be that students are noticing or making connections between learning from one area of the room to another or the questions they ask of one another and of educators. The varied forms that learning takes is why the team realized that it is so critical that they are open to learning and capturing the moment in a descriptive observation and then collaborate with students to have them name what the learning is they were involved in and maybe even why it is significant. Educators are providing feedback as they notice and name student learning and how it connects to the class learning focus. Feedback begins a conversation, to possibly gain further insight, into the child s interpretation of their learning process. It serves as a guide for next steps, for the students and educators. While reflecting, team members use feedback to make connections to children s interest 8
and are intentional with the materials and learning opportunities that they provide. Instead, thoughtfully creating opportunities within the environment and reflecting in an ongoing manner to check in that students are engaging in varied learning opportunities or if there are areas of the room that are not responding to the interests or readiness of students. When we observe that this is indeed the case, educators commented that it is reflection that prompts and shapes their professional judgement and urges them to try again while engaging the learners to gauge whether changes to the environment or opportunities for play are accurately responding to their needs. This practice of try again holds true too for developing success criteria when some criteria that was originally coconstructed with students is getting little attention, returning to the criteria to check for understanding and relevance is important. Students are demonstrating how their learning has been a process and has spanned across several learning areas and boards in the classroom. This was evident with our learning focus, "We can use character to retell and create stories" and "We are using different strategies to communicate our learning." A student identified each step of his learning, while he began the process with drawing characters. He then told a story about the character he had drawn. We then identified the interest of characters amongst many of the children and added books to several learning areas, to use as resources. The student then identified concepts of text while looking at one of the character books with a peer. This was followed by the student building the same characters out of lego and using the books as a resource. He and friends also designated roles to one another, to play the characters at recess. Finally, the student shared his learning with his brother and father, at our "Share in our Learning" opportunity for families to visit the classroom. 9
While documentation of student learning was evolving, the team was recognizing that making assessment information visible/available supported students in self-assessment and goal setting. Students are able to see the learning evolve on the learning boards and make connections and show an interest in what their peers are learning. This process also provided an opportunity for educators to encourage students to use their peers as resources, as they may have similar interests and knowledge in that area. This speaks to how what was going up on the walls was shifting from the product learning completed, to instead learning in progress the process that would support generalization of the learning later. Documentation generates access points for students and allows educators toknow where students are at in their learning and how to engage them. It is the conversations and questions that allow them to connect it back to their own experiences. provides a self-assessment opportunity for students to realize where their entry point to the learning is. This is how I am showing my learning of our learning goal/focus. provides an opportunity for students to learn from each other. (where the learning is for other students, being able to identify where peers are in their learning to tap into that, to identify interests) Example When Mubin noticed a newly added photo to the learning strategies board and identified that it was a picture from our field trip to the outdoor education centre, he asked where he was in the picture and the ECE identified that he was not in this group but that his peers were showing their learning by sharing their ideas. Reference was made to the particular centre where the focus was on deer and how well they hear. With prompting Mubin was able to remember the experience and share his learning from this day with his peers. Zoe saw that Will was using a book as a resource to build a character, when she was looking at our learning strategy board and decided to use a book to re-create parts of the books she was looking at. Will was able to share his own learning about using books to create a story and characters out of different materials, with his father and brother. This led to a conversation around his peer s learning and the stories they created based on character Students repeatedly showed the team that within the FDK context, goal setting involved students identifying a plan to tackle a task, a challenge that was personally and developmentally relevant and it often reflected a past experience that students used to help plan for future success. When the goals of students were visible for it allowed educators to hold students accountable and directed the questions that educators asked with the learning goals and curriculum document also in mind. This plan for learning was supported through questioning, Tell me about your learning, turn and talk to someone about what you are learning. Stopping during centre time to have the discussion, modeled that the educators valued and recognized that there was learning always occurring. 10
With their learning on the walls and being talked about with the rest of the group, students begin to self- assess instinctively and with that self-assessment comes the setting of new goals (also encouraged by teacher/learner questioning). The assessment information of their learning proudly displayed within their environment directly instructs their next steps based on what they have already accomplished and the accomplishments of their peers. Within this learning community we can look at the learner as an individual as well as part of the whole and meet them where they are. Reflections What has evolved out of the teams inquiry question is an increased capacity for reflective observation. The team has emphasized how much they recognize the necessity of preparing for and making time to wonder, question and reflect on what they have seen. These classrooms and tools like bulletin boards are increasingly communicating this change in assessment practices as boards are often in a process of change. Increasingly the content is connecting student artifacts to student learning and class learning goals. Descriptive observations that inform assessment help students to self-assess and set goals when they are met in their learning. When they are given opportunities to discover, practice, respond to feedback anchored in success criteria, reflect on and share learning that they are active partners in the process of learning. There are quite varied tools to help with this process - capturing pictures, conversations, questions and listening to name a few, will all help educators and students to reflect and determine next steps. All assessment information that provides the learner with opportunities for feedback during practice, and opportunities to demonstrate, share and reflect, enables learners to collaboratively and independently set goals self-assess and monitor their own progress. 11