Tag Archives: assessment

Standardized Learning

by

One conclusion I’ve come to after years teaching – testing and assessment are poorly used as a way for students to learn.

This is curious and unfortunate because students for the most part DO get motivated and energized through tests and quizzes. The pickle is, the way they are designed doesn’t make the test a learning experience and rather is meant to trick students.  I’m calling for all teachers to review the way they test and I’m offering one example using the popular convention of testing – multiple choice questions.

I recently began one of my classes after the New Year by writing the following on the board. A typical, 3 truths / 1 lie activity where students try to guess the lie.

This new year I resolve to ….

1.  grow my hair long

2. plan my classes better

3.  travel the world and teach

4.  get a new coffee maker

It’s a great activity for teachers to share themselves and also for students to do and allow the teacher to get to know them. However, I’m teaching teachers so I took this opportunity to go beyond the activity and ask them what this multiple choice question might say about assessment and how we decide design these questions.

What’s remarkable about this question is that you can pose it two ways.  One – which statement is the lie?   Two – which 3 statements are the truth?   Now you might think this is just semantics but I believe if we created multiple choice, standardized assessments where the students were asked to not choose just one right answer but  three right answers – they’d learn a lot more. They’d be encountering a lot of “right” knowledge and not trying to side step through a labyrinth of wrong.

Here’s another example.

A typical standardized multiple choice question for language students might be;

Beth ___________ to the store every day.

a) has   b) is    c)  went    d) liked

A multiple choice test that would actually give students more success and help them learn would be them choosing the 3 appropriate language forms.

Beth ________ to the store every day.

a)  went      b) likes    c) goes   d) has gone

It’s important that students choose 3 right answers and not be asked to choose the 1 wrong answer. This way, we can give marks for right answers. This way they feel “success”.

This is just one of many ways we could rethink assessment and make it more about “learning” and less about tricking students. Do you have any other ways?

PS.  The 3 correct resolutions for this year are 2,3,4!

Marking. Is it all about going through the motions?

by

marking

Marking is something teachers kind of dread.  It takes hours and usually there is little pay off.  However, on the other end are students who wait with anticipation for any feedback or comment.  How to reconcile these two opposing forces?

This dilema and “round peg into a square hole” dichotomy became clear to me when I recently showed my students the clip below.  It’s from a new TV series – Mr. D (and yes, I was a Mr. D. in a school just like this guy!) premiering in Canada.

I teach a core course in the Bachelor of Ed program – Education and Schooling. A broad overview course dealing with topics like “Becoming a Teacher”,  ”History of Education”,  ”The law and schooling”, “Philosophy of Education”,  ”Social Perspectives” and “Critical Issues in Education”.  I enjoy it and I beyond the specific curriculum objectives, have the overall objective of lighting a fire inside my students and getting them to think critically about every day issues in education. Thus, the Mr. D. clip.

I asked my students ” Based on this tv series clip, what do you think it says about how society views teachers?”  I was surprised when many said that it shows teachers as “Realists”.  Watch and decide for yourself.


Find more videos like this on EFL CLASSROOM 2.0
My students also talked about how they feel when they put a lot of work into something and the professor/teacher doesn’t spend any time actually reading it and giving feedback. This comment hit home. I just got a load of assignments to mark – a pile of them! I’ll be spending the next week wading through them (but happily for the most part!).

What all this really says to me is that we have to stop giving “useless” assignments. Really and truly. Assignments that mean for students “just get it done” and for teachers, “just get the marking done”.

What does this video say to you? What issues does it raise for you? I’ll be interested to see if this new series develops in a way to portrait teachers as lazy blockheads or in a vein of showing the “realistic” side of our profession.

* need some reading on assessment? See my page on all things to do with assessment.

 

“Listen In” to student audio

by

This week, EnglishCentral released their “Listen In” feature. Now, not only can students “speak” youtube videos, teachers can also listen in and provide assessment and feedback to their students.

I’m not going to outline how to access this. Just register as a teacher, sign up students and then find this on your Teacher Tools reports page. Go here – EnglishCentral has already described it in detail. However, I do think this is just “crazy” and I’d like to outline how teachers might use this feature in their teaching. I can suggest 3 main ways.

1. As a way of verifying that students are actually practicing and doing their assignments. Lets face it, part of the difficulty about online learning is the “accountability problem”. Too often with tech, teachers won’t use it because they think students can scam the system and are just playing computer games while online. The listen in feature provides both teachers and students with accountability – between themselves and too other stakeholders like parents and school administrators. So I think schools and teachers will love this feature.

2. As part of an assignment. Production is crucial for language development (Swain 2004). As an end product, the “listen in” feature allows teachers to assign a video and provide feedback to the student on their speech, as part of the assignment. It makes it a complete learning cycle.

3. Assessment, pure and simple. This comes immediately to mind as the crucial way the tool can be used. It can be both a formative (ongoing) or summative tool. Even use it as a way of leveling students (but not exclusively) at the beginning of your school year. Or sit one on one with students and review their speech, their errors, along with understanding of the video. Their speech is highlighted with feedback “marks” for both teacher and student to see.

This beta feature will only get better. Along with the new pronunciation reports that immediately tell you how your students are doing and where they need help – this just makes EnglishCentral even more cutting edge than it already was.

In ending, all I can say is “This is Crrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaazy”.


Letter to Self

by

I just got home after an absolutely stunning fall day with my preservice teachers class – Education and Schooling.

This year, I’m again using an old trick I learned from the amazing Benjamin Zander. I’m getting them to write letters to themselves. They write a letter to themselves, saying why they got an A in the class. They write about who they will be after a year in class. I give them an envelope and stamp and then collect the letters which I’ll post in May, at the end of Teacher’s College.

I’ll let Benjamin Zander explain fully (like only he can) in this video excerpt.


Find more videos like this on EFL CLASSROOM 2.0

I am doing this for many reasons and not just for the surprise and joy of getting a “real” letter! I think it will foster and nurture a level of reflection but also, it will help tamper down the competitive demons that seem to plague both teaching and especially “becoming a teacher”.

The students seal their letters and I won’t be reading them. This is for themselves only and they are the only ones to be surprised or disappointed by the letter they’ll receive. We get what we put in ….

I’m writing this blog post because I also, in the vein of being a teacher that “participates” with students and practices his own constructivist principles, wrote a letter. I wasn’t intending to share it on this blog. However, I left my folder with lesson notes/plan and the letter at home. I couldn’t read it to my students. So alas,this compromise. Find the letter to myself below, for student reading but might be of interest to any and all teachers. Please forgive the length!

May 02, 2012

Dear class,

I deserved my A because I gave it my best shot.

What I mean is that given whatever our circumstances as teachers, we really have that as our yardstick and measure. I don’t agree a lot with the current mantra of “weed out the bad teachers”. There are no good or bad teachers – we are all adrift in the wind of our own circumstances and the only heights, the only bar we need climb over is that – we did our best.

This year I challenged myself in several ways and that’s why I got an A.

One. I asked my students to be responsible for their own learning and to be their own engine and light. I challenged them with the task of taking the curriculum provided and learning it of their own volition, curiosity and need. It was tough at the beginning but with time, students saw the classroom as a place of inquiry and thought, where their battle was only with themselves. And they grew more responsible and receptive of that freedom I gave them.

I deserved my A for avoiding teaching by numbers and allowing teachers to grow into their own teaching skins, boots, beliefs.

I got an A because I came prepared to my classes. Sometimes less, sometimes more – but that’s life. My best was done.

I got an A because I think I modeled a type of teacher we might want in our schools and profession. One constantly engaged in professional development, transparent and sharing ideas and resources. There is no finish line.

I deserved my A because I learned from my students and didn’t just teach them. When one teaches, two learn.

Lastly, I got an A because despite the dark, wretched winters here, I kept seeing the cup half full. Kept the class thinking and positive. Kept engaged and engaging knowledge. Kept being happy to come to class and have a place to be a teacher. It was never a chore but an honor.

It’s been a great year. I’ve developed so much. Like a tree, I have one more circle added and that will forever embrace and mark me.

Sincerely,

Your teacher, David

If you liked this post, you may enjoy, “Reflective Now, Reflective Then”

Top 5 Game/quiz generators

by

juiceThe “Top” games series continues! It seems the categories are limitless…..

Today, I’d like to tackle “Game generators”. A game generator is a site or program that makes it easy for a teacher or student to make a game. (and I mention student because the optimum way to use a generator for language learning is getting students to make the games). Game generators can be elaborate or simple, they can be plain or full of sparkles. But what counts at the end of the day is that they function well and don’t take up a lot of the teacher’s/student’s time (nor have a sharp learning curve).

So here are the Top (free) generators as I see them….

1. Fling the Teacher. This game is super easy but generates a powerfully attractive and addictive game. Just add questions and answers/possible answers. Here’s an example. One of many on our Games page of EFL Classroom 2.0

2. QuizBreak. Brought to you by CLEAR (Univ. of Michigan’s – Center for Language Education and Research), it makes a Jeopardy style quiz game with the possibility of all kinds of multi media inserts. Works well and makes an attractive game. Will store your game permanently (you can’t download). Read my full review.

3. ESLVideo. This site allows you to make quick quizzes using Youtube videos. Students can share, teachers can embed the quizzes. Students email the results to teachers for tracking. It’s been around a long time but is still keeping up with the times!

4. QuizStar. Makes a very attractive quiz with photos/audio that you can show your students afterwords. Tracking of student answers and reporting is possible too. The drawback is that you need to assign a class / create a class. There is no fully public version. But the 4Teachers.org does a great job offering tools to teachers (like Rubistar).

5. Purpose Games. This site has been around a long while and developed well. Teachers can create very attractive interactive games (see this sample) and is especially effective for vocabulary. No registration except if you want to make a game.

Next up - Paid quiz generators and random generators!

The power of positive evaluation

by

zanderToday while marking student assignments, one student wrote - “The instructor must remember the purpose is to help the student succeed!”

It reminded me of Benjamin Zander. I’ve written before about my praise and enthusiasm for the ideas of Benjamin Zander. Watched again his wonderful mini speech and just wanted to put it up here with little comment and let anyone who chances by view.

Mind bending, it is so simple. The notion that our students shouldn’t be elbowing, fighting and climbing up over each other for “A”s. Rather, they should be working on that Michelangelo  inside….

The Competitive Side of Schooling

by

OlympRaceStart-01 Having recent stepped back from teaching, I’m starting to see the forest for the trees and been thinking a lot about the “competitive” nature of our classrooms, our schools and our western educational systems.

First off, I’m not a warm and fuzzy “humanist”, asserting that we shouldn’t measure or mark students. Not at all. Competition is healthy if done without long lasting “selfish” and negative consequences, if done for the benefit of learning. That said, I do find some very disturbing things about how we line up and race students down the learning path. This has been my experience and here are a few of my observations.

1. The race is to the quick?

How come we make learning into a sprint? Why not a marathon? Why not off track or even against yourself? What I mean is, we chunk up learning into discrete units of time and space, usually a few weeks or months. Students memorize and “learn” in a short period of time. We then say they have “learned”. We then say who has won, who gets the ribbons and who is “dumb”. But what have they won? And what about the students who learn over time, the hedgehogs and late bloomers? Why should we look at learning only through a short time frame and in terms of learning having an expiration date?

2. Teaching to the top.

The competitive nature of our education system, our labeling and grading, our ranking and judging of students – creates a hierarchy. And one of the most severe consequences of this, is so many teachers without clothes. Meaning, teachers teaching to the high end, to the audience that is listening/responding. They really and truly have no clothes though – unaware that so many others are left along the road, not really learning and yet still afraid to tell the teacher they have no clothes (for they aren’t teaching those that truly need it, the others at the top will learn nevertheless and sometimes inspite of the teacher). Why do we continue to teach to the top and create schools where only the “top” fit in?

assessment cartoon3. Values out the door – dog eat dog.

When we mark a student and compare students, aren’t we making education into one giant scramble up the intellectual garbage heap? Is that the end game and role of education – to create individuals who are constantly comparing themselves, ranking themselves against others? Supremism / Superiorism / Elitism / Cliquism seems to be the end result, along with a lot of individuals laid to waste along this road. Why must there be failures for others to succeed? Who ever said it should be so?

4. Intellectual Grandiosis

This is the disease that our competitive education system holds up as a sign of health. Why must the end goal of all education, from kindergarten to university, be the creation of a being that counts only from the neck up? So asked Ken Robinson. I totally agree. Why should the race just be along the path of facts and books and rationalism? Why don’t we value our quirky ones, or our athletes, or our very empathetic and kind students? Is not empathy something we learn and should value? Why do we worship the rotting library of academia?

5. Knowing More Does Not Mean Understanding More.

Our students “know” and the competitive system assures so. However, that doesn’t equate to understanding nor even the enacting and proper use of this knowledge. There are many students who do intuitively understand and who we don’t value because they can’t explain it. Why should we equate “winning” with being able to explain? We undervalue and undermine the great force of intuition and wisdom in our competitive market place.

5. Institutionalized Powerlessness

We value human beings by how many years of competitive schooling they’ve had. X number of years and you have it made, you are of the “powerful”. You’ve climbed to the top and are given “value” for such. But what about those who’ve learned by themselves, who gained knowledge while on the toilet or from the tube or their Toshiba laptop? Who is the great decider that tells who should go left and others go right? Isn’t our educational system to blame? How we consign people to failure not based on merit but solely because they didn’t run the educational race?

Just a few thoughts about how competitive education has become. We make it so, to our detriment.

I hope the next blog post, to outline some ways teachers can be subversive and help all students with as little labeling as possible.

The #1 …. ( review game)

by

Number One** Not your ordinary, endless list – just what’s number 1.
BAAM

I created this power point game a few years ago and since then, it has become a classic. Most visited resource on EFL Classroom 2.0 with combined downloads of 30,000! That’s a lot of BAAM games floating out there.

It is the perfect way for teachers to review their course content. Just put in your own questions / prompts into one of 3 templates (mini(10), medium (15) large (25)) and you’ll have a great time with students. Even better – get the students to prepare a BAAM game to play in class.

baam I came up with the idea after being told many times by teachers that  the standard Jeopardy game was okay but the lower level students just lost interest and “tuned out”. I wondered to myself how I could create a simple game that would have an element of unexpected chance so to keep the attention of lower level (quite bewildered by a second language) students. BAAM was born. Even up to the last question, you don’t know which team has won.

One tip – get one student on each team to be their team’s scorekeeper or appoint someone to do it on the board. You are too busy doing other things as the teacher.

You can also play the low tech, non power point version of BAAM. Get all the materials, instructions – HERE.

Get instructions and all the BAAM games. Get all the games in our Power point Resources (thousands of already made games) on EFL Classroom 2.0 . Also – a close second is Fling the Teacher!

Culturally Specific Music for learning English

by


Too often me thinks, too often we unintentionally push our cultural view onto those learning English. No more subtle way than music and film. We use so many “western” songs in our teaching that we almost become immune from even a thought of all the fine music by second language singers in English out there.

Whatever culture or country you teach in, I’m sure there are singers who are singing in English. They are great role models for your students and no matter the quality of their “English” singing, they should be used instead of English pop song culture if possible (not all the time, but from time to time).

Take a look at our International Music in English discussion for lots of inspiration!

I teach in Korea and have made lots of karaoke songs for learning English, that feature Korean singers singing in English or with lyrics translated into Korean. Valuable for 3 reasons;

1. Motivation. Students get pumped to see their own idols in a lesson and also using English! If they can do it, so can “I”, your students will think.

2. Culture. It is a subtle but pervasive force in language teaching. When students sense intuitively that their culture is not respected or being “pushed at”, they automatically go on hold and language learning becomes very difficult. {there are many studies on this aspect of cultural imperialism/domination, go here where I have my presentation material of culturally specific teaching for many. )

3. Noticing. This is especially important for higher level students. Becoming aware of language and the differences their native tongue has with English is very important for good fluency and acquisition. By comparing in a song with a translation, they really see some significant differences.

Bi (Rain) is a huge star in Korea and also internationally. See the video above where he sings first in English (with lyrics) and then in Korean (with a better than whoever made his English lyrics) translation. *** his English singing is horrendous, bear with it if you are a native speaker!

You might also enjoy this interview with Bi – he was interviewed by Time magazine. I use this when teaching teachers about evaluation. I let them watch it, they are thoroughly engrossed! Then, I get them to discuss among themselves what kind of mark they’d give him for spoken fluency. Sometimes I ask them to give marks for different areas – word choice, intonation, pronunciation, grammar, composure etc….

Invariably they give him high marks. Then I have to tell them that he can’t speak much English at all! As the story goes, he was given the questions and memorized everything. And how good he was at it! Now, he speaks more English but still not lots. A good lesson in regards to evaluating fluency and also that money can’t buy you a language – you got to do the work and talk the walk!
Love Song Rain (Bi) foldem.doc Love Song Rain (Bi) comparison.doc

The #1……(way to formally assess students)

by

Number One** Not your ordinary, endless list – just what’s number 1.

The Rubric!

The rubric is a very transparent and accountable way to assess students. It is a grid where you clearly show students “what criteria they will be assessed by” and “what levels or indicators the teacher will look for”. It communicates to students clear expectations on the part of the teacher. Here’s a nice example of a rubric which the teacher adapted from the SOLOM – a standard speaking proficiency rubric.

There are 2 main ways to use a rubric.


1. Make it with the students. Yes, have a conference and ask the students to list the things that they should do well in the task/activity/unit/language that they are practicing. List these as criteria. Then ask them what would make a “bad” effort and a “great” effort. Describe these. After, copy these down into a rubric (or have a student do this) and then put this up for all to see in the classroom. You might even do this in the students L1 if possible – the goal being to communicate expectations and not to “teach” language.

2. Teacher made. The teacher can make the rubric. Usually the teacher uses a premade rubric that they modify for their classroom. Rubistar is a popular site for finding these rubrics and making them online.

Here is a handy template that I’ve got a lot of mileage from. A nice way to make a rubric, alone or with students! For more on rubrics or more assessment ideas – see our assessment resources. Also this page too, has many links.

Assessing Student Speaking – English Central.com

by

I’ve been helping English Central put up a teacher’s area on their site. It is still in the initial stage but all the same, Ready To Go. Click HERE to join as a teacher and start inviting students! I’ll be posting a nice screencast later today, describing all the features available for teachers to track student progress. If you haven’t visited English Central yet, WATCH the DEMO and see how powerful it might be for your digital students!

Sign up as my student and help me test the Teacher’s interface!

Join us on EFL Classroom 2.0 where we are discussing and commenting on English Central and language learning/teaching.

It isn’t easy to assess student speaking! First, it is time consuming. Typically us ESL / EFL teachers have hundreds of students – so it is hard to give them both individual practice or even an individual assessment. English Central allows teachers at a minimum to get some feedback about student ability.

Further and most importantly – English Central’s voice recognition technology is highly motivational to students. Students can choose their own content, at their own level. (but soon teachers will be able to preselect videos for students on their own channel – THIS IS COMING!). It “flattens” things in that learners can now practice anywhere, anytime and the teacher still have information about what they are doing. The class can now truly have “no walls”.

English Central is in no way a replacement for face to face communication! Language at all times, is about human beings talking/communicating – about that dance and bounce of meaning between people. Still, I think this tool really “takes things up a knotch” as far as online learning is concerned. Now, for the first time, we can get students producing language (and Voicethread was a great addition in this area too!) but also getting feedback. English Central has amazing pronunciation / vocabulary feedback. If only for this aspect, it really is a pearl among oysters. Watch the demo here.

Myself, I’ve been involved with TTS (Text to Speech) for 5-6 years. Promoting both Karaoke and Bots for language learning and reading development. However, I’d been waiting for a way that students could actually be encouraged to produce (in the spirit of Swain’s CO [comprehensible output}. Students need this as well as CI {comprehensible input}.

Please leave your comments here on this thread and let’s build ideas for English Central. I’ve already asked the developers to;

1. Make the inviting students easier — have an internal email server + an embed button so students could just click and sign up for the teacher’s class.

2. Export/printable stats for student(s). So teachers can discuss with parents / administrators.

What do you think about English Central? What can be improved? ....

Assessment – Have we got it all wrong?

by

I just spent an exhausting but stimulating weekend away from home attending a conference. Nice, engaging teachers and sessions. The last session was an open mic panel discussion and one of those on the panel Mike Misner, an extensive reading enthusiast, commented that “we should assess students by HOW MUCH they have read, not how well they can read”.

On the way home, Devon Thargard (from Super Simple Songs – a simply great site for those teaching young learners!) and I got discussing this as we zoomed along on the bullet train. My own thoughts were also zooming along.

I got to wondering that maybe we have it all wrong – we shouldn’t micro assess. Rather, because language ISN”T a body of knowledge and facts – we should base assessment solely on what the student does. Now I’m not talking benchmarks and functional checklists. I’m talking – a very general assessment of how active they are, doing whatever they are asked. Devon commented that we should “judge” based on how much the student was using/encountering/being active with language. Mostly because that is the only way to be honest. About the only thing we are sure about in regards to language acquisition and learning is — the more students are encountering language, the more they are learning. There are too many other factors involved to discern or go any further in our conclusions about “what a student is learning?” or “if a student has learned”.

I have always thought it would be great to assess speaking by having students wear a device that counts how many times their mouth moved and pronounced an English word. Add them up and you got English mileage and a speaking score.

You could go further and develop head gear which records students actively decoding and “thinking ” English. If it is glowing the purple English color – high marks! A teacher could quickly scan the class and SEE who is learning.

Or how about writing. Couldn’t we assess students by how much they write. They are learning more and after all – the goal of us language teachers is not to create a poet but to create a person who can write in a basic, communicative fashion.

How can we create the odometers of the English language? Is there any technology out there that might help us?

I know I’m writing mostly in jest but I think these are valid things to think about. Assessing students by how active they are with language and forgeting all the fine points…..

If you are curious about more traditional assessment issues and tools for EFL / ESL – see my Assessment in EFL Classroom’s resources.