Stephen H

Stephen H. Mazepa

Dr. Eileen Reilich

MED 570 Classroom Assessment

DPC Homework Redo’s and Steve’s comments in red.

Pick one specific topic in your content area.

History: political boundary shifts over the last one hundred years (in preparation for studying the end of Imperialism). I have done a version of this lesson in a combined 4^th - 5^th grade class. There wasn’t as much post-game debriefing with graphing groups but the shifting political epochs were unavoidable and fodder for discussion. I was really thinking of 7^th – 8^th graders. Map reading skills is a typical social studies objective for these grades and would be where the focus lies for this age. By the time they’re in high school studying the age of imperialism, there’ll be a great foundation of experience built up.

2. Write five targets, in a progression, (KRSPA/D), which you will use to teach this topic.

K - TSWBAT identify at least 4 different types of maps: political, topographical, climatalogical, weather, road, oceanographic...

R - TSWBAT determine whether or not, a given map was made before 1917 by one or more of the following indicators: existence of Imperial Russia, and/or the Austro/Hungarian or Ottoman Empires in Europe and Asia. In the same manner, TSWBAT determine whether or not a given map was made before or after 1989 by the existence of the "Eastern Block" countries in Europe and the USSR across Europe/Asia. "Whether or not" is measurable. Either they have it or they don’t – a pretty low-level reasoning goal, I’ll admit. But there are enough qualifying conditions to hopefully influence students’ eyes to wander to other regions of the maps and see what’s different there also.

S - TSWBAT use various graphic organizers in two ways: 1) to aid one’s analysis of different maps, including the regions and eras depicted therein; and 2) represent those findings when sharing that information in both casual and formal (presentation) settings. Glad you liked something from this plan, thank you. This skill target is also intended to broaden the mapping objectives noted above in the reasoning target commentary. Mapping one’s interior world is as plausible as one’s outside world. I personally don’t feel this is too much of a stretch seeing as many of these kids (at least in the Oly. schools) have been "webbing" for a long time.

P - TSWBAT accurately records their progress in geography-based board games using appropriate geographical and political terms on their record sheets.

A/D - TSWBAT reflect in clear, comparative terms the usefulness and fun involved in learning about geography, history, and global environments through playing and analyzing geography-based board games as opposed to other methods they’ve experienced or heard about. Clarity will be gauged by the existence of at least two of four elements: Students state what they like about this approach and why it is better than some other experience they’ve had concerning similar content. Conversely, students may state what they dislike about this approach and why it is pails compared to some other experience they’ve had concerning similar content.

List five places or activities where you could possibly assess your students on the above targets using DPC.

i - During the teacher’s observation of a game in progress, he or she could ask a particular student to compare one game board to one previously played which illustrated different countries/regimes.

ii – During the teacher’s observation of "graphing group" time, he or she could ask a particular student how that student came to whatever conclusion they were endeavoring to represent.

iii – The teacher could ask a particular student in a casual setting to explain their graphing group’s choice for graphically representing some information in a certain way.

iv – The teacher could observe a formal presentation given by a student representative of a graphics group and ask the student to elaborate if need be to clarify a point of even advance a student’s keen insight further. Isn’t DPC partially about setting up optimal conditions for assessment and communication to occur?

v – During classroom discussions about current events, or other related topics, DPC can check whether students are generalizing their activity-prompted learning.

Match one of your targets to DPC as a "best match." My best match for DPC would have to be my Skill target because of its inherent communication aspect. Although the graphic organizers themselves would fit into a product target, their use as a tool for (thank you) constructing knowledge could be most easily assessed during some Q/A period during an informal sharing or formal presentation.

From #3 –and considering #4, choose one place or activity where the assessment is to take place label it "structured" or "natural". I would label the setting mentioned in #4 above "formal" in that it would be during an assigned presentation.

Explain how you will set up the assessment situation. During a Q/A period, the teacher could ask directed questions to assess other targets than the Skill target to check for understanding, even if that understanding wasn’t formally presented thoroughly enough. To answer your question about whether this is enough detail to explain how I will use DPC around graphic organizers, I'll admit that the format for presenting them is not completely worked out in my mind. Different group members taking turns presenting what they’ve worked on is as detailed as I’ve been able to get thus far.

Please not: I was using the cover sheet questions from the example portfolio you shared as my cover sheet was inaccessible at the time I was writing this assignment. The questions read somewhat differently.

The DPC modality of assessment would be very powerful during a time when a student has prepared to deliver some information orally anyhow. To the student then, questions put to him or her would feel natural and matter of course. This does not bar the teacher from actually having a rubric to measure the student’s information against and press for details if need be.

The scenario will be the Q/A portion of a presentation given by one member of a particular graphics group. The targets being assessed are Reasoning and Skill.

Student Presenter: "… are there any questions?"

Student Inquisitor: "Why do you have the game Zoography labeled as not having latitude and longitude lines?"

Student Presenter: "Because there are no degrees marked along the side of the board. There are some horizontal and vertical lines that make it look more like a map but they seemed to be more for decoration to us.

Teacher: "That’s interesting. So your group saw those lines as a way for the game board to appear more realistic without really making it more like a map. Is that right?"

Student Presenter: "Yea. It’s just, like, you know, decoration."

Teacher: "Can you tell us what led your group to decide that?"

Student Presenter: "Well, like I said, there aren’t any degrees labeled at the edges. There aren’t even enough of lines, really. And the dotted ones that I think are supposed to resemble the Tropic of Capricorn and Tropic of Cancer, they aren’t even close to where they should be. Plus they aren’t labeled as anything special either; they’re just dotted instead of solid like the others.

Teacher: "So on, say, a political map, do you need actual latitude and longitude lines, or would lines like these be good enough?

Student Presenter: "No. On any kind of world map, if you want to find something, that’s how you do it. You need to be able to use the lines, so they need some kind of, of, uh, measurement on them…"

Explain how you will address: validity, reliability, equity (bias) and efficiency, in detail, with examples of you behavior and supported by references from your readings and class notes and activities.

Validity is addressed through the existence of a rubric as mentioned in #7 above. The purposes behind the graphics groups are to guide the students through an intentional course of inquiry around the board games they’re playing. Those intentions are made explicit in the targets which are set up and hence, define the various "epistemic forms" the students are charged to explore/create. Reliability and equity are important to think about in this scenario in terms of each other. The potential is there for someone to be stuck presenting something that they barely participated in constructing, such as their absence or set to some administrative task. It is the assessor's job to distinguish between how much the individual is struggling to interpret the graphic organizer when they in fact, understand the content area targets. Discerning presentation skills should not cloud a teacher’s judgement as to whether the student knows the materials – unless the materials included presentation skills.

10. In response to your statement on the bottom left of my original page one, there is no difference in the relative time it takes me to do good homework as it did for me to finish the SRT which I did in your office - and was finally completing after the test and the rest of class had finished and had gone. I do have the ability but I am forced into making bad decisions to get work in late and/or incomplete. My accommodation recommendations from Dr.’s Scholes and Konofski at Group Health has been (for Evergreen and SPSCC) that I need more time for assignments and taking tests. It never flies well with my classmates, and because I do enjoy (and can) produce very high quality work, it’s usually received cordially up front and with couched sentiments of "...well if I had that much time to do my work, I could do something that good too!" Where’s the equity in all of this? It takes me half a sleepless night to settle into focus on an assignment that I’ll most likely be too exhausted to show my best effort. I haven’t had the time to set, and then go to the Group Health appointments in order to get what access services needs so that they can send you a notice that I’m entitled to the very accommodations you and I know would work for me. One thing missed in the Direct Personal Communication module this class covered was the unitary direction in which DPC is assumed to travel – teacher-to-student about the student’s work. Student-to-teacher about the student’s work is just as valid and in my case, necessary, I suppose. The "D" and the "P" seem to get lost somewhere when the access services hoop I need to jump through acts more like a megaphone turned backwards and aiming away from my teachers. That’s how it feels when I’m not completing work and have more work than most everyone else has (in terms of documenting this disability). I do have the ability, Eileen. I also have the disability, which is what you’re actually commenting on. Thank you for noticing. Really! I am definitely not my grades – but what does it matter if my student loan money is discontinued and I am ousted from another program due to those grades not meeting the standard?