I am pleased to say that our unit is coming along nicely. Kimberly and I continue to work well together. Much like a true school collaboration, our biggest obstacle has been just finding the time to work on our project. Luckily, we have both been able to find time, and we are getting to the final stages of the unit.
Assessment
Assessment is an important component of this plan, and it will occur in several forms throughout the unit, helping to guide the teacher and media specialist in their teaching. Our main issue and main goal was to create assessments that would accurately reflect student learning and give feedback to guide teaching. To meet this need, we chose to incorporate both formative and summative assessments into the unit plan. In addition to assessment by the teacher and media specialist, the students will have the opportunity to reflect and assess themselves as individuals and as group members.
The summative assessment of our financial literacy unit will be a PowerPoint presentation. Students will have the opportunity to choose a career and research real-life potential financial scenarios. Students will present information about their chosen career, specific scenario and how to be financially successful in light of their scenario. A joint rubric that includes both academic and information literacy components will be used to score the presentations.
As a formative assessment, students will have an individual conference with the teacher or media specialist at least once during their research process. Students will also complete a checklist that evaluates their research sources. Observations will also be used to help guide the teacher and media specialist. Pre-tests will begin individual lessons, and post-tests will end them. This allows for immediate feedback for necessary modifications that may need to be made to better accommodate student learning.
Communicating Assessment
Evidence of student learning will be communicated to stakeholders in a variety of ways. A discussion of the project and samples of student presentations will be shown to parents at conferences. With parent and student permission, the presentations will be put on the school website for parents, administrators and community members to view.
Individual scores and rubrics will be discussed with parents. A graph will be created to show the overall improvement of all students based on a comparison of pre-test and post-test scores. This visual representation of student achievement in quantifiable terms will be presented to the principal and available to the school board or other administrators. Along with the graph, a listing of all of the standards met in the unit will be included.
Communicating the results of the collaboration with teachers will help to encourage future collaborations between teachers and the media specialist. A sample of an exemplary student presentation will be shown to demonstrate the high quality of work that resulted from the collaboration. A discussion of the numerous academic standards met will also be presented.
Looking Ahead
As we enter the final week of our collaboration, I am confident that the unit we are creating could be used successfully. I hope that Kimberly has the opportunity to use it with her students soon. Though we still have several areas of our unit to refine, our basic ideas have been solidified. I fully anticipate that we will have an excellent unit by next Friday, and I look forward to hearing about how the unit was implemented in the classroom!
Assessment
Assessment is an important component of this plan, and it will occur in several forms throughout the unit, helping to guide the teacher and media specialist in their teaching. Our main issue and main goal was to create assessments that would accurately reflect student learning and give feedback to guide teaching. To meet this need, we chose to incorporate both formative and summative assessments into the unit plan. In addition to assessment by the teacher and media specialist, the students will have the opportunity to reflect and assess themselves as individuals and as group members.
The summative assessment of our financial literacy unit will be a PowerPoint presentation. Students will have the opportunity to choose a career and research real-life potential financial scenarios. Students will present information about their chosen career, specific scenario and how to be financially successful in light of their scenario. A joint rubric that includes both academic and information literacy components will be used to score the presentations.
As a formative assessment, students will have an individual conference with the teacher or media specialist at least once during their research process. Students will also complete a checklist that evaluates their research sources. Observations will also be used to help guide the teacher and media specialist. Pre-tests will begin individual lessons, and post-tests will end them. This allows for immediate feedback for necessary modifications that may need to be made to better accommodate student learning.
Communicating Assessment
Evidence of student learning will be communicated to stakeholders in a variety of ways. A discussion of the project and samples of student presentations will be shown to parents at conferences. With parent and student permission, the presentations will be put on the school website for parents, administrators and community members to view.
Individual scores and rubrics will be discussed with parents. A graph will be created to show the overall improvement of all students based on a comparison of pre-test and post-test scores. This visual representation of student achievement in quantifiable terms will be presented to the principal and available to the school board or other administrators. Along with the graph, a listing of all of the standards met in the unit will be included.
Communicating the results of the collaboration with teachers will help to encourage future collaborations between teachers and the media specialist. A sample of an exemplary student presentation will be shown to demonstrate the high quality of work that resulted from the collaboration. A discussion of the numerous academic standards met will also be presented.
Looking Ahead
As we enter the final week of our collaboration, I am confident that the unit we are creating could be used successfully. I hope that Kimberly has the opportunity to use it with her students soon. Though we still have several areas of our unit to refine, our basic ideas have been solidified. I fully anticipate that we will have an excellent unit by next Friday, and I look forward to hearing about how the unit was implemented in the classroom!
Susan,
ReplyDeleteI really like the self-assessment idea because it often gets overlooked, but can nudge students to reflect on their own growth in understanding. The ideas you mention for communicating evidence of student learning are good. I wonder if this unit could be extended in the future to have students teach financial literacy to younger students through various kinds of role play (customer/clerk transaction; interview an investment banker, etc.)
Good work.
Prof. K.