Pulling It All Together

Our Earth Science knowledge was put to the test this week as each group focused on a different river than the Nile, either the Colorado or Amazon, and had to answer certain questions. The questions covered a variety of topics, such as where the river flows, watershed boundaries, discharge, precipitation and changes in seasonal patterns surrounding the river. Each group member was responsible for responding to a different question. My question pertained to discharge in the Colorado River and its tributaries. Prior to taking this course, I would not have known where to begin to answer this question. My studies of the Nile River have provided me with a solid foundation of how river systems work as a whole. In the upcoming week our assignment is to create a story about how the interacting components of the river we are investigating work together. I am looking forward to seeing how everything comes together.

On the curriculum front, we have been putting the final touches on our TfU (teach for understanding) plans and have started implementing them within our classrooms. More specifically, we have been focusing on performances of understanding, which are designed to help students develop and demonstrate their understanding. Within our generative topic, we were challenged to devise a variety of performances that show student understanding in an observable way. It is stressed in Tina Blythe’s Teach for Understanding book that they are learning activities and not final events. Each assessment is placed into one of the following categories; introductory, guided or culminating. Introductory performances are at the beginning of a unit and invite students to begin “messing about” with the issue/topic. Guided inquiry assessments are in the middle of a unit and focus students on particular problems related to the generative topic and understanding goals. Culminating performances are at the end of a unit and require students to pull together their understandings developed in previous performances.

We, as teachers, then ask ourselves; how do we know what our students are learning? On-going assessment is the answer! They are crucial and can be done in a variety of ways. The key word is on-going. They may be formal, informal, teacher lead or student lead. Students may even critique/reflect on their own work. Teachers informally assess their students frequently, but are not always consciously aware they are even doing it. For example, floating around the room and checking in with the students as they participate in a lab is an informal way to assess how the students are progressing. We sometimes get caught up in grades and forget that there are other means of assessing how our students are doing.