At the beginning of the year I was curious what problems or dilemmas people were facing this year. @lintperez commented her current challenge is “trying to get ready for standards-based grading and everything that comes with it!”
What standard are you using for your lesson planning and assessment? Here are some “standards” I have used or seen used in lesson planning and assessment:
- How can I use the newest technology fad?
- What handmade project will take my students hours to complete so they and their parents will really feel like they’ve accomplished something?
- What’s something they can do on their own that involves the least planning or guidance on my part?
- What’s the next chapter in the textbook?
A few years ago at my school we made the leap to real standards-based planning and assessment, and we have seen a significant increase in the number of students coming out of our program with useful levels of proficiency. Going from a program that doesn’t know what the standards are to a program that evaluates every activity against the standards is quite an involved process, but it takes place one step at a time. If you haven’t really embraced standards-based teaching and you’re wanting to get your feet wet, good! Here are some baby steps you can take:
- Find a good set of standards. Examine the ACTFL standards, find the ones your state uses, or look at another state’s, like Kentucky or Georgia.
- Look at standards specific to the level you teach.
- About a particular standard that looks interesting to you, ask yourself, For my students to meet this standard, what should they be able to do?
- Think: What real-world activity can my students do to show me they can meet this standard? This is part of what is known as backward design, planning lessons and activities by first determining the outcome goal and then planning what activities will get students there.
- Now complete the backward design process: what activities can you incorporate in your lessons to prepare your students for success at this standard?
Once students have done the assessment you’ve planned, of course you’ll have to grade it. Grading standards-based proficiency assessments can be a bit of a mess. After all, there’s no right or wrong answer. I use the same proficiency assessment rubric to grade all the standards-based performance assessments in my class (four per unit: presentational writing, interpersonal writing, interpersonal speaking, and presentational speaking). I don’t actually put a grade on the rubric. I just mark whether my students are approaching, meeting, or exceeding my expectations for their current proficiency, and in the gradebook these categories translate to C, B, and A (unsatisfactory is an F and must be redone).
So, how about an example?
Here’s Novice High standard for presentational writing on our Kentucky standards document:
3.NH.PW.1 I can describe aspects of my daily life.
which, according to the sample learning targets, includes describing myself and people. In the spirit of backward design, here is the assessment I come up with:
Our collaborating school in Honduras wants a short biography of you and your best friend for their school newspaper. You tossed a coin and you lost, so now you have to write it. Describe yourself and your friend, including physical characteristics, personality, and things you like and don’t like.
Now, what do I need to do to get my students there? A number of things come up:
- vocabulary of adjectives
- using es and soy
- phrases for talking about likes
So what activities can I plan to help them out? First, we can develop our own vocabulary of adjectives by finding out what adjectives we’d use to describe each other. How? By describing each other – meaningful vocabulary is what students actually need, not what we think they need.
Next, I can think about how to integrate various modes of communication into my activities. I don’t just want them to be able to describe themselves and others – I want them to be able to understand it when someone else does, whether in writing or speaking. So I may have them looking at missing persons reports from Mexico (which integrates authentic materials and meets Novice High reading standard 1.NH.R.5). I’ll have them listen to Sandra introduce herself and her family, and to Edinson describe himself and his personality and his likes. I’ll have them describe a student to a blindfolded or turned-around student to see if he/she can guess who it is. I’ll use songs like Corazón sin cara and Boricua en la Habana to listen to and talk more about description, and Me gustas tú to talk about likes.
Then, finally, we’ll do the assessment.
Take a baby step: what one proficiency-based, standards-based assessment can you add to your next unit? How will it change the way you teach?
Hello, I love your blog. I recently just began teaching in a school where I am the only Spanish teacher. I have never really liked text books and have been testing out TPRS here and there (with no training) in my classrooms and I am trying to design a curriculum and assessments that are proficiency based. But this takes a lot of time and I am a little overwhelmed. Anyway, my question is do students only earn an “A” when they have met the proficiency goal? What about first year students after only one Unit? If they accomplished all of the goals then is that an A? Most are still in NL as far as output goes. Your post here did make me realize that I do not have to revamp everything but it took me a while to design my first reading assessment.
I have been absorbing your blog for days and now I have a question about this article. ” Going from a program that doesn’t know what the standards are to a program that evaluates every activity against the standards is quite an involved process, but it takes place one step at a time” What prompted the leap? Who lead you through the process? How far in advance did you plan the activities? I notice you said the students come up with the vocabulary (that is unheard of at my school, but I love the thought). Did you team plan? We have six Spanish teachers and a COMPLETELY textbook driven curriculum. I am sure some would never know what to do without a textbook. We are in textbook adoption this year and I want to convince my department to say NO to a new book and another textbook driven curriculum. My anxiety goes up at the thought of creating yet another curriculum for a textbook instead of our own curriculum. I want one for proficiency/students/standards/fluency/authentic richness/rigor/engagement. I am about to propose to them that we choose a completely different path. One that takes us completely out of our comfort zone. I just hope you will answer those questions for me. Thank you.
Wow, this is a very involved process but so worth it!
What prompted the leap to standards-based assessment? To proficiency-based teaching? Collaboration, mostly through conferences, with some of the best in the business. They opened my eyes. They challenged me to look at what students could really do instead of what I wanted to teach them. I am blessed to live in the city whose public schools boast one of the most progressive-thinking world language departments in the country. The former world languages specialist is currently on the ACTFL board of directors, and the current one is the ACTFL President-Elect, and two of the teachers run the Creative Language Class blog. I couldn’t have done it without them.
So, my first question would be – what professional challenges and development are your colleagues exposing themselves to? Can you get them exposed to more progressive curriculum thinking? Would they be willing to host a PD on WL curriculum development?
Here’s what the local school system did – they put together a cohort of teachers who started writing curriculum guidelines that could be implemented regardless of whether or not you used a textbook or which textbook you used. They developed units based on proficiency targets, with assessments for each one. Could you get your colleagues to look at it? It took them a few years to put it together and it’s a really great program. You can see all their units on their Sky Drive here.
Thank you for your very informative reply. I am going to inbox my response.
Thank you for sharing those files. I am certainly going to get my colleagues to look at it. I also want to comment that having tried to write a unit myself, I know it is so difficult, takes a lot of creativity, and a lot of time. I am willing to work hard, but I can work day to day and improvise. Very few people I know are comfortable working like this. One colleague says they don’t pay us enough to write our own book. Well I agree that it is like writing our own book, but it really helps and lightens the workload to see and use others’ work. I am also willing to share. I love the ideas in your blog and I am so glad you share. Thank you.
Hi Sara-Elizabeth,
I just came across this blog, and this post especially is very helpful to me, as I’m attempting to create a standards-based curriculum (German). I tried the Sky Drive link, but it didn’t work— any chance you could share those resources with me (or re-post the link)?
Thank you!
Hi Melissa, thanks for joining the conversation! If you’re getting into standards-based teaching and grading I’m sure you’ve seen GarnetHillman.com – just had to throw that resource out there. The documents previously available on that SkyDrive are in the process of being updated to be even more awesome and you can find all the updates here: http://www.jefferson.k12.ky.us/departments/gheens/WorldLang.html
Hope this helps! Enjoy the journey.
[…] several times lately and it’s made me remember I sort of blogged on that when I wrote about taking the leap to standards-based assessment but I should go into it a little […]