This class again started with our Learning Circle discussion about chapters three and four (click here for discussion summary). The main points we discussed was the importance of including parents and providing samples and examples.

• As a student, I always appreciate(d) when samples are given because then I know what to work towards to achieve student success. I know what layout the teacher likes and about how long to make the questions, and I always found it much more useful than the ambiguous rubrics we were given in school. In university, I prefer the rubrics and guiding questions with parameters more than a specific example of writing.
• As a pre-intern, I would like to create some “student” samples before going into my three-week block so they can see what my expectations are.
• As a future teacher, having examples is very important because parents can be intimidating. It’s important to have those samples so you can justify why their child is where they are.

After a brief break and a poll guru, we discussed Assessment as, of, and for learning. Assessment as and for learning are both versions of formative assessment. Assessment as learning is very student focused and involves a lot of self-reflection as the learning process is happening. Assessment for learning is teacher focused and is essentially the teacher gauging where their students are and adapting their teaching or recommending strategies to the students’ needs. The third type of assessment is assessment of learning. This type of assessment is summative and comes at the end of a lesson or unit. The teacher examines the student work and formative assessments and assigns a grade for their grade book.

Next we discussed BLOOM’s taxonomy which has six levels of student engagement questions. The first level is remember, then understand, then apply, analyze, evaluate, and create. In groups we made simpler and complex questions and labelled questions as the various levels of BLOOM’s taxonomy. Here are a list of questions at each level:

1. Remember: Where did Martin Luther King Jr. give his “I Have a Dream” speech?
2. Understand: What was the main idea of MLK Jr.’s speech?
3. Apply: What would happen to the North Pole if the world’s temperature increased by 10ºC?
4. Analyze: How does a lemon compare and contrast with other fruits?
5. Evaluate: Critique or defend Sally’s case of implementing school uniforms.
6. Create: Create a new ending to the story we read in class.

To close, we compared and contrasted two shapes and marked ourselves based on our own requirements for a grade five geometry student. Then we shared and marked a peer’s work based on our own criteria. Based on the poll.guru, it was easy to see that we marked ourselves harder than what our peers did. We will be continuing with this activity next week.

My symbol for this week is the Bloom’s taxonomy pyramid as it will remind me of the content from this lecture and also will allow me to remember the various questions I can make as a teacher. I will also add a parent in here because in our learning circle we discussed how parents are a big part of why we’re nervous to become teachers.