Saturday, May 3, 2014

Final Thoughts 5/3/14

As I think back to reflect on "Formative Assessment", many thoughts rush to my head. Unfortunately, at times I can't remember which book they actually came from. This frustrates me a bit when doing a project like this, but at the same time I feel like it is a good thing. In the end it really doesn't matter where the information I liked and attempted to implement this year came from, all that really matters is that I learned and tried some new techniques and really reflected on my teaching process.

From the actual formative assessment book and this class in general my biggest take away was how to more correctly or accurately use my the information that I get from my formative assessment. I think that every single teacher in our school uses formative assessment at times and I would like to think that every teacher uses it everyday and probably even every period. I know that in the Social Studies classroom I am constantly questioning my students and trying to gauge their learning, but until this year, I just would have a feel for who "got it" and who "hadn't got it yet". This was mostly based off of gut feelings and not any real data. Now I attempt to look at real data, like short quizzes and then see where my students are at. I now attempt to have that data be more of a drive in my classroom of where we should be going. It has led to myself finding new issues, like is my questioning at the right level, and what do we do when students "get it".  It has also led me to be a bit jealous of SRB for math where they have the ability to reteach students during this time.

In the end I have read more educational books this one year than I have in my entire career. Some of them I have agreed with, sometimes I feel like the author is completely bogus. I do feel like this has made me a better and more reflective teacher, even if it is overwhelming to try to implement so many things at one time.