- Speechms. Schrader's Teaching Portfolio Allocation
- Speechms. Schrader's Teaching Portfolio Assessment
It done!! I think. No, it’s not, I’ve logged back in to tweak. There. Now. I think.
Is it ever really done? Are teachers ever really done?
Ethan Hawke as Reverend Toller and Amanda Seyfried as Mary in First Reformed. Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / Like an opaque work of conceptual art, writer-director Paul Schrader’s First Reformed is a high-risk venture, laden with the potential for artistic failure and embarrassment.
During my student teaching at Charlevoix High School, I taught a 10-12 grade elective speech class. Since the class was small in number, we were able to do a number of different speeches. I taught units on informative speaking, storytelling, future view speeches, demonstration speeches, special occasion speeches, impromptu speeches,. It has allowed her to become a more creative teacher and led her to reorganize her classroom. She now puts together monthly sets of lesson plans, which helped her have a more structured school year. She stated that with the alternate assessment portfolio system, writing report cards and Individualized Education Plans (IEP) is much easier. Simply put: Teaching a class full of motivated students is enjoyable for teachers and students alike. Some students are self-motivated, with a natural love of learning. But even with the students who do not have this natural drive, a great teacher can make learning fun and inspire them to reach their full potential. Digication ePortfolio:: EDU 1055- Writings by Luigi Ragusa by Luigi Ragusa at St. John's University. Class #1 Vocabulary word of the day on the board at the beginning of classImpunity- noun- freedom from punishmentExample sentence- “Saul believed that he could disobey the school rules with impunity because his dad was the principal.”Also provides a verbal example in the form of another.
Building my Moodle site has been a laborious process, long and drawn-out. Reflecting on it now feels like quite the challenge as I mentally re-navigate the ins and outs of visiting and revisiting what a splash page is – or a GUI – and how I could possibly build one. And what does it mean to create a web page? What do I need this for? After a month and some of scrolling through my typed-in labels I had composed for instructions, I learned: I could create a web page and keep the front page clean. Still small voices with organizational concerns in the back of my cerebral cortex quieted.
Building the content has been a mostly joyful experience. It has been fun to walk through and build the online elements that I would – will – gladly have accompany my face-to-face (f2f) course; it has been challenging to devise a splash page with a GUI (graphic user interface) that allows students to navigate via hyperspace rather than the scroll bar, creating a class web page that actually works like web pages that “other people” build. Even as I write this though, I am trying to calm the still small voice that says I really need to create a “back to top” button. I probably will. I think I know how. Now.
I didn’t know how before, that’s for sure. Using Moodle has been a big help, as have colleagues in the Moodle discussion forum (and some via email) in ETEC 565. I did not use the Moodle forums from Moodle.org so much, though ultimately that was where the GUI finally started to click. I was very happy to have the Wimba experiences from class. It was comforting to feel a bit more in touch and be walked through some Moodle possibilities. Ultimately, I found a lot I could figure out via trial and error, similar to how my dad will just keep driving when I think he’s lost and then lo and behold he pops out just where he always intended to go – except I really do think he knew all along. With Moodle, I didn’t.
I used a lot more gas to get to my destination than my wily dad would ever need, and a lot of that in idle as I contemplated and mulled. Even still, I am popping back and forth evaluating my “groups” forums. Sometimes they seem to display right, but not consistently, so Using Moodle is currently opening – again – behind this page as I write. Time to comb through with a finer tooth and see what I missed. This is where trial and error fails me. I try to fly solo, but I just don’t have the background yet. Using Moodle is my under-appreciated co-pilot, but even then, as I see now having combed through, I need an updated version… or a personal moodle expert. Luckily, I have something akin, in Vista Blackboard, in our discussions (so here I go)… oh no! I just learned something new. Blessings and curses. Thanks be to John, it was at the moment of writing this, bouncing between my open tabs, that I solved my endless scrolling page issue: create a web page for my instructions for each module! No worries. Time is an issue, but with investment comes pay-off.
And so it is clean. Cartoon icons set with titles locked in place via an invisible table. Titles and ‘toons anchored to appropriate units, instructions transferred to web pages linked back to appropriate anchor on home page, wikis fixed, selected items programmed for date-specific release, others hidden for manual selective release, grading options selected for journals forum, selected blocks set on side for handy and helpful links without overwhelming second language students, and my own postings posted and relevant self-created media embedded or linked to enhance and scaffold learning. Reflections on my own personal learning underway. I think we’re there.
Some trial and error was on purpose, some was not. I enjoyed – am enjoying – playing merely for the purpose of seeing how it changed – changes – the site or the presentation of an element on the site. Some elements though … this has been exhausting, albeit in a satisfying way. I am going to enjoy a month off of obligatory computer work.
References
Cole, J. and Foster, H. (2007). Using Moodle – Teaching with the popular open source course management system. 2nd ed. Retrieved from http://download.moodle.org/download.php/docs/en/using_moodle_2e.zip
Educators have expressed concerns about the increased paperwork and documentation from alternate assessment (Kleinert & Kearns, 2001). Some are concerned that incorporating alternate assessment within the general education system of accountability assumes a uniformity that ignores the unique needs of students who, by definition, need special education and related services. As one teacher stated,
Speechms. Schrader's Teaching Portfolio Allocation
'I was hesitant to accept that any system or program could be flexible enough to address the many learning outcomes these students exhibited on their Individualized Education Plans.'
Portfolios and bodies of evidence require extensive amounts of work on the part of the teacher and usually incorporate a specific approach to documenting the teaching-learning process. As one alternate assessment coordinator recognized, 'Alternate assessment adds more paperwork and data records for teachers.' Some teachers and parents question whether the results obtained are in balance with the amount of time spent (i.e., the time to document, report and score the information takes too much time away from instruction). Additionally, others are concerned that, in the end, the documentation reflects more on the ability of the teacher to produce a good document than on whether a student is receiving a quality education.
Considering all the criticism, the key question is whether there is sufficient benefit from alternate assessment. While hard evidence is still emerging and multiple studies of effects have not been conducted nation-wide, we are learning that there can be significant benefits for students, teachers and schools as well as at district, state and national levels, when alternate assessment is implemented well. We have gathered a number of reports from teachers and state level staff regarding some of those benefits. We found that before these respondents seriously tried to implement an alternate assessment as part of their institutional system, few believed that alternate assessment would be worth the effort. After implementing alternate assessment programs, however, all respondents had positive experiences to share.
We begin with stories from teachers about seven students who have benefited from alternate assessment practices. Following the teacher stories, four state stories about system-wide effects are illustrated. We close with some conclusions about the possible impact of alternate assessment.
The reader is free to use this document in its entirety or any part of it in a training, sharing or policy development effort. Some suggested uses:
Speechms. Schrader's Teaching Portfolio Assessment
- Select a few stories to include in a training manual or to share during a training session,
- Share a few stories as examples and ask participants to write their own story using the same format, Use some of the stories to stimulate discussion about the intended and unintended effects of alternate assessment,
- Put the quotes from the teacher stories in a list and use the list in an orientation (e.g., by asking, 'Which of these are real quotes from teachers?' and then debriefing about what is possible),
- Provide all eleven stories to an alternate assessment development team to read and have them draw their own conclusions about how best to approach the work,
- Share the stories with the state large scale assessment technical advisory committee, or
- Use a few stories to bolster a request to the state legislature when asking for an increase in funding for alternate assessment.
We make no apology for the fact that these are not randomly selected stories, because our question was not about averages or norms, but about what can be accomplished with the best aspects of alternate assessment with alternate achievement standards. However, we think that these stories are not unique. We believe that there are hundreds of these scenarios emerging across the United States and we encourage readers to look for and share others. Throughout this paper we maintain the anonymity of the systems and individuals involved because our respondents' descriptions of the 'Background' do not always reflect well on the teacher, the school, the district or the state. In contrast, the good news can be found in the 'Effects' sections.