Sometimes I want you to think about what you have done…

Exploring student summative assessment data to set new learning directions

We all know it happens – that moment when you give back a piece of assessment, your student looks at the %, the letter grade, the sliding feedback ranges and then their eyes glaze over knowing that is done and dusted and in most cases they have passed.  The learners are not basking in the feedback I have crafted for them, they have not glanced at the rubric that indicates what they could do to improve, they are in fact laughing at the fact that they scored better than their mate “and I did, like, no work! LEL”.

And I want more from my learners. I want them to think about what they have done and to use that to scaffold where they go next with their learning.  But how do I do that when they are clearly just happy to have passed and this whole concept of having a say over the direction of their learning and goal setting is so very new to them?

In short I gave them a choice – they had to pick one of 5 options. The options became more complex, feel free to stay with the first ones as you start exploring.  The task was not negotiable, how they did it was. The prompts remained the same;

·      List 2 things you learned about the topic the assessment focussed on 

·      List 2 things you learned about your self management when completing this task  

·      What would you change next time you did a task like this?

·      What thinking (or personal management) skill would you like to work on during the next topic?

·      What might “working on” this look/sound/feel like?

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I gradually rolled both the prompts and digital tools out to learners, starting with a choice between2, then 4, then 5 over the course of a term. I often lost 20 minutes of my “teaching time” getting them sorted the first few times we trialled/used the tools. But the benefit was that when I ask my students to reflect now they get to it quickly using a tool that they choose, which not only allows them to reflect on their learning but also allows them choice over how they show their learning. I also had learners who did not get it as quickly as their peers, so with those learners I often led a workgroup where the whole group used the same tool and had a more structured approach.