Blog Post #10: Assessments Reflections
SECTION 1: STOT Assessment Reflection
What is the primary purpose of this assessment?
The purpose of the STOT is to guide teacher candidates to meet the national standards to ensure their successful completion of a teacher licensure program.
How can you use this assessment to inform and guide your learning in your student teaching experience?
Using the STOT as a guide will help you develop an awareness of your pedagogy, behavior, and mentality toward students. In addition, utilizing the STOT as a roadmap to gain proficiency in content area instruction, differentiation, collaboration, and all other ten areas will support our growth as professional educators. The STOT allows us as student teachers to apply our learning in a way where we can use feedback on the assessment to better our teaching before we become lead teachers. It’s helping to develop us into great teachers by focussing on all these various areas.
In your personal opinion, what are the inherent limitations of this assessment in terms of your "performance" as a student teacher?
STOT has 10 areas for us to focus on. As a result, we are not always able to effectively meet all 10 at once, meaning that we may be successful in one area and not as successful in others. If we get bogged down in trying to meet all 10 at once, we run the risk of not doing well on the assessment.
What can't this assessment measure that you believe to be crucial aspects of good teaching?
This assessment cannot measure the differences inherent in public versus private school environments. It also can’t differentiate the different socioeconomic backgrounds of communities. Even though the STOT has four distinct ratings of assessment, the underdeveloped section does not provide adequate room for the nuance of student teacher performance.
What do you appreciate about this assessment?
The STOT assessment allows teacher candidates and their supervisors to pinpoint important standards to consider during the student teaching experience. The assessment welcomes growth throughout the student teaching experience. Teacher candidates can learn and adjust their understanding of what is required of them to be professional and responsible teachers in the future.
SECTION 2: Readings/Viewing Integration - Kidwatching and Using Standardized and Standards Based Tests
As a new teacher, what is most appealing to you about the Kidwatching assessment method?
As a new teacher, I love that the Kidwatching assessment method allows me to “see” my students. There is so much value in a teacher’s ability to notice what is working for their students and what their likes, dislikes, and tics are. Kidwatching gives us ideas of how to better key into our students by watching them and observing them. In a way, this assessment allows the students to teach us, and we have to take what we learn and apply it to how we are going to teach. By sitting back and watching and observing instead of inserting ourselves into what students are doing, we can learn so much about how students are able to work together or not, how they problem solve, what they chose to do during free choice, and so much more.
What do you believe are the affordances of this assessment in terms of your growth and development as a student?
I believe that there are lots of affordances of the Kidwatchign assessment for student teachers. I am able to be in a classroom and gain knowledge of how to teach to students various learning styles. I have seen what students gravitate to and what they pull away from. I have been able to take what I’ve noticed through observing and find ways to connect to students on a personal level that helps them learn and feel seen and supported without coming off as authoritative. Being a part of planning meetings with my grade level team and having check-ins with my host teacher allows me to share what I am noticing and ask questions about what they would. Together we are able to problem solve and find a plan we think would work for a student or group of students.
What do you believe are 3-4 "affordances" that the Kidwatching method provides you as a teacher in terms of student assessment?
An affordance of the Kidwatching assessment is that students don’t even have to know that they are being assessed. This allows us to get accurate data on a student as they are going about their learning as they typically would. Another affordance is that it allows us to listen without having a student directly talk to us. We are able to listen in on conversations and gain important information on a student, both educationally and personally. A final affordance is that it allows us to assess students in real time and make adjustments on the fly based on what we are seeing and hearing. It allows us the ability to tap into student interests to promote a positive learning environment.
What do you believe are 2 "limitations" (*There are always affordances and limitations to any and every assessment and instructional strategy).
One limitation I see for Kidwatching is the idea that there will be things that we will miss as teachers. We are not able to always see what a student is doing or notice what they need. Along with this, we may be noticing a student while there is another student who needs our attention. A second limitation is how it can be hard to find the balance between teaching the standards, meeting students' interests, and teaching to varying learning abilities and styles in a limited amount of time. We are able to take observations from this assessment only so far, and if we try to do much, we may fall short or end up getting burnt out. Teachers always want the best for their students, however, we aren’t always able to meet the needs of every student, and that is proven with this assessment. With time constraints we are also not able to notice and observe every single student in a given lesson, so there are things that will ultimately get missed that are actually important to how a student learns.
In your own words, describe "formative assessment" practices. How do formative assessments help teachers improve their lesson planning and instructional decisions while teaching? What are some examples of informal and formal formative assessment practices that a teacher can engage in the classroom setting?
I would describe “formative assessments” as a way to baseline where students are at. Formative assessments work as an effective way to check with students and gauge their learning during a lesson. This type of assessment allows me as a teacher to shift my teaching in the moment based on immediate student feedback. If students need more clarification, I can find ways to adapt the lesson. If students are ready to move on or need more of a challenge, I can find ways to accommodate that as well. An example of an informal formative assessment would be to have students do a fist to five to show how they feel about a lesson. A fist means “I don’t understand at all”, 1 finger means “I need help”, 2 fingers means “I could use more practice”, 3 fingers means “I understand pretty well”, 4 fingers means “I mostly understand”, and 5 fingers means “I completely understand.” A formal example of a formative assessment would be to give students an exit ticket at the end of a lesson to check for understanding of the lesson.
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