Formative Assessment

Formative Assessments are meant to be used during instruction rather than at the end of a unit or course of study like Summative Assessments. Formative Assessments are about checking for students understanding in an effective way in order to guide instruction as a teacher. Formative Assessments are used to see what the student "understand" and also what students as a whole or in large chunks 'did not get'. We use these assessments as a chance to guide instruction and go back to reteach something maybe in a different way if as a teacher we see that large chunks or majority of the class 'didn't get it'. Going back and having to reteach is okay, it happens to everyone. If a whole large group of students 'didn't get' the lesson I can't stand hearing teachers say "they just didn't get it" , maybe the problem isn't with the students, maybe it was delivery or the way the lesson was taught! Maybe the teacher should assess themselves to see if there is something they could do differently to help make the students understand and make them successful.
In regards to Science Instruction, it is extremely important to use Formative Assessments. As a teacher you always have to ask yourself if what you are teaching 'follows  the curriculum' and if you are using Formative Assessments, it will be easier as a teacher to keep track of students learning. As you're working through a unit, assessing after every part of the lesson even if its just an exit ticket is important in keeping up with where the class is and if everyone is on the same page.
Formative Assessments are designed around what you want or need students to take away from a unit or lesson. You can use Formative Assessments to also give students the opportunity to ask questions about things that are un clear.
There are Pros and Cons of both Summative Assessments and Formative Assessments. Love Joy Amargo, Teacher at SJIDI shared many pros and cons for Summative Assessments that I highly agree with.

 

Dr. Nesa Sasser, studio D writes advantages and disadvantages of Formative Assessments in her article What are the Advantages & Disadvantages of Formative Assessments. A pro of Formative Assessments is the fact that they are not graded, which takes the anxiety away from students. It also eliminates the idea that they must get everything right. Another pro is that they serve as practice for the students and allows them to assistance and immediate feedback from the teacher along the way before the 'big test at the end'. Another Pro is that teachers can check for understanding in the event that students are struggling during the lesson. Teachers address these issues early on instead of waiting until the end of the unit. Teachers also have to do less re-teaching in the end because many of the problems were worked out and addressed before the final test.

A con for Formative Assessments for many teachers is sacrificing time to assess during the lesson and fear that they may not even finish the lesson. Time is a evil thing that teachers fight against every single day. Another Con is that teachers may feel the need to rush through a series of units when they feel that they are pressed for time, which causes students to lack mastery once the assessment is given at the end of the unit. Knowing that Formative Assessments usually have little to no point value unlike Summative Assessments leads to the last Con I can find with Formative Assessments, "students may not take the assessments seriously, which may cause teachers to misread feedback from students".

Online Resources

What is or could be happening in the classroom that could not be duplicated by a computer/device?

The answer should never be "Nothing", because if that was the case then why would we even need teachers. If students could learn all they ever needed to know online, then teachers would be pointless, right? According to The Washington Post, "no screen will ever replace a creative, engaged, interactive, relevant, and inspiring teacher, especially one who takes advantage of the precious face-to-face experience of people learning together". The post also says that "Collective, communal, collaborative learning is key to many of the ways we all work now, often in collaborative and distributed ways". The strength of a safe, loving and caring classroom community can not be built online. Working together in groups and being hands on can not be done on a device. Getting feedback or sharing your work with friends and classmates and having the ability to have that one on one face to face conversations with other peers or the teacher is not something that can be duplicated online. There are many ways to share, video or get feedback on a device and there are of course thousands of ways to learn on a device, but it can never come close to the experience of being in a classroom.

What is or could be happening on computers/devices that could not otherwise happen in the classroom? 

In an article by Dr. Bruce Perry, Using Technology in the Early Childhood Classroom , he  explains why the young generation is so much more engaged and centered around technology. He said that "Modern technologies are very powerful because they rely on one of the most powerful genetic biases we do have — the preference for visually presented information. The human brain has a tremendous bias for visually presented information. Television, movies, videos, and most computer programs are very visually oriented and therefore attract and maintain the attention of young children." Sometimes devices can take away the real life social interactions which we need to be successful in the working class community. Dr. Perry also describes three types of skills that students also need to be successful, "the technologies that benefit young children the greatest are those that are interactive and allow the child to develop their curiosity, problem solving and independent thinking skills." Another thing that devices allow is self pacing and the ability to easily differentiate activities, games, information and assessments for each individual student. As we all know a entire class of students obviously are not anywhere close to the same level in practically any levels. So, using devices helps make that differentiation much easier.

How could online resources be used to provide experiences that would otherwise not be available for students?

Using technology in the classroom links teachers to their students and to professional content, resources, and systems to help them improve their own instruction and personalize learning. According to an article posted by the U.S Department of Education "Online learning opportunities and the use of open educational resources and other technologies can increase educational productivity by accelerating the rate of learning; reducing costs associated with instructional materials or program delivery; and better utilizing teacher time." Using online tools and resources helps creativity and imagination. The opportunities within technology are limitless and showing the students of this upcoming generation how to work and use these technologies is like handing them the world of opportunities at their finger tips.

Science Apps

With the ever advancing world of technology, there are so many apps and sites out there that can be used as great resources inside the classroom. Having technology in the classroom is so crucial in todays society; the children we are teaching are growing up having the world of resources and opportunities at their finger tips. Today, I want to show you 3 Apps that can be used to support instruction and integrate technology in the classroom. The first App is Video Science ; it is a FREE App which makes it that much better already. Video Science is a rapid growing library of over 80 hands-on Science lessons that are great for home and the classroom. These short videos demonstrate inexpensive and easy to recreate experiments that are designed to inspire and excite kids of all ages. VideoScience is hosted by Dan Menelly, a Science Teacher at the UN International School and a 2010 Einstein Fellow with the National Science Foundation in the Office of Cyberinfrastructure. This App has al kinds of experiments ranging over many levels of difficulty. There are experiments from Pre-K all the way to adults who just love science! Hands-on is what Science is ALL ABOUT, that's a huge part as to why so many kids love learning science and why so many students are engaged and excited to experiment. This app is a go to place when your in need for experiment ideas that your kids or students will love and be completely engaged in from start to finish. It is proven from years and years of research that students learn and retain more information when they are engaged, and what better way to do that than being hands on and interacting with science.


The next App I want to introduce to you is called Khan Academy , this App is also FREE and it is a AWESOME App that can be used to learn almost anything! There are over 10,000 videos and explanations at your fingertips in math, science, economics, history, and much, much more. There are so many content areas that you can use this one App for inside the classroom. But, in regards to Science, you can give your students the opportunity to learn using videos, interactive exercises, and in-depth articles in a broad domain of science areas including biology, chemistry, and physics. Not only can Khan Academy be used to further students leaning and used to support science teaching instruction in the classroom, it can be used for ASSESSMENING! Yes, you read it right! Khan Academy has over 40,000 interactive Common Core aligned practice questions are that are included with instant feedback and step-by-step hints. Students can follow along with what you’re learning or teaching in class at the time, or they can move through a curriculum in a certain order at their own pace. This App is a great tool for any teacher wanting to integrate technology, get their kids engaged while still being able to easily assess and track each students progress on a regular basis.

The last App that I am going to introduce today is BrainPOP® Featured Movie  there is a free version of this App that works great, but for $6.99 a month you can have unlimited access to all of BrainPOP’s 750+ movies and quizzes plus the free daily "Featured Movie" and its quiz. Students love watching videos and will become very familiar with the main characters Tim and Moby. There are tons of videos created for different units in science that are extremely interesting and help students to learn about Science and other content areas in a new way. The videos are very informational, but students will enjoy learning the content much more when it is interesting and displayed in a way that they can relate to or understand. This app is a great tool to use to support teaching instruction and videos appeal much more to all the different types of learners.

Content Vocabulary

While I have not yet witnessed Science being taught in my internship classroom, I have seen quite a bit of ELA and Math being taught. For this post I would like to use the way that I have seen Math Vocabulary taught in my 1st grade Internship Classroom. When the class switches to Math, the teacher hands out their "Math Journal". The teacher starts with one word at a time. the first word that the students needed to learn was "equation". The paper is folded long ways down the middle and on one side the student wrote the vocabulary word and the definition in 'kid friendly' language.

The example will be pictured below.

The student then got to pick a way to explain that vocabulary word in picture form. Each vocabulary word had to have at least 2 pictures for each word. The teacher intentionally uses the vocabulary words regularly.

In ELA the students have a "word wall", each week the teacher gives them 10 new words, and gives them a piece of notebook paper which she has already folded to give 6 blocks on each side. In the top left block the students write their name and in the top right the student writes out the entire date for example : September 16, 2016.

Then with the remaining 10 blocks the student writes each of the 10 words (one in each box) and has to draw and color a picture that matches that word. Like the example below except they have to color it.

I like both strategies for vocabulary and the students seem to like it as well, but the only thing I wish was that once the students completed this activity they had a place to keep it and come back to it later. The teacher has the students turn in the paper and then she puts them up in her folder of the students work. I feel like if the students did this type of vocabulary in there ELA notebook they could go back to those words later if they need them to use in writing. The "word wall" is a good idea to except for the fact that the wall just includes the words. I think a better way to incorporate the word wall would be to include pictures representing the word or using it correctly in a sentence with words such as "am". If the students do the work and turn it in, then they don't have the chance to use the words the way that need to. I feel like they should have access to those words, especially in writing. Instead of doing the paper with the 10 words, maybe using the idea of "vocabulary rings". If the students use a notecard or index card they could put 2 words and pictures on the card (one on front and one on back), then the cards could be hole punched and placed on a ring for the students to pull out and come back to later on if they need help with a  word. I think the teacher just needs to pay more attention to 'if the vocabulary is sticking with the students' because drawing and writing out the word once probably isn't going to be helpful in them remembering how to spell, use and understand a word.