Ok, all you administrators out there.  Are teachers in your school or school system required to have a growth objective related to Assessment FOR Learning?  If so, then this forum could be a nice way for administrators to help out those teachers - while at the same time showing that administrators can still in touch with the classroom!

Each administrator can reply to this forum discussion with a sample AFL objective that a teacher in his or her school could use in their classroom.  Try thinking about how the application of AFL principles would impact your instruction if you were still in the classroom today.

So let's see what you've got! 

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  • Take a look at this work done in the Northeast, several of their standards for schools fit, I think,,,,,

    draft_standards_2011.pdf

    • Thanks, Michael, for sharing this with everyone.  I think it would actually make for a good blog post.  Maybe a description of what is in the standards and how it relates to AFL?
      • Sure Scott,

        These are the Standards used to accredit High Schools in the Northeast.

        They were adopted pretty much as you see them.

        You can see some direct relationships, for example in the section Assessment of and for learning, but you can also see the connection between AFL and all of the other the concepts when it lays out areas such as instruction and curriculum.

        There will eventually be rubrics developed for each area, and schools will have to produce evidence, ie. observations, student work, etc. to show that the school meets the criteria for accreditation. 

        I personally think it is some of the most innovative school policy written.

  • Using the AFL rubric, I thought that I would concentrate on grading and student involvement:
    During the 2010-2011 school year, I will involve my students in monitoring and assessing their own progress by having each student maintain a written record of his/her level of mastery on each learning objective using a rubric. I will hold individual conferences with students each grading period to review progress and growth toward mastery of learning objectives by the end of the school year.
    • Thanks for posting, Diane.

      I really the like the AFL rubric you created. The SHS AFL committee discussed using it next year at a faculty meeting as a way to self-assess how we're doing with AFL.

      Those of you not familiar with Diane's AFL rubric might want to check out this link:
      https://salemafl.ning.com/forum/topics/a-rubric-for-assessment-for-1

      I think it's neat how you, too, have hit on the idea of having students monitor their own progress. It's easy to say that students SHOULD do this, and then complain when they don't. However, it is much more productive to create activities that teach and train them how to do this.
  • In middle school physical education, during the second six weeks, I will provide an opportunity for my students to participate in a bowling unit culminating in a bowling tournament. During the unit, I will instruct my students on the proper techniques used in the sport of bowling and also, within the unit, other students that gain a mastery of the skill(s) used will be assisting the students lacking these same skills. I will be assigning students to teams in order to maximize student callaboration during the unit. Scoring will be done with the use of laptops on an excel spreadsheet that calculates daily scores for each individual student as well as total team scores. Improvement could be easily monitored by simply looking at the scoresheets from day one of the tournament until its completion.
    • Thanks for posting, Chris. I like the fact that you are incorporating technology in this objective. This could be a good place for a Google Doc.

      One thing I've thought about with PE and AFL is the power of having students analyze how well they are learning a skill and then how mastering that skill is impacting their performance. I'm not up on my bowling skills, but students could practice a specific bowling technique, analyze how they improve on it, and then predict how that will impact their overall bowling ability. Perhaps another sport might work better for that, but what you're doing is helping kids learn that they can improve if they become more self-aware and focus on improving.

      Here's a post that might help out other PE teachers with AFL:
      https://salemafl.ning.com/profiles/blogs/how-afl-could-be-applied-to-a
  • In World Geography for the first semester I will provide opportunities for students to set goals and monitor their growth in terms of learning some of the famous landmarks and their locations (Big Ben-England, Versailles Palace-Paris, etc). I will use a variety of technology tools to implement this (videos, interactive activities, etc). I will use prompts to probe their thinking about this constantly (which could be a landmark a day). Groups and teams could be used with this for students to give feedback to one another. I would be flexible in my grouping to maximize student learning. Evidence of this would be allowing my evaulator to see the chart of their own goals and self-monitoring throughout the year.
    • Thanks for posting, Forest. When we first started looking at AFL at SHS we focused primarily on what a teacher would do differently so that the teacher could receive and use more feedback. As we've moved along I've begun to realize that the real power in AFL is when the students are trained to use feedback to monitor their own growth. You objective and Curtis's both provide a good framework for this.
  • Saving the Lost: Anything Less than a C is (by definition) Unsatisfactory
    By the end of the first grading period (enter date here), I will identify the 5-10 most struggling/at-risk students and schedule regular times to meet and coach them in learning how to assess their own progress, set goals, analyze work habits, chart improvement, etc. I will report the number of students and the outcomes of these efforts with my evaluator as part of my summative evaluation conference.

    C to a B, B to an A: Cultivating a Growth Mindset in Students
    A minimum of six times during the school year (perhaps mid or end of grading period or perhaps after major assignments), I will assist students in analyzing their progress in terms of the Pyramid of Success. Specifically, students will be expected to review their body of work, identify the block in the Pyramid that was a strength and identify find the block that was the weakness based on the data from their work and then set goals for improvement. Prior to my summative assessment with my evaluator, I will have students answer a few brief questions to indicate their level of understanding that with a Growth Mindset (Dweck 2006) they can empower themselves to succeed in any endeavor.
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