A good teacher is always looking for ways to vary his or her assessments. Administering varied assessment types allows for differences in student strengths and weaknesses and provides novelty. Novelty is important because it makes the assessment feel less like an exam and more like an activity, which reduces anxiety and lowers the affective filter,…
Read More
Spanish II Final Exam, Take 2
My maternity sub is unavailable on one day during finals week, so I needed to develop a new final exam for Spanish II that did not involve the use of the computer. (Last year, I gave my students this exam based on the video La leyenda del espantapájaros.) Wanting to do as little work as…
Read MoreShare this:
Reading Comprehension Conundrum
I continue to experience the same problem with each reading assessment that I assign, and I am wondering if anyone else experiences it as well and/or has input and suggestions. When I administer a reading assessment, I make absolutely certain that it is comprehensible to my students. If there are any words that my students…
Read MoreShare this:
Conference Time!
This week is conference week in Anchorage. At the middle school level, we do Student Led Conferences, in which students prepare a portfolio that includes work samples and self-reflections and present it to their parents. Teachers check in during the conference to see if parents have any questions, but the student is responsible for explaining…
Read MoreShare this:
5 reasons I love Standards Based Grading
This is my third year using Standards Based Assessment, and I’m hooked. WHY I LOVE STANDARDS BASED ASSESSMENT Reason #1: My students have a clear, measurable goal for my class, instead of a GPA goal. Throughout my entire school career, my goal was to earn a 100. An A. A 4.0. Or higher, if I was…
Read MoreShare this:
La leyenda del espantapájaros
I just found this file from the end of last year! I used this video to create a video-based assessment (a la Alma) for the final exam for my Spanish II students. Students were assessed on reading comprehension, listening comprehension, and writing proficiency. The video is just wonderful, and although the vocabulary is challenging, the narrator…
Read MoreShare this:
Accurate Assessments, Part II
Open House is tonight, and I’m feeling the pressure to have grades for my students’ parents to see. My first year kids only have one grade in the books so far, so I gave them a listening assessment today so that they could have a second one. But as I’m sitting here looking at them,…
Read MoreShare this:
Dictionary Page
Last year, I printed dictionary pages for my students’ binders so that they had an organized way to keep track of the target structures that we learn. These were really simple– a column for Spanish words and a column for the English meaning, nothing more. Students took notes on the pages at the start of…
Read MoreShare this:
Universal Screener: Writing
OVERVIEW: In the RTI (Response to Instruction/Intervention) framework, there are five categories of assessments: outcome measures, universal screeners, progress monitoring assessments, diagnostic assessments, and informal assessments. Each kind of assessment plays an important role in determining each student’s abilities, strengths, and weaknesses in whatever content they are meant to assess. At the middle school that…
Read MoreShare this:
Performance Targets
I’ve finally done it!! Thanks to @srtabarragan and @tmsaue1, I have finally set Performance targets for each of my courses, and I have a rubric to accompany them! Performance targets for each year of language MY CONTEXT Students at my middle school are able to take 2 or 3 years of Spanish, depending on whether they…
Read More