Metacognition or Assessment TIPR
THE QUESTION: Assessment: How does the teacher assess student learning? Identify specific instances of informal and formal, formative and summative assessment and explain the types of assessments (e.g., self-assessment, portfolio, project, performance, etc.) that are used. How valid, reliable, biased, and practical are these assessments? Be sure to include a reference in your response.
January 27, 2017 was my first day of observation. I spent the morning in Mrs. O's Productions and Beginning Theatre courses.
Mrs. O used only informal formative assessments in the class periods I spent with her. The first assessment was in the process of blocking. The blocking was given as oral instruction while the students were required to write, in pencil, the blocking directions in their scripts. After this process was done, they got up and began to do the blocking physically. As the blocking was begun to be rehearsed, she would make the informal assessment of how they were doing by watching the students and course correct by occasionally slowing down direction or repeating the movement. Most students seemed to pick up the blocking and choreography and those that struggled were told they still have a month and a half to practice and pick it up. This type of instruction and assessment is the most common in theatre and how I've always seen it done.
This type of assessment reoccurred in Mrs. O's Beginning Theater. The subject for her lesson was historical movement. The lesson began with everyone moving around the room and changing their postures, stature, center of gravity, etc. according to the chronological age discussed, moving from toddler to ninety. Students then sat on the floor and discussed how their bodies felt as they changed them. "My head was heavy, my knees were shaky, etc" Getting the students to self-assess helped feed into the learning of how people moved in historical times, beginning with Grecian times up to the 1950s. The explanation was given via a slideshow, explaining through pictures, for example, that Grecian women would usually lead with their hips when walking and Grecian men led with their chests and shoulders. After going through each period of time everyone got up off their feet again and demonstrated the movement, walking through the classroom and changing stances or gaits according to the time period she called out. Once again an informal formative assessment, with no grades being attached but an obvious demonstration of knowledge and understanding.
Theatre is typically performance based even when the assessment is summative. A summative assessment is defined in this link: http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/5233. The reference is the Learn NC website. In Mrs O's Productions class, the summative assessment of her students will be their performance of the musical, James and the Giant Peach. Students of theatre usually have to demonstrate the application of the skills that have been taught, exhibiting blocking, projection, creativity, etc., by getting on stage and performing. This particular assessment isn't necessarily practical in that it costs a great deal to build a set, light a stage, and costume the students, but in the day to day classroom it costs very little to watch students. It is valid because all students are being watched, quite often individually, and it's easy to pick up on the ones that aren't catching onto the material, though it isn't always fair. There's a innate bias to judge those with a natural talent higher than those that struggle and it becomes difficult not to grade on effort alone.
January 27, 2017 was my first day of observation. I spent the morning in Mrs. O's Productions and Beginning Theatre courses.
Mrs. O used only informal formative assessments in the class periods I spent with her. The first assessment was in the process of blocking. The blocking was given as oral instruction while the students were required to write, in pencil, the blocking directions in their scripts. After this process was done, they got up and began to do the blocking physically. As the blocking was begun to be rehearsed, she would make the informal assessment of how they were doing by watching the students and course correct by occasionally slowing down direction or repeating the movement. Most students seemed to pick up the blocking and choreography and those that struggled were told they still have a month and a half to practice and pick it up. This type of instruction and assessment is the most common in theatre and how I've always seen it done.
This type of assessment reoccurred in Mrs. O's Beginning Theater. The subject for her lesson was historical movement. The lesson began with everyone moving around the room and changing their postures, stature, center of gravity, etc. according to the chronological age discussed, moving from toddler to ninety. Students then sat on the floor and discussed how their bodies felt as they changed them. "My head was heavy, my knees were shaky, etc" Getting the students to self-assess helped feed into the learning of how people moved in historical times, beginning with Grecian times up to the 1950s. The explanation was given via a slideshow, explaining through pictures, for example, that Grecian women would usually lead with their hips when walking and Grecian men led with their chests and shoulders. After going through each period of time everyone got up off their feet again and demonstrated the movement, walking through the classroom and changing stances or gaits according to the time period she called out. Once again an informal formative assessment, with no grades being attached but an obvious demonstration of knowledge and understanding.
Theatre is typically performance based even when the assessment is summative. A summative assessment is defined in this link: http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/5233. The reference is the Learn NC website. In Mrs O's Productions class, the summative assessment of her students will be their performance of the musical, James and the Giant Peach. Students of theatre usually have to demonstrate the application of the skills that have been taught, exhibiting blocking, projection, creativity, etc., by getting on stage and performing. This particular assessment isn't necessarily practical in that it costs a great deal to build a set, light a stage, and costume the students, but in the day to day classroom it costs very little to watch students. It is valid because all students are being watched, quite often individually, and it's easy to pick up on the ones that aren't catching onto the material, though it isn't always fair. There's a innate bias to judge those with a natural talent higher than those that struggle and it becomes difficult not to grade on effort alone.
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