11th Teaching K-6 Carnival

Welcome to the December edition of Teaching K-6 carnival. With Christmas just around the corner, teachers in Australia and New Zealand are getting more than their fair share of the silly season. Finishing the school year is tiring business - with Christmas concerts, graduation ceremonies, reports, Christmas crafts and the hustle-bustle to finish everything off in time. The summer heat doesn't help either as tired children feel tension in the friendships that have been so strong throughout the year.
There haven't been an overwhelming number of relevant posts this month, so enjoy this small sampling of delights. As you 'unwrap' this month's offerings, I hope you find some goodies to motivate and inspire.

Gripes and Brags

This month Sonja Stewart shares her frustrations about the state of education in US schools. In Where Have All the Students Gone? posted at Parenting Squad she wonders how her child is going to receive a world class education with only 15 days at school during the month of November. She questions the usefulness of half-days and their impact on student learning. Why not pop by and share your thoughts on the issue?

Following on from this, Edwin Choi presents Elementary School in Seventeen Easy Steps posted at K12 Directory of Schools Blog. These tips may be useful considerations for parents when determining the best place for their child's education. It always helps to know the philosophy of your child's school and what the school offers. This list may also help schools to identify those issues of greatest concern to parents. Edwin Choi also shares her list of The Top Ten Books for Preschoolers. These all time favourites would make great Christmas prizes or presents. Alternatively, they could be purchased for a fresh new library set at the start of 2010.

Wendy Piersall at Classroom Jr. shares free Christmas Math Worksheets saying, "These were a huge hit last year, so I wanted to share them with your readers early this year!"

Brain Strain

Tracy Rosen shares her thoughts from Alfie Kohn's QPAT speech in her post On de-rubricizing at Leading From The Heart. She questions our use of rubrics and goes so far as to call them 'creativity killers'. Rather than limiting students to a set of boxes in which they find a place to sit, she encourages us to lose the rubrics, but raise the bar.

Innovate - Beyond The Slate

In his post at Open Educator, Graham Wegner considers the term Digital Transition to describe the current state of his school - somewhere between a traditional paper based, non-digital classroom and the always on, 1:1 connected environment. Read his blog and consider your own situation and your progression within the 'digital transition'.

At NZ ICT Edublabberings you will find the must-read post from Rachel Boyd, For Kids, By Kids: Nelson Kids' ICT Expo. Here she shares the story (and videos) of the amazing things her 6-7 year old students are doing with ICT. Not only have they developed skills in the use of ICT, but they have also taken the initiative to share their knowledge with others. This a very inspiring post demonstrating what can be achieved with the right encouragement and opportunities.

Look No Further

Ferrari Dude presents Top 50 Bloggers to Help You Study, Focus and Learn Better posted at Best Online Universities.com.

Why not submit your post for the next carnival?

The Teaching K-6 Carnival is posted monthly on the 7th. I will be collecting submissions throughout the next month, looking in particular for posts that discuss and exemplify innovative teaching and the integration of technology in the K-6 classroom. I also invite some discussion around education related news articles and a few "brain strains" to keep our minds alert and challenged. Please submit only articles of which you are the author and refrain from using this merely as a sales pitch. For full details, please read my call for submissions.

If you have a relevant post that you would like to submit to the next edition of Teaching K-6 Carnival use our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

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Friday Fun - 12/6/09

With a public holiday on Monday and weather so cold you can barely think, the past week seems to have whooshed past on a gust of wind. We've had VERY cold weather - unless it warms up overnight, today will be the coldest June day in 43 years! It turns out that I get particularly grumpy when I'm cold - and it doesn't help that I'm feeling a bit stressed by the deadlines I have over the next week. My motivation is low. That said, this week was fairly ordinary, and we tried to catch up on work that had been started but not completed.

Captain Lister
This week Captain Lister visited to teach us about life in the new colony - looking more into the lives of convicts, officers, governors and free settlers. Lots of students got the chance to dress up in costumes and we all sang along to a song about Moreton Bay. Some students were very excited to learn about the Rum Rebellion, so Captain Lister included a special addition just for them.

Timeline
Students brainstormed events in Australia's history that we've learnt about so far this term. We wrote the dates next to the events and then discussed how to create a timeline to scale. This was a tricky concept that students struggled with a bit, despite having seen timelines on a number of occassions. It is something we will need to work on further.

Digital Projects
As the deadline for completion of digital projects was last week, I uploaded the completed ones to our My Classes page. While students ate their lunches we assessed the projects by group vote. We viewed/listened to the projects on the interactive whiteboard and then flicked over to the rubric we agreed on at the beginning of the project. Students voted with their hands as I slid my finger along the rubric continuum. After we've graded them all, I'd like students to have an opportunity to comment on why they chose the mode (PowerPoint presentation, audio file, Museum Box) they did and their reflections on its effectiveness. I'll also give them an opportunity to challenge the grade they were given by the group.

Maths
In Maths this week my group worked with flipping, sliding and turning 2D shapes. Students really enjoyed the activities with cutting and pasting shapes to demonstrate flip, slide, turn and also drawing and colouring the alternate versions of different shapes. One thing they need to learn this term is how to define flip, slide and turn, so I made up a little hand action with sayings for them to learn to help them remember. You can see the video of it below:


Exploring Resources with My Classes
I have been uploading resources to our My Classes "Australian History" page. There are a couple of great resources available to us through The Learning Federation, that allow students to experience life on the goldfields through a similation. They got hooked quite quickly and I imagine there will be a few who will check it out again over the weekend.

Skipping (or Jumping Rope)
In a few weeks time we will be having a "Jump Off" to raise money for the Heart Foundation. Students have been able to purchase individual or long ropes from the Heart Foundation so that they can practise skipping. Apart from all the accidental whipping students have copped from walking too close to a swinging rope, it has been a great way for students to keep warm during their recess and lunch break. I even bought one for myself today as I had playground duty and needed a way to keep warm! Students were astonished to see me skipping across the playground while I did my duty.

Like what you read here? Why not read some more Friday Fun posts.

The Challenge of Assessment

While teachers are continually assessing students throughout the year - marking books, observing students at work, monitoring through quizzes - there are key times when student progress needs to be reported on and teachers are met by the challenge of providing tasks that will accurately determine student learning and performance.

When facing this challenge, there are many things to take into consideration. Below are some of the things that I work through when planning this type of assessment.

Timing
It can be difficult to get the timing right with assessment. I want my students to have the best chance of achieving the material, but also need to prepare the reports by about mid-term. This means that most of the final assessment needs to take place early in the term - before I get a chance to review the material with my students one last time. I develop an assessment schedule to help me plan out how I will gather the appropriate information in the remaining time.

Differentiation
In part due to the timing, but mostly due to the differences in learning styles, it is helpful to give students opportunities to show their learning through different means. Some children may like to complete a written test, others would prefer to demonstrate their learning, or present it orally.

More than one sample
This next consideration is related to the last. As much as possible, it is useful to have more than one sample that is used to determine a grade. For example: A handwriting textbook is great for showing how a student performs in formal handwriting lessons, however it is worthwhile to also consider how this translates to their writing in other curriculum areas as well.

Scope of Assessment Items

When developing a piece of assessment it is important to provide scope for students of differing abilities. My assessment task cannot only test for the outcomes that I taught toward. I need to include parts for students of lower ability and parts that will challenge students with greater ability.

For example, when testing for year 1 Maths outcomes, I use questions relating to Kindergarten outcomes, Year 1 outcomes and Year 2 outcomes. If students can only answer the Kindergarten outcomes, they are performing at an E level. If they can answer K and 1 outcomes, they are performing at a C level. If they can answer all questions, they are performing at an A level. Students who achieve a C level have been successful at meeting the grade standards.

Sometimes I find a test will be too easy and won't give an accurate spread of students. When this happens, I use other work samples or assessment items to assist my decision.

Rubrics
Developing rubrics may be time consuming as I prepare my assessment schedule, however it saves me time in the long run and helps me to become more objective when comparing students across the class or grade level. When I am moderating with other teachers, a rubric will help with consistency in marking.

Moderation
Communication is important when preparing assessment and reports. Teachers of the same grade level can talk about their opinions of grades and discuss what they see when they look at a piece of work. I often find that one teacher will notice something valuable about a piece that I may have overlooked. The insight of others helps me to make more thorough judgements.

Acceptance!
Perhaps one of the biggest challenges I find with assessment and reporting is acceptance. At the end of the year I feel confronted by my failures. Despite all the work that I've put into my teaching throughout the year, I never feel that I've quite done enough. During moderation I will see that some students in another teacher's class have achieved a higher standard in some areas of the curriculum and I'll begin to second guess my own methods. I'll be frustrated, particularly when I realise that there is so little time left in the year to 'fix things'.
I think that somehow (stupidly) I feel that I am the last chance for this child - that if they haven't learnt everything by the end of the year, they will never learn it - which of course is false. As I head into this time, I need to accept that I have done my best for my class. I need to accept that I cannot control everything in my classroom all of the time. (Some of it comes down to the kids' personalities, interests and abilities as well!!!) And, I need to honestly reflect on my achievements through the year. There will be things that I can try to do differently next year - there always is - but there are also some great things that were done in this year.

Let me know what you see as the biggest challenges with assessment.