Tag Archives: Assessment is for Learning

Quality Improvement, Teaching Pedagogy

Marking for Progress

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Jennifer McKenna – Biology/Science Teacher

2.1 Learners’ experiences: The extent to which learners are motivated and actively involved in their own learning and development

To ensure that pupils are actively engaging with their work, this method of marking is easy to do and monitor. It also encourages pupils to demonstrate self-awareness as to where there strengths are and what they need to improve on for a particular piece of work or assessment.

The simple code that the pupils need to be familiar with is:

WWW– What Went Well

EBI– Even Better If

IOW– Improve our work (Improvements highlighted in yellow)

I use it towards the end of a topic to highlight the areas for improvement before sitting an end of unit test. However it is also a nice easy plenary where the pupils peer- assess their work from the lesson.  I encourage pupils to be aware of Blooms Taxonomy key words such as describe, explain, suggest, so that their improvement is always linked to progress.

Responsibility of All, Self-Reflection, Teaching Pedagogy, Vision and Leadership

Science – Good Practice

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Keith Varty – Biology/Science Teacher

When you watch this video you will observe a Science lesson where S2 pupils were actively engaged in learning about cell biology, specifically microscopy and cell structures.  This lesson began with sharing the learning intentions, both visually and verbally, in the form of questions to allow pupils to recognise what their specific targets for successful learning would be.

Afterwards, the lesson progresses to the identification and description of parts of animal and plant cells and shows how I used an innovative approach to Smartboard use and Show Me Boards. This approach captivated pupils and  focused them on their learning, whilst ensuring that they were actively engaged in activities that would allow formative assessment of the knowledge and understanding, which they had developed during the course of the topic.

Continue reading Science – Good Practice →

Self-Reflection, Skills, Teaching Pedagogy, Uncategorized, Vision and Leadership

Action Enquiry in Science – Talking to Learn

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Ann McLean – Biology/Science Teacher

In 2009, I completed my masters at Stirling University. Three years hard slog to obtain the status of Chartered Teacher but the benefits have been invaluable. The course introduced experienced teachers to ‘Action Enquiry’ and guided us towards being researchers in our own classrooms.

We carried out two research projects. The first was a classroom based enquiry and involved only one teacher as researcher. The second was a collaborative project, involving two or more teachers.

My first project was inspired by a ‘difficult’ second year science class I had inherited (2V).  Most students were poorly motivated, badly behaved, had a fairly negative view of Science and failed to engage with and participate in lessons. A nightmare class you might say!

The class had a large number of less able students who were struggling  and a couple had significant behaviour  problems.   The only way I could get them through any work was to resort to rigid ‘ lock step’, teacher led lessons. I couldn’t trust them to do practical work so I demonstrated it and any notes they had to make were copied from the board. I became increasing  unhappy  with this ‘reception’ style  teaching where my passive learners were  receiving facts from me and expected to learn them. Although I tried to encourage and motivate my students, I didn’t see much improvement. They continued to be reluctant Scientists with very low self esteem. They performed poorly in assessments which triggered the whole cycle again. Continue reading Action Enquiry in Science – Talking to Learn →

Health and wellbeing, Literacy, Uncategorized

Knowing your ABCs is just as important in H&T

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Raising Literacy within Health and Technology
Anne Keenan – Health and Wellbeing 

As part of the department improvement plan to focus on the raising attainment we decided to focus on the opportunities to develop literacy skills in S1.  Pupils in S1 currently complete a Hygiene & Food Safety project.  Mary Gibson observed a series of lesson and identified several methods that teachers can use to improve the quality of learner feedback. 

Prior to this our feed back focused mainly on the subject contents and the presentation of their work.   Following Mary’s input we have been able to identify and implement several changes that will help pupils to set targets for improvements relevant to their own literacy needs.

Steps identified include:

  • Produce a standardised format illustrating how to compile a report
  • Encourage pupils to make use of H&T key words displayed throughout department to expand pupils’ vocabulary and comprehension
  • Set standardised comments to be used for pupil feedback by departmental staff
  • Lunchtime opportunities for pupils to discuss with staff their learning needs for completion of project

The opportunity to work closely with Mary has enabled the department to self-reflect on current practice, update approaches to ensure all pupils are receiving effective feedback and importantly having clear targets set.

Teaching Pedagogy

Pass the Parcel – AifL

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Laura Williamson Modern Languages Department

I recently observed a colleague in the Modern Languages department using a rather novel and fun way of assessing pupils’ knowledge. The activity, as the name suggests consists of a box that is passed around the room while music plays. The box is filled with sentences to translate, when the music stops the pupil holding the box must open the box and pick out a random sentence to translate.  This activity works well because it is fun and the pupils do not realise they are practising their language work. It also helps the teacher avoid always picking the same pupils to answer whilst helping more shy pupils to be become more confident.

This is a great activity for revision and consolidation. The sentences can be of varying difficulty and tenses to suit all learners. The chosen phrase if translated unsuccessfully or answered incorrectly can then even be passed to other pupils, this promotes peer learning. This type of activity can be utilised in other subject areas by substituting the sentences with questions about specific topics.