Taking even some of the small steps above will not only strengthen the quality of data analysis, but will begin to dismantle systemic inequity in the school community.
I love that this article gave actionable advise to mitigate bias while assessing student work.
Conversely, sometimes hiding students’ identities at first can help. For example, cover up student names when reviewing writing samples in order to counteract assumptions based on what you already “know” about a student’s academic level.
I remember this tip for Dr. Vr's class. I know some teachers provide students' work with a number rather than a name to avoid bias while grading.
You should be able to see outcomes for groups of students and quickly call out disparities, if any exist.
Interesting! I will have to sort my data like so in the future.
student choice?
I love giving my students choice! For their upcoming projects on Murakami, students can choose to create a blog, live presentation, video presentation, podcast, essay, or something else (if they have another idea)!
Make sure your team spends time with varied types of assessment data, like essays, short stories, projects, science labs, and notes from classroom discussions.
This reminds me of something from Dr. VR's assessment class: "multiple measures." It is important to provide a variety of assessments in different formats in order to better understand the students' knowledge and skills. One assessment cannot and should not determine an entire evaluation of a student.
One team member might set the intention to “prioritize student strengths,” while another might intend to “leave with a plan for better supporting the Latinx students in my class.”
Love this! I try to teach my students to set intentions when revising their own work. It totally makes sense for us teachers to set intentions as well!
It will likely take time to dismantle a deficit mindset, but doing so is essential for promoting equity.
Growth mindset> deficit mindset. All students deserve equal opportunity in my classroom regardless of their home life, previous educational experiences, or identifies.
Happier conditions will mitigate the chance of implicit bias.
This is so interesting to me! I never considered how my environment could impact my bias while grading.
with positive representations of different groups can influence their perspectives.
Yes! I am committed to incorporating more diverse identities in my teaching beyond what the school/curriculum requires me to teach.
our implicit biases
I just attended a PD on implicit bias yesterday! Making our invisible/unconscious biases visible/conscious helps us practice intentional, equitable teaching.
“Wow—we need to start asking these questions in the first weeks of school.”
Yes! And, continue to ask these questions throughout the year.
Research identity:
Understanding the identities of our students is essential to create student-centered instruction and assessment.
culture and identity when analyzing data.
I have not considered culture and identity when analyzing data. I think this is important for me to do moving forward, especially as I teach more diverse students.
We didn’t spend any time considering students’ identities and backgrounds, nor how we can improve equitable outcomes.
I'm excited to learn how to improve equitable outcomes. When I analyzed my work for edTPA, I evaluated how students with IEPs and 504s scored in comparison to students without such accommodations. I was happy to see that these students scored above the class average. This indicated to me that my accommodations and supports were effective in ensuring the success of all of my students.
ideas about looking at student work.
I wonder if collaborative analyzing and grading practices would ensure more equity and fairness. I also think that analyzing student work in a group setting would help educators identify potential patterns of misunderstanding or opportunities for growth amongst small groups and the whole class.
Have you collectively discussed, analyzed, and assessed student work with your colleagues to drive change at your school?
I recently collaborated with my CT to evaluate my own grading practices as I evaluated student work. I assessed and graded student literary analysis essays on the IB rubric. Then, my teacher checked my scoring and comments on students' work. I think this practice helped us both better understand the rubric.
Even though we chose a piece that had been quite contentious with our teachers back at the school site, all the teachers -- college and high school -- agreed that based on this piece of work, the student was ready for a freshman-level English course at a university.
I wonder why this piece of writing was contentious at the school, but agreed upon amongst the sample of educators in this exercise. The fact that they all agreed is surprising to me. I wonder why this is so.
Students selected an American author to research and were required to read at least five lengthy pieces from this writer. Students were asked to write a 7- to 10-page paper comparing the various pieces of literature in the context of the historical and cultural times in America. The student writing we read analyzed the writings of Flannery O'Connor.
I think this is a cool assignment! I like how students were able to select their own author to read and analyze in the context of the historical and cultural times in which they were writing. This assignment reminds me of the EQ I am having my students think about now as we read through a variety of works by the same author, Haruki Murakami: How does reading multiple works by the same author impact our reading and understanding of their work and purpose?
Our chief academic officer, a teacher, myself, and our partner from the Stanford Redesign Network designed a workshop for college faculty and high school educators to score an example of our English/Language Arts student performance task, Literary/Textual Analysis. Here is a brief description of the task from our guidebook:
Interesting! I would imagine that each scorer evaluated the work very differently..
Download chat as an artifact.
The chat is such a wonderful, concrete artifact for students and myself I can use the chat as an artifact to evaluate students' learning and understanding. On the other hand, students can use this artifact to reference their own or another's ideas.
Train student monitors to observe chat, reserve questions for later, and create a parking lot for “things we are curious about” or “topics that emerged that we want to know more about.”
I imagine this could be done well through Padlet or Jamboard...
I want to see if they have been listening or they are present in name only.
Yes! Some of my remote learners have shown their engagement through the chat function alone. It has been a great way for me to validate their presence and participation.
Prepare prompts.
Yes! I think students like to respond to something, rather than just sharing their thoughts independently. I'm trying to foster organic conversation between students in our chat on Monday. If it is not going well, I will make sure to prepare some prompts to put in the chat to promote their participation.
incorporate multiple modalities to give kids another entry point, so I will read a chat aloud
I try and do this, too! It's a good reminder that reading the chat aloud validates the student's response or thought.
There is comfort in ritual that inspires students to take academic risks in expressing their thinking.
I agree with rituals and routines! Students thrive in environments where clear expectations are set for and of them. I'm hoping to create this through our class Discord for my next unit.
a “chat/no chat” option where students can choose whether they want to jump in and voice their responses or write in the chat.
I find that so many of my students prefer to chat me/the class rather than to speak out loud. It is a great alternative to offer to verbal participation.
For me, nothing will ever replace in-person teaching and learning, but like many other teachers and administrators, I now know how to effectively facilitate learning in a previously unimaginable set of circumstances.
I cannot wait for in person teaching!
Slido allows participants to ask questions and then upvote others. There are many similar tools, but Slido is easy and free. Mentimeter allows students and teachers to collect real-time data on questions they have, in the form of word clouds, rankings, and various scales.
I like the sound of this! I think the upvote feature on Slido would especially be great at demonstrating if many people had the same question. I will have to incorporate this ASAP.
Because Gimkit allows for repetition of answers and has a variety of ways for students to earn points, students remain engaged as they work at their own pace.
I don't know if this would be as helpful for my content area.
Many teachers are now using Jamboard in a similar way.
I had a feeling it was like it!
Mural:
I never heard of this! It reminds me of Jamboard...
Screencastify:
I have not tried to use this tool with my students yet. It could be a great way for them to verbally explain written work on their screen.
Prezi:
I haven't used Prezi since high school! I will definitely have to check it out again.
Pear Deck:
Pear Deck has been my lifesaver to increase engagement. I created Pear Deck presentations to use during in class reading. I would pause after a section of reading in order to pose a comprehension or discussion question. I found giving students the chance to write down their answers first through Pear Deck gave them more confidence to share out loud with the class.
Edpuzzle:
I have had such great success with EdPuzzle. The best part, my students said they enjoy it, too!
teacher feedback.
I always associate Flipgrid with students. I thin this would be a great verbal and personal way to provide feedback.
Parlay:
I remember using this in Dr. Owen's class this summer! I believe one instructor also shared this tool with us during the first tech module. I remember her saying it simulates a socratic seminar. I am excited to look back at Paraly and think about how I can integrate this tool in my class.
Teachers can use built-in tools to assess the frequency of students’ answers in real time even when students are not in the same room.
This would be so helpful, since we are in a hybrid model. It is sometimes hard to monitor students' progress at home. With this feature, I can ensure that all of my students are on the right track.
An annotation need not be, and often is not, an answer.
Yes! Often students misconceive annotation as a final thought about a text when really it is just the beginning. Posing a question (whether close or open-ended) allows students to consider what they wonder about a text. Foregrounding these curiosities in instruction is invaluable.
Or you can provoke student responses to the text through annotating with questions to be answered in replies to your annotations.
Posing questions for students to respond to as they read provides a structure to their learning. They are encouraged to pause on the important/essential/significant moments in a text and consider what they mean. This can provide structure to above grade-level or challenging works, as the questions will support students comprehension of the most salient information or ideas.
But annotation can also be a kind of end in itself, or at least more than a rest-stop on the way to intellectual discovery.
Yes, annotation (when done effectively) provides opportunities for critical thinking. They are not just seeing words on a page, but thinking about what they mean, how they mean.
Annotation connotes something distinct in specific subject areas, at different grade and skill levels, and within certain teaching philosophies.
It is important to model how to annotate in our discipline for students.
EdPuzzle
I am using EdPuzzle for the first time next week with my students!
She asked them questions about their preferences for reading and annotating print and digital texts, as well as their knowledge of how to annotate digitally.
How can we convince students that annotation is not a superfluous practice?
The use of social annotation tools allows for conversations among readers, mimicking a class discussion, and deeper engagement with born-digital texts.
Social digital annotation is a great way to differentiate instruction for learners who are more hesitant to communicate verbally or to participate in full class discussions.