Skip to main content

Assessing all abilities…

When I was in my late teens I used to go by a simple idea that everybody had an arbitrary number of skill units. These skill units were divided up in different ways for different people. Some people had a lot of skill units in book smarts but had not many skill units left for other areas, such as, and forgive the sweeping generalization, social ability or athletic ability. Others may have a solid level in many areas, and be skilled at many aspects of life.

There are certainly flaws in this view, but I still appreciate the underlying tenet it had, that while I have my skills that others may not have, maybe they can draw, play the guitar or write poetry to a level that would leave me stupefied. Not difficult with these aforementioned talents by the way. I always try to appreciate the skills others have that I have not cultivated. I try to pass this idea on to my students when a moment arises. But to embrace my cynicism a little, you will encounter people who have a vastly different amount of skill units. We are not the same and should not be expected to be. Homogeny is limited. And Dull!

My siblings all went to university, as did all of my friends, so that is my world. I need to remember, and appreciate the world of others but it’s hard! I need to try and make sure my notes, powerpoints and delivery are broad in language and content, so everyone can take something from them. Everyone can learn, we do it all the time, but it is not often the same way that others learn. I need to make sure that students are encouraged to make as many connections as possible, both with other content, and with real world applications so they can take learning from my class. I need to make content available in lecture, writing, diagrams and tangible ways so everyone can involve their chosen learning sense or senses. And I need to make my assessments as varied as my teaching. Assessments should allow students to portray their knowledge in a way that fits their skill set. But that’s hard too!

It is impossible to eliminate bias. My experiences shape me a specific way and my awareness of that is important. I can work to have open, natural questions which do not exclude students due to their abilities, experiences of learning strategies. I can discuss tests, questions and strategies with other teachers in order to broaden my view more, and therefore make my assessments more inclusive. And I can observe my students and see how they process and present knowledge to give them the best chance of success.

Thanks

 

Comments

  1. UnknownMarch 7, 2017 at 6:17 PM

    Liam,
    You are so right - we all have biases, that is just human nature. We have our own perspectives and it is natural to explore the world through our lens. However, as you aptly point out, what is important is to acknowledge our biases and build in safeguards to avoid having them impact our students.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Framing Reading; Semantic Maps

Framing our Reading – Vocab Mod 6 Liam Breathnach The three words I chose were endocrinologist, genome and variant. They were all included in an article on how genetics influences height.   The article linked here, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170201131513.htm details how genes are linked to height and how we may learn from, and influence this in future. There are many reasons I chose the word endocrinologist. Its length goes against it initially but it is a great example to show how we can break up words in to sections to get to the meaning. Teaching the word we can expand biological vocabulary and talk about prefixes such as hemo_, and group words like pulmonary, renal, cardiac which pertain to body parts. There is also an opportunity to teach about the various specialized medical professionals you may encounter such as oncologists. The lesson could even stretch to scientists in other fields, such as ecologist or botanists.     ...
7 comments
Read more

Teaching the Genetics of Height and its Implications

Teaching the Genetics of Height and its Implications This week Yetunde and I stayed with the area of genetics. We chose this article https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170201131513.htm from the website Science Daily.   We chose this article as it is cutting edge and can be used to serve as a template for future studies of polygenic traits. The topic of height is also likely to be at the forefront of the minds of many of our students and will therefore have added relevance. We decided to stay with genetics for a number of reasons. It is a large part of the Biology course. We can show our students that Biology is always learning and changing, and I have found that students are fascinated by the power and influence of genetics. I was immediately interested by the article. I have always liked to know facts and dimensions and always wanted to be tall. That I am a centimeter taller than anyone else in my family is still a source of some (childish) pride! Any reflectio...
3 comments
Read more

Teaching a reading lesson on Mutations...

Ed 620 Framing Our Reading Mod 5 Yetunde and I stayed with genetics this week choosing an article linked here https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170419091616.htm from the website www.sciencedaily.com . The article is very interesting. The headline is an attention grabber, certainly in the all-boys school I am in. The word mutant is going to grab their attention. The overall concept throughout the article is good too. On initial reading, students might just get stuck on the idea that we can manipulate DNA in wasps, but there is the underlying idea which can be drawn from them - If this works there are endless possibilities with the CRISPR technology. There are many attractive things about the article. It does give the teacher an opportunity to review or teach about the life cycle of insects to some extent. An easy conversation would be why lots of these type of experiments are done on insects. You would expect to hear about cost and accessibility, but you could hav...
1 comment
Read more