On Points: Part 2 Becoming an Integrated Performance Assessment Teacher

In November 2018, I attended the ACTFL conference in New Orleans.  It is there that I had a transformational experience and where I started looking into how I could go from being a good teacher to a great teacher.  I am always looking for opportunities to improve

I learned about Comprehensible Input from many professionals throughout the country.  The one that sticks out is La Maestra Loca.  I love, love, love her energy, enthusiasm, and positivity.  She is so very creative and passionate about teaching languages.  Check out her blog for interesting activities #lamaestraloca https://lamaestralocablog.com/

At ACTFL, I also attended many workshops on how to teach culture with CI, how to move away from the textbook, how to teach for proficiency and much much more. If you are a language teacher, you simply should go to the ACTFL conference each year to keep up with the best practices in language teaching.

Let me get On Point 2

https://www.maxpixel.net/Ballet-Ballet-Shoes-Body-Dance-Dancer-Shoes-Woman-3575887

It was in NoLA that I became more interested in Integrated Performance Assessment and I have spent many hours this summer researching how to implement it in my classes.  IPA goes hand in hand with Standards Based Grading and Assessment.  It is about assessing what students can do with the language in the 3 communication modes: interpretive, interpersonal and presentational.

The key to a good IPA is backwards design.  Decide what students will be assessed on at the end of a chapter or unit, then design and scaffold a lesson so that they will perform well on the assessment.  For the IPA to be successful, teachers must offer students activities that are similar to the IPA during the unit and give them feedback on how to improve.  Notice I said feedback, not necessarily grading them on formative assignments.  Students should not be working towards getting points for doing an assignment.  They should be trying to improve their performance so that they can "level up" in their proficiency.

Another component of IPA is that it should be real world task oriented.  This means that students should not be simply memorizing a list of vocabulary or verb conjugations.  Vocab and grammar should be integrated in the real world tasks.  Asking students to memorize -er verb conjugations and regurgitate them on a test or quiz in a fill in the blank or multiple choice situation, is not a real world task and is not proficiency based.  In this kind of assessment, students are assigned points based on a proportion of right answers vs wrong answers and not on showing what they can do with the language.  However, negotiating their way through a shopping list at the grocery store or small merchants is something they might need to be able to do in the real world.  And it uses that vocab and grammar as well.  I already do a great deal or real world tasks with my students, so with a little revision of those activities I will be on my way.  Real world tasks are meaningful AND motivate students to learn the content needed to perform well.

Feedback is extremely important throughout the unit.  Notice I said feedback and not grades.  Feedback could be given in writing or orally and should use the terminology in the rubric for IPA.  It can come from the teacher, peers or from self-assessment.  It is critical that the student is aware of where they are in the rubric and what they need to be able to do to level up.  By leveling up, I mean increasing proficiency.

My research on IPA has given me the structure and guidance to go full on SBG and IPA in my classes this year.  I am a little nervous about it, but also very excited.  Nervous because it will require a good bit of time to completely make the switch in 4 completely different classes.  Preparation is key and is usually what takes the most time in my day.  Access to authentic documents and where to find this is essential.  I enjoy researching and learning.  It also gives me an opportunity to keep my proficiency en pointe too!  I am excited to see what my students can do with the language and how I can be a better teacher.

Of course, this is the simplified version of what researchers and experts have been suggesting for years. I am finally in a mental and professional space where I can act on that knowledge and research for the benefit of my students.

Now, I need to work on what that is going to look like in my classes and get it down in writing.  With 2 weeks left of summer, there is so little time.

If you are interested in IPA and SBG, here are some resources that I have found.  I will be adding to this list!  Maybe a different blog post.  I invite your comments and questions.  They will help me sort through how to implement IPA and SBG this year!

https://www.grahnforlang.com/assessment-in-world-languages.html
https://sites.google.com/a/weldre4.k12.co.us/mrsgilmore/home/french-1/unit-4---l-ecole/ipa---lcole
http://madameshepard.com/?p=316

On Points part 1

Photo Credit: Gary https://www.flickr.com/people/g_b/

I have spent the past couple of years reassessing my grading policy, specifically do I give points or weight grades? I do not really understand how points can be worked out without doing a ton of math and advanced planning, so I weight my grades.  The question that then arises is this: if I weight my grades, what percentage should be given to these grades? and what categories should I use?  

When I first started teaching I used categories like homework, writing, listening/speaking and tests.  These were the categories used by my predecessor and at the time they seemed to make sense.  With more experience and knowledge, I have decided that those categories are too vague and do not indicate what students are able to do with the language.  I have attended workshop after workshop on Standards Based Grading and have changed my grading policy to more accurately reflect what students are doing with the language.  It is not perfect and I suspect that I will change it again this year.  But here it is today, before I start working on changes for the 2019-2020 school year.  The red indicates possible changes, if I am to use current policy.  I am thinking about using the upper level grading policy for all of my classes, but I still feel like it needs revision.

For French 1-3

• 5%  Grammar and Vocab practice (fill in the blanks from the workbook) I may do away with this category all together. This is a topic for another discussion on another day
• 5%  10% Cultural Competency- Cultural comprehension questions and activities
• 25%  Written communication (essays, projects, reading comprehension, blog entries, letters)
• 30%  25% Oral Communication (group participation, small group work, dialogues, listening comprehension activities, oral presentations, flipgrid)
• 20 % Unit tests and quizzes This category will be discussed in future blog posts.
• 15%  Final exam

For French IV/V and AP

10% Interpretive Communication

15% Interpersonal Writing

15% Interpersonal Speaking

15% Presentational Writing

15% Presentational Speaking

15% Tests and quizzes

15% Final Exam

Grading policies are, in many ways, so personal.  They reflect the priorities of the individual teachers. They need to make sense to the students.  Grading policies telegraph to students what they need to do in order to be successful in a given class.They also need to be fair so that each student is able to achieve their potential.  And in the modern language classroom, they need to reflect the ACTFL Proficiency guidelines, which is why I prefer the French IV and AP grading policy.

In addition to revamping my overall grading policy, I am working on revamping how I grade summative assessments and not including formative assessments in student grades at all.  All of the categories above would be summative assessments given at intervals throughout a unit and the semester.  How I will be grading will be included in On Points part 2.  

In summary, grades and grade categories should indicate how well a student performs on various tasks.  In other words, what they are able to do with the language in real-world situations.  They should not be about students reciting grammar rules or memorizing verb conjugations; these will be evident when looking at free-response activities.  Grades and grading need to be fair so that the lowest and highest performing students feels like their grade reflects what they are able to do (and what they need to improve on) and not just about points.