Assessment is by far the most worrisome issue for me. I think as a beginner teacher, I am at risk of falling into Mamchur's traps.
I found the following online: It is promoted by the BC Education to support gifted students. It was developed by Kanevsky, Maker, Nielsen, Rogers (1994) and is called "Brilliant Behaviours." While I was reading it, I thought that it could be adapted to diverse learning needs and used as an holistic assessment tool.
Teachers and parents may use this form when observing one child at a time. It is a good initial screening tool to locate students who are likely to need differentiated learning experiences in their areas of strength. It is very important that the student's strength or strengths be indicated on the form as well as the activity or activities during the observation(s). Some bright and gifted students have more than one strength. For these students, begin with the greatest strength for your first observations. Record more
observations in additional areas of strength in different colors of ink on the same sheet.
Student/Date
Strength (s)
Activity/Activities
Directions: Offer the student a challenging, enjoyable activity (group or individual) that requires planning and complex thinking. Watch the student working and check off those behaviors you see demonstrated more frequently, intensely and for a longer time than you'd expect of other students of the same age, gender, temperament and cultural background.
check (√) Behaviors
Humor: Exceptionally keen sense of the comical, the bizarre, or absurd.
Imagination and Creativity: Extraordinary capacity for ingenious, flexible use of
ideas, processes, materials or anything else.
Inquiry: Probing exploration, deep questions; experiments with events, ideas, feelings,
sounds, symbols, movement, etc.
Memory and Processing: Tremendous "brain power" for dealing with large amounts
of information and skills.
Sensitivity: Unusually aware of or responsive to experiences and feelings; their own
and/or those of others.
Expressiveness: Extraordinary ability to communicate meaning or emotion through
words, actions, symbols, sounds, or media.
Reasoning: Outstanding ability to think things through and consider implications or
alternatives; rich, flexible, highly conscious, logical thought.
Problem-solving: Outstanding ability to find systematic solutions to problems; is
able to invent and monitor many paths to a goal; seeks challenges.
Intuition: Suddenly discovers connections or deeper meanings without conscious
awareness of reasoning or thought.
Learning: Extremely able to grasp and use sophisticated new understandings quickly
and easily.
Interests: Advanced, ardent; perhaps unusual topics; passionate, sometimes
fleeting.
Moral and ethical concerns: Intense need for fairness and justice; deep desire to
take action to resolve injustices; concern for consequences of their actions.
Motivation: Persistent, intense need to know, do, feel, create, or understand.
Comments:
2 comments:
Hi Helen, I think as a beginning teacher, there is always the risk of falling into the traps Mamchur listed; I know I will be afraid to fall in the trap once I begin as a teacher. The form you found seems to be really interesting to try in a classroom, as it allows the teachers to be more aware of what to look for when evaluating; students can also use these as part of self-evaluation. I think it is also important for students to work together to get feedback from peers as well, who can be extra resources for information.
Thank you Helen for the excellent list of observed behaviors.It is already part of my growing assessment magazine file. I can definitly see how they could be used to create differentiated learning experiences for a wide variety of students. I think that students need to be taught about the different learning styles to allow them to explore their own personal strenghts and also investigate areas they are not naturally comfortable with. If we wish to create student centered learning then we have to focus on developing classroom learning experiences that are differentiated. My questions come when you try to evaluate students who are assessed in different manners due to their different forms of an assignment. It seems to leave so much open to the interpretation of the teacher and his/ her professional judgement.
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