How do you make assessments for your students to show their learning? Are you also requiring your students to create uniform projects where everyone's doing the same thing?
I know how challenging it is to make assessments, but now you can say goodbye to the traditional way of giving assessments and prepare to immerse your classrooms in an atmosphere of excitement, curiosity, and genuine love for knowledge.
In this episode, we will delve into a show-what-you-know project! Plus, we will look at innovative strategies and practical tips to empower you to become the extraordinary educator your students deserve. You can give your students different choices to allow for true differentiation of your final task so that you can assess students' knowledge and understanding of the content you're teaching them.
In today's episode, we will talk about the following:
Tune in!
Remember to Subscribe for more insights on how to navigate the complexities of teaching with efficiency and impact. Share your experiences and strategies in the comments to join the conversation with fellow educators.
To find our highly effective, time-saving resources
Checkout our Madly Learning Store at www.madlylearning.com/store
Checkout our Teachers Pay Teachers store
Join our FREE Facebook community for teachers here: https://bit.ly/IYT-FB
How do you make assessments for your students to show their learning? Are you also requiring your students to create uniform projects where everyone's doing the same thing?
I know how challenging it is to make assessments, but now you can say goodbye to the traditional way of giving assessments and prepare to immerse your classrooms in an atmosphere of excitement, curiosity, and genuine love for knowledge.
In this episode, we will delve into a show-what-you-know project! Plus, we will look at innovative strategies and practical tips to empower you to become the extraordinary educator your students deserve. You can give your students different choices to allow for true differentiation of your final task so that you can assess students' knowledge and understanding of the content you're teaching them.
In today's episode, we will talk about the following:
Tune in!
Remember to Subscribe for more insights on how to navigate the complexities of teaching with efficiency and impact. Share your experiences and strategies in the comments to join the conversation with fellow educators.
To find our highly effective, time-saving resources
Checkout our Madly Learning Store at www.madlylearning.com/store
Checkout our Teachers Pay Teachers store
Join our FREE Facebook community for teachers here: https://bit.ly/IYT-FB
[00:00:00] Patti Firth: How do you assess student learning? With a test? With a project where everyone's doing the same thing? What if you tried your final assessment to be truly differentiated and tried a show-what-you-know project?
[00:00:14] In this video, we're going to talk all about what a show-what-you-know project is, as well as I'm going to share nine different choices that you can give your students to allow for a true differentiation of your final task so that you can assess student's knowledge and understanding of the things that they're completing for you, not necessarily the product that they are producing.
[00:00:\35] Welcome to the Ignite Your Teaching Video podcast to show to inspire teachers to level up how they teach using simple systems and time-saving tools for their classrooms. I'm your host, Patti Firth, mom of three, wife, and a teacher who has spent the last 10 years transforming my love of teaching into helping other teachers learn how to fit it all together through innovative resources and solutions for elementary classrooms over at madlylearning.com. So are you ready to ignite your teaching?
[00:01:07] So traditionally, at the end of the unit of study, teachers like to give a final test or a final project to allow students to show how they can apply all of the different various lessons that they've engaged in throughout the unit. And they will apply what they know to a final task. It allows teachers to have a summative task that they can assess students' knowledge, understanding, thinking, application, and communication skills in a holistic way.
[00:01:35] However, if we're using projects, what we've always traditionally done, and what I remember doing as a student is there was one project and every student in the classroom did the exact same project. As a teacher, that means I get anywhere from 25 to 30 identical products that come in. Now, if I'm truly differentiating, I understand that students have different strengths and different needs as learners.
[00:01:59] So if I'm looking for differentiation and want to give my students an opportunity to show what they know in a way that they best communicate, then that means I need to differentiate the products that my students are producing. Now, this worries a lot of teachers because if everyone's doing something different, how do we assess a project that is a different product for each student?
[00:02:23] Or, at least there are nine different choices, does that mean we need nine different rubrics for all of the different variations? No! The key here with a show-what-you-know project is to assess students' skills, their knowledge, their understanding their thinking skills, and their communication skills. We are not assessing the product itself.
[00:0243] The product is simply just a vehicle that allows students through this vehicle to demonstrate what they know, which is why I like to call them a show-what-you-know project. Now this is not a free for all, where students can just do whatever they want to show their understanding and knowledge. This is a structured yet open-ended choice board-type project that allows students to show their understanding using different opportunities or different methods that harnessed different strengths that students may have.
[00:03:17] If the student is a very avid speaker, then a podcast may be something. If they're extremely musical, they can write a song, or do a dance. If they are very artistic, there are opportunities for students to show their artistic skills. If students are very quiet and reserved and prefer to just write their answers, that's an option too. It allows students to try different strategies, different types of ways that they can understand and show you that they know something.
[00:03:49] In my experience, this has always produced a far deeper level of knowledge for students, when they are able to express their knowledge in a way that makes them feel comfortable. I often will get better results from certain students that traditionally don't perform as well on tests, or rigidly structured projects. When I open it up, when I have open-ended choice boards, students have some choice.
[00:04:17] They can rely on some of their strengths and what makes them feel comfortable to be able to show their understanding. I often will get much better results from those students and students that traditionally perform poorly have a better shot of doing better on the assignment. It also gives me a nice round out of all of the other types of traditional assessment that I may be doing.
[00:04:40] So if I do give a quiz, or I do have other forms of written answers or other forms of assessments and other tasks that I've done along the way, this gives me a different viewpoint and allows some students that may be struggling with certain things to have another opportunity to show me what they understand and show me what they know to give me an idea of what they're doing.
[00:05:02] So I really love show-what-you-know projects at the end of every unit. So what I ended up doing was creating a structure that can be used over and over for multiple lessons or for multiple units. So whether or not you do a mini-lesson on one concept, such as the provinces and territories of Canada, and you do a little mini unit on that, and then you want to do a little mini project at the end to make sure that students understand that instead of a quiz, then that's an option.
[00:05:31] So I want to go through some of the different choices that I provide students to allow them to do a show-what-you-know project that is still structured and organized, and easily assessable for their understanding, but yet is differentiated to allow multiple students access to being able to show their learning and understanding to you as their teacher.
[00:05:53] So for this, I'm going to show you assignments for the provinces and territories of Canada and many units that could be completed with your students over a week or two, and then have a small task that students can complete to show their understanding.
[00:006:09] So the very first step when designing your projects, or allowing students to have a choice is to have an agreed-upon success criteria checklist that students can follow, remembering that we are focused on the skills that students will be demonstrating through these projects, not on the product that they produce. So we want to make sure that the success criteria are all about the skills, and not about the specific details of the project itself.
[00:06:37] We may have that within the instructions of each mini-project. However, we want there to be a universal level of understanding of what it is you are looking for, as a teacher, in each one of their projects. What should you clearly be able to see?
[00:06:55] So if we're looking at, say the provinces and territories of Canada, one of the expectations that students are expected to be able to demonstrate is that they can correctly label and identify the provinces and territories of Canada and their capital cities. So a skill that you may want to put there is that students are able to identify the provinces and territories of Canada correctly.
[00:07:21] You may also want to include those students who can identify the features of the provinces and territories of Canada that they are selecting. So in this case, they can go through the environment, culture, physical properties, landforms, different environmental factors, weather, and whatever criteria that you want them to be able to include, you can include that here on the success criteria.
[00:07:54] You want to make it very clear through the projects. What skills do you want to be able to demonstrate? In the end, before they hand the project in, they should be able to refer back to the success criteria, and include, as a checklist, what it is they're supposed to be doing.
[00:08:14] For example, in the provinces and territories mini-lesson, the success criteria for students to be able to complete this mini-project as well as go through the entire learning. So this is what they're going to be able to demonstrate throughout the learning activity as well as through the success criteria. So it's going to be a feature of what it is they're going to be doing throughout the learning through the mini unit that covers a week or two.
[00:08:44] And also will be the foundation for what it is they're going to be demonstrating in their project. So we are looking at whether can students label and describe the location of all 10 provinces and three territories. Can they use cardinal directions to describe the location and places on a map? Can they describe the regional characteristics of some provinces and territories?
[00:09:05] Can they compare and contrast two different political regions within Canada? And can they analyze how the environment impacts political regions differently? So throughout the learning, these are the five things I'm looking for, for students to be able to demonstrate. I also want them to be able to demonstrate this in my project.
[00:09:25] Now for some of them, I may just have them label the provinces with me. If I don't see it in the project, maybe I will have to ask them whether or not they can do but this is my checklist. Can students do all five of these things? If I can evaluate them on all five of these things, then I'm good. So this is how I'm marking throughout the entire learning and lessons. And to the final project, this is what I'm hoping to see.
[00:09:50] In the final project. I need to be able to assess their understanding along these five criteria. So I want to make sure that they can show that to me. They're going to use their project example to help explain their answers to these questions. So again, the mini project will involve not only just the production, but also either a conference or some Q&A, or it'll be an oral presentation to help guide them along that way.
[00:10:18] So I provide students with nine different options for their many tasks. The center one is always going to be a free choice. I always find there's that one or two students that like a bunch of these ideas. And they want to come up with their unique way to combine it or they have another way they want to show it there. They always have to present that idea to me and get it approved before they do it.
[00:10:43] But I always like to leave that in there to allow students to sort of come up with their own idea of how they're going to show their learning based on perhaps something else that we've done in class, or something they've done previous years. I always have one or two that want to choose this, or I have some that actually want to combine two things together because I can't choose. So they're going to combine two things and kind of show them as well.
[00:11:06] So the eight other possible choices that students can engage in remembering that we have the criteria that are going to go up here, and these are their choices, I simply just get them to write the criteria out and highlight which one they want to do. So the first is creating a sports jersey for your favorite provincial team, including images of the important, and required features.
[00:11:32] So these are going to be the required features are going to go up here. So for example, inside the provinces and territories project, in the end, the choice board is described the geographic location and comparison with other political regions, identifies and describes environmental features, describe the major industries, describe some of the major cultural events within the province, and compare and contrast with other physical regions.
[00:12:04] Now, I do provide my students with some research on the province that they want to learn more about because they're going to choose one province and base their learning on that province. And base their understanding on that province. So I have different cards for that unit that allows students to conduct just some simple research that gets them started.
[00:12:28] It also means that there is other research that they can do that goes beyond that. But they will do their project based on that small research and be able to compare them. So they're choosing that. So one is a sports jersey. Another is creating a podcast. So one is a sports jersey. So this is an example of what a sports jersey could look like. And looking at what they are including, they have different pictures of industries. So they've got farming.
[00:12:58] They have some of the fossils and mining. They have the Saskatchewan Roughriders. They've identified where that capital city is. They have the flag. What are the two parts of the flag? They have a jazz festival. They also recognize the indigenous impact on Saskatchewan and how important that is, and the capitol building for their level of government. So they have lots of different elements here.
[00:13:26] Now, this would not be just on its own, they would also be they would use this to show that they understand what all of these mean. And they would use this to kind of highlight. So they would either do an oral presentation, have a conference, or even just simply record a video and explain why they've included all of the different elements and how that is important to Saskatchewan.
[00:13:48 So this is the tool that they are going to produce to show their understanding. They're gonna use this and then be able to explain it. Now they can explain it in writing or explain it in video or an oral presentation or a conference. But they are going to have to explain all of what this means and justify their decisions. But this will be a different way that they can show their understanding. So the second option is going to be a podcast.
.[00:14:18] And this is great for students that are wanting to just speak all of the time. They don't necessarily want to write anything down, but they are great talkers. And they're able to communicate all of their ideas orally. So this is going to be a good one. This is a podcast interview just with one person. So what they do is they're just going to come up with questions.
[00:14:39] So if they're looking at what the success criteria is, they're going to have questions where the answer will answer that question and they're just simply going to plan it out here on this planner page and then record it orally. So they will have both. Both the planner page in written form as well as orally having a conversation.
[00:14:58] This is fun because students literally get to put on a voice as the interviewer they can play around with like voice audio alternatives or see if they can use a different voice for the interviewer versus the person answering the question. They can also have multiple people answering the question. They can get really creative with what this looks like. But they're going to finish this Q&A prep, and then they're going to produce the task that they're going to create.
[00:15:29] So they're going to have a question, then they're going to write the answer. Now answers are going to make sure that their answers are going to share with you their understanding of these success criteria. So they make sure that the questions are going to elicit the answers that they are going to ask. It is an interesting way for students to be able to demonstrate.
[00:15:51] There'll be a different way similarly to if have you ever asked students to design their own test questions, this is a very similar task. It just seems a lot more updated in terms of just designing your own test questions, and then we'll do a test. In this sense, they're coming up with their own questions, writing their own answers to them, and then performing it. Now the third really hardest is students' love for social media and the fact that they're spending a ton of time.
[00:16:15] So we're looking at a social media grid, either Instagram or TikTok. And we want students to create this grid. Now, we're thinking about what this looks like. They can create this grid by drawing everything. So it can be totally off-grid. It doesn't have to be online. They can just simply draw pictures very similar to the Jersey where you're creating the whole profile.
[00:16:40] You know, they're following 147 million which happens to be the population of Ontario. They have 99 posts. They can put some features up here about what the province is, and highlights things that they want to talk about. They have the capital city of Canada and the capital city of Ontario. So they have that information all there. And they also have different features.
[00:17:02] So we have rolling hills for farmland. We have the CN Tower is the capital city. We have lots and lots of people. We've got Ottawa as the capital of Canada. It is inside the province of Ontario, also known as cottage country. We have lots of big bridges. There's a picture of the province. We have Niagara Falls and lots of parks that people can go around. So we've drawn pictures.
[00:17:27] Now the alternative would be to use this organizer and simply add QR codes. These QR codes could link to the actual short-form video that a student is creating. So maybe they want to take it and go one step beyond and actually have a real explanation of what this is. So if they have a reel or they create a quick video of themselves talking about this aspect that there are lots of people, you could have them put QR codes in each one of these boxes, and allow them to do that.
[00:18:04] You can also ask them to just put this digitally. So they can create a grid and maybe make some pictures digitally and cut them out and print them onto here. There are lots of options for students to be able to take this kind of project and run with it. So it's not just simply drawing it out.
[00:18:18] There are lots of extensions that a student can do, especially if they're really interested in creating social media content. This is something that they can do, obviously not create it on an actual social media profile. But these can link to either their OneDrive or their Google Drive. You can have the QR codes linked directly to their OneDrive or Google Drive so that you can see all of the videos that would go along with these pictures.
[00:18:43 The next one is a picture book that tells the journey of someone visiting the province. So this is a really fun one because this is a task. This is actually a booklet that can be created. So it's a one-pager, and there is a cut-and-fold task. So when you cut just the top off, and you cut around the outside, and then you just cut along this and you just make one cut along this dotted line here.
[00:19:09] It ends up folding up into a booklet that's a teeny tiny mini book that somebody can slip through. And they have pictures. So this is a story about none of it, as a polar bear is traveling through none of it. So they see the ice, they see the snow, and they see the Northern Lights. They go fishing, and it's all identified as to which page number it is. So they're not always in order.
[00:19:32] But students have to sort of follow that to write so they're gonna write part of the story and draw a picture. Now with this one, if students want more space or bigger space to do, you could always take this page and blow it up onto an 11 by 17 in the photocopier. So you make a much bigger book so that students have a larger place to put a picture.
[00:19:51] They could always make a traditional booklet where they just have 10 to 8 and a half by 11 pages and they just organize it however they want. They can also use a digital Book Creator to create their own picture book. In essence, there are lots of options for students to create a book. They could use Canva, and they could use this paper that could use a larger version of this paper. But there are lots of different ways that they can make a book. This is one of them, but it allows them to show their understanding in a more creative way.
[00:20:20] Next one I've only ever had one group of students do in the 15 years that I've taught, but it was amazing and epic. And it was exactly what this kid was ready and waiting to be able to have somebody do. So now I always include it. It was exactly one of these. I want to do my own thing projects and they came up with can I write a song and I went absolutely.
[00:20:42] And now I just include it on all of my choice boards because I think it's such a creative way. We have students writing poems. We have students wanting to do rap and be famous music artists. This is a great way for someone to come up with a creative way to show their understanding. So I've created a template that would help students.
[00:21:02] It also would be a great link to what you're doing in your own music class. But we follow what a typical song outline looks like,e so we called chill board hot hit lyrics. So they're going to write their first verse. They're going to write their second verse, so there's going to follow verse, chorus, verse, chorus, and then they're going to go back to the bridge and then back to the chorus.
[00:21:27] So they just kind of follow the map when they're saying it. So they write their verse, a verse, a chorus, and a bridge. And when they perform it, they go verse, chorus, verse, and then they go chorus, bridge, chorus. So they follow that pathway through when they're performing it, but it also allows them to come up with a rhythmic way or a creative poetic way to write their verses for their song.
[00:21:53] And they can often do this to a traditional melody such as "Happy birthday," "Twinkle Twinkle," or "Row, row, your boat." All of those are great familiar things they can also do to a contemporary song that they really love. And that's really popular on TikTok right now. It's taking a song and changing the lyrics.
[00:22:12] So they could do that with a song that they love. And they could change the lyrics and follow this format. Most pop songs will follow this format of the verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, and chorus so that follow this format so students can do this.
[00:22:27] This also double ends it because you could use the same template to have your students in music, write different songs and compose things that they know. It also is a great extension. If you're teaching poetry. They can look at how we can put a poem right into there. So there are lots of cross-curricular connections within these mini projects as well.
[00:22:48] Another one is a poster or a billboard. This is another very artistic one. It's fairly familiar. I haven't finished coloring this one, but we think Welcome to Quebec. What do we have? We've got maple syrup, we've got trees, and we've got the little snowmen from Quebec City. I can't remember. I can't remember the name. But Nam Dinesh, I think that's his name. If I go back to my French lessons, all the French teachers can correct me. But it has some different elements there and students can look at how they could explain what it is it's in their poster.
[00:23:25] Why have they used those colors? Why is there an old stone brick building? Why is there maple syrup? Who is been on the knowledge? What is sort of happening in this and use it just like they did with the sports jersey? They can use this poster project to jumpstart what it is that they're trying to explain. So they can include all of the elements here and then explain why they've included all the elements and how they're important to Quebec.
[00:23:52] Now, this is an interesting one. It's a 3D model. So it's a diorama. Now a diorama, this is just as simply a diorama map. So this could be printed out on paper or into a shoe box. It could be put right into a shoe box for our traditional dioramas.. But it focuses on different things that they want to put in the background. So they would have tall objects in the background and other tall objects in the background. mid-size objects that are focal points.
[00:24:21] In the main focal point, we have mid-sized things and then small things in the foreground. So we're looking at there. There are some good cross-curricular connections with art there and looking at constructing 3D models. But it's a great way students love doing dioramas This is a great sort of map to help them look at how they could structure a diorama that would show features of the different provinces. And again, this would be the jump-off tool for an oral presentation.
[00:24:50 And finally, a movie trailer This is always a fun one. So in this movie trailer, students can follow the template here and create just a storyboard, again, great cross-curricular connections to media literacy because they're creating a storyboard. But we're looking at just having them create sort of the map on this page. And then they could actually perform it. We also have some cross-curricular connections to drama as well if they actually perform it. But you have the stick figure scene.
[00:25:22] So you want them to sort of play out the storyboard through stick figures. You want them to write a description of what's happening in the scene, as well as some sound effects that they would like to include inside there. And they're gonna go through four scenes that highlight the different pieces of their project.
[00:25:39] One of my favorites that I've done with this unit, in particular, has allowed students to sort of go on a trip to the province, and they are acting up the different things they see. So they're going through and if they're coming to Ontario, maybe they look for a farm, maybe they go to Toronto, maybe they visit a factory, and maybe they go camping.
[00:25:59] So those are the four scenes, what is happening in the scene, draw a stick figure of what that's going to look like, and then what sound effects would they need. So you'd want to make sure that you know if they're going to Toronto that they would have some busy kind of talking. There's a busy streetscape. If they're going camping, it would be nature sounds. If they're in a factory, it would be machinery happening.
[00:26:211] And if they were going to a farm, then you would maybe hear cows moving and a tractor going. All of those things. You want to make sure that they have the appropriate sound effects, as well as a scene description and a stick figure scene. And then they can go ahead and perform that. So you'd have one student planning this and then they would ask their friends to join them for parts of it.
[00:26:42] So they would plan it out. Their friends would then join them, and they would be able to do that. So those are the different types of mini tasks and mini projects that allow you to give a choice board of opportunities, but also have all of your students demonstrate the same amount of skills and knowledge, and understanding that you wanted them to be able to show you but through lots of different creative opportunities for them to really dig in and show you what they know and have a deeper understanding of the thing that they're doing.
[00:27:14] I bet you as teachers, we all still remember our favorite projects that our teachers had us do as kids. Let's give those same opportunities to our own students by creating fun and engaging projects that are really meaningful for our kids.