Inside The Black Box

Why have I not read this report until now? How often have I heard the phrase 'inside the black box' used and taken no real meaning from it? Having read this report by Black & William, I can reflect on many of the scenarios that they talk about. For example, marking at the end of the term or a block of work. How wrong that now appears when the results are for my Excel sheet to state who will win the Science prize for the year rather than analyse the results and amend my plans to meet the needs of children. How often have I looked at the end result and presentation rather than the process? Too many times. If one thing, from all this reading on assessment, I now have a clearer picture why I should be assessing. It is not about marks it is about finding where a child is and working out the next steps to help them in their learning. This is what I was taught at college but have to admit over the years have fallen into the trap of assessing for the sake of it. Thankfully, I have awaken to this poor practice and hope, with further research and action, that the additional time spent, will produce fruitful results.

Digital Portfolios - Finding A Suitable Method

I challenged myself in the last post to try out the digital portfolio method of recording thinking skills through speech bubbles etc. The results of the various methods are:

Word - Very easy to set up a template page with a picture and speech bubbles for the children to type their thoughts in. See the screen shot below. If each child had their own word file a bank of self assessments can then be stored.

How would it be managed? Would a new word file be created for every assessment?


If a new word file was created for each assessment this makes it harder to look back as the pupil or teacher would have to keep opening various files. I am sure that by Primary 7 the class teacher would not want to look through the mountain of files for each child. One word file for each child is the obvious answer with each new assessment on a new page.

The management of each new assessment could be time consuming in setting up if the teacher were to set up a new page for all pupils in class. Opening and closing 30 files and adding the new content would sure put a teacher off using the technology when a photocopier can copy the files much faster. Is there a solution to this? Yes, by creating one new file and teaching the children how to insert the new file into their Word document would be the answer. The process is exactly the same as inserting a picture but file is selected form the insert menu rather than picture.


The only problem now would be access to computers. If a computer suite at school then all children at the same time would be the obvious answer. If limited to classroom computer the immediate aspect of the assessment might loose meaning. Children could write on paper first then this could be transfered to digital via camera, scanner or child typing up. Is this the best way or is the digital aspect then become another chore? I think that depends on the teacher's views on digital asessment and on the aspect of assessment in general.


PowerPoint - Again easy to set up by teacher. Adding text not so straight forward as Word as the child will have to select text tool then type.



The arguments for and against this method are similar to the above. Ths children would still require to place the new slide for each assessment which is not a difficult task. The advantage of this system to others is that the slides down the side give an overview of the various assessments making it easier to pinpoint a specific assessment rather than scroll throiugh all the pages.

Web 2.0 - As much as I would like to think that I could use tools like flickr to do this job I have to admit that there would be more problems that benefits. If I am making individual portfolios then accounts for each child would require setting up. The children would have to learn how to use this tool and also learn how to place an annotated flickr image into a blog or wiki. When the purpose is to reflect on the thinking skills rather than the ICT skills I think the simplist most effective way should be administered. ICT should only be used if it enhances the learning and teaching process not just for the sake of it.

I would have liked to place assessments on a blog so that the teacher could place her comments, the child could place theirs and so could their parents. The blog would obviously have a password for only that child. The only side that would require looking into would be the management. If it were a child's annotated picture, which I do like, who would place it there? If it were a Word file it would be too time consuming. If it were a PowerPoint file it is possible to upload to Slideshare, but again a time consuming task. The only way the blog would really work is by creating a typed post with responses. For this type of assessment I do not think this is the method to use.

Now the other Web 2.0 tool that might be possible is a Wiki. The wiki allows other types of files to be embedded into the wiki space. So a child's Word or PowerPoint (depends which is chosen) could be placed on a wiki page set up for a specific child that has a password. Parents, pupil and teacher can comment as the page is a collaborative document for those with the password. The wiki can then become the child's portfolio area with new pages for each year they are at school.

Having sat down and typed my thoughts on this subject I am now going to try to implement this with one of my classes at school using PowerPoint and a wiki to see if it is possible to enhance the learning and teaching through use of digital portfolios and wikis or whether it is a time consuming exercise.

Digital Portfolios

Now this was an interesting read today from the Journal Technology, Pedagogy and Education where the use of digital portfolios to develop thinking skills was researched.

Over the past few years digital portfolios have crept into the classroom for various purposes: record of child's attainment of a place to store their work electronically. This is how I have developed my school's pupil portfolio at present. Has there been any educational benefit to the child for these portfolios? In the state they are above I would say no as they are only serving as a reminder of a grade or a picture of a piece of work created. The children really don't access them in my school as it hold too many results that are for teachers eyes only.

I have been developing, ever the past months, the possibility of using blogs and wikis as a means of recording pupil work so that they have an electronic portfolio from primary 1 - 7 which has work form each year, comments from teachers, parents and self with the possibility of peer assessment where applicable. This thinking is reflected in this research paper where digital portfolios can provide opportunities to develop thinking and learning through metacognition. By providing children with the correct tools and allowing them to be part of the digital portfolio they will be able to look back at strategies to success. This is what makes the portfolio different from a record/work keeping document which is really for the teachers use. The portfolio allows the child to be part and have a voice in the matter which is their entitlement. Remember the united Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 12 (1989) where it states that:

'children and young people have a right to be involved in the decisions that afffect them'

What differs with the research paper and my thinking is the method the researchers use to record the children's thinking skills. The idea of speech and thought bubbles was super way to record the child's thinking on top of a picture of what they are learning. This would certainly appeal to children rather than placing a comment in a blog about their work.

How easy would this be to manage in a blog area? Children can create speech bubbles in flickr or word but which one is the best? Time to go and test them out.

Did It Work?

In my last post I mentioned about letting the first five children to get all their work correct to be the experts and mark the other work and provide support. This work well with the little time we had left as it took forever to have a child who could complete all their work correctly. The children enjoyed the challenge of being the teacher. Rather than copy lots of answer sheets the children used their own jotters. I am going to try this again tomorrow as I have more time to see if I can get the slow children to complete their work as they may be willing to come to their peers than they do to me.

To Mark Or Not To Mark

Teachers do not need to choose between being a good teacher and getting good results.

The pressure in schools to produce results and have every piece of work marked becomes a chore to a teacher rather than a means to find out where a child is in their learning. How many times have I been guilty of marking a maths check-up and filing it away in a folder with only the marks as a representation of where the child is. Did I analyse at the actual questions the child did not understand and plan around this or did I move on to the next concept? More to often than not the later route was taken thus being detrimental to the child and mocking the reason to assess.

Rather than focus on the actual assessment marks to find out who is top of the class and who is bottom I should be adopting the following four strategies:

• Mark less to achieve more;
• Tune into children's minds;
• Give immediate quality feedback;
• Encourage good self and peer assessment.

Mark less to achieve more - I tried this strategy today with my maths class. Instead of marking every sum I chose the first 12 and left no mark but a comment stating how many the child had correct out of 12 leaving them to find the errors rather than have them pointed out. Don't we as teachers tell the children to check their work prior to handing it in. Most don't because they do not have the analytical skills to do this as the teacher always points to the errors. By asking the children to go back and find the errors it makes them think analyse their work more carefully as they know they have 4 mistakes but which ones. This was a super exercise that I will do more often as it made the children THINK.

Another strategy I used was to allow the children to mark their own work without feeling guilty. The work chosen was a reinforcement sheet in maths as I felt that I had covered any problems children were having and was confident that they would be making errors rather than misunderstandings. The only problem is with allowing children to mark their own work is that they take a longer time than the teacher to mark the same set of sums. This results in a bottle neck of children waiting resulting in the noise level rising.

There are a few ways to compensate this:

1. Scan the answers and children check on the computers - this is fine for me where I have 20 comuters in my classroom but maybe not for a class with one;
2. Photocopy a few answer sheets - this does waste paper though;
3. Call out the answers and children mark their own - down side is that the quick children have to wait for the slower children. The up side is that the answers can be explained as they are read.
4. The first five children to get all correct become the class markers where they explain to their peers the ones that are incorrect - now I like this one but have not tried it. Will give it a go tomorrow to see what the results are.

'Correction often comes too fast and too often for most learners, impressing on them precisely what they don't know and can't do.'

Assessment Is A Dirty Word

Is assessment a dirty word or is all in the mind? Is the way we assess making teachers feel it is another task that can be marked off the tick list and pupils feeling they are not capable of achieving? Pollard & Tann warned that:

'Assessment can be enormously constructive in teaching and learning and also enormously destructive' (cited Smith 2003: P4)

This is due to how and why assessment is undertaken. True assessment should be looking at:

• To support learning;
• For review, transfer and certification;
• For informing school improvement and public accountability.

It appears that the last two have been given more weight to the detriment of the first due to the view of assessment being for accountability. Testing and record keeping has taken time away from quality interactions between teacher and pupil where:

'classroom assessment has become disconnected from learning.' (Smith 2003:P8)

Do I fall into the category of the above. I have to admit yes. ALl too often testing is at the end of the concept in ICT or a topic in Science and my assessment is purely looking to see who grasped it and who did not. What do I do next - go to the next stage. Now I do not do this all the time, for example, in Maths my assessments inform me whether we are ready for the next step, who needs additional support and who needs challenged more.

It appears that the final mark rather than the process is more important where there are cases of learning being matched to tests rather than encouraging thinking and developing understanding. This can have a detrimental effect to under achievers who constantly can not gain high results. This is greatly obvious in a class of a very capable children and a few underachievers. Some children will never achieve the same as their peers because the test does not meet their needs it meets the needs of the taught curriculum.

The other pit fall is that the whole process becomes a competition with peers rather than a personal improvement. In a school where achievement is classed as being the best then the competition to be best seeps into all areas of the curriculum where children are always comparing results with others rather than against their own.

To prevent this comparison with others, teachers should ensure that quality feedback is given about how the child can improve their work rather. (Black & William). B & W advocated that formative assessment is an answer to this problem where they found that the low-attainers benefited the most and the attainment spread reduced.

The pitfalls of assessment can result in a divided class where the underachievers never feel they can achieve resulting in demotivation.