These standards-based assessments correspond with my five course objectives for my classroom. These objectives address the major components of communication and aim to develop students' abilities to effectively communicate others in Spanish. Thus, their grades will depend on what students can actually do. Each will be assessed independently, enabling students to identify where their strengths and weaknesses lie.
Moreover, learning is a journey that students complete on their own terms and at their own pace. As such, the final product is the most critical subject for evaluation. In my classroom, students will be provided numerous opportunities for formative self-evaluations as well as those I complete. Students will keep track of their progress in their notebooks and should have a fairly good idea about how they will perform on the summative assessment.
I will conduct summative assessments collected for a grade at a few points throughout the semester. These assessments will be unannounced as I want to evaluate what students are actually capable of rather than what they studied for. Because students will be evaluated based on the final goal, initial check-point evaluations may appear to be "basic" or even "poor", but students will be given a realistic expectations as to what they should be achieving at these checkpoints and will be able to evaluate whether or not they are "on track" and temporary grades will be entered based on whether students are meeting these check-point goals. However, as grades are a reflection of what students can actually do at that point in time, they will be replaced and updated after each summative evaluation to reflect the most recent data. Thus, at the end of the semester, the only grade that will count will be their performance on the final assessments (with the exception of the "Citizenship" grade). In addition, these "final" grades will be completed with enough time prior to the end of the semester so that students who wish to try again may have the opportunity to do so.
Objective 1: Comprehend spoken Spanish.
Moreover, learning is a journey that students complete on their own terms and at their own pace. As such, the final product is the most critical subject for evaluation. In my classroom, students will be provided numerous opportunities for formative self-evaluations as well as those I complete. Students will keep track of their progress in their notebooks and should have a fairly good idea about how they will perform on the summative assessment.
I will conduct summative assessments collected for a grade at a few points throughout the semester. These assessments will be unannounced as I want to evaluate what students are actually capable of rather than what they studied for. Because students will be evaluated based on the final goal, initial check-point evaluations may appear to be "basic" or even "poor", but students will be given a realistic expectations as to what they should be achieving at these checkpoints and will be able to evaluate whether or not they are "on track" and temporary grades will be entered based on whether students are meeting these check-point goals. However, as grades are a reflection of what students can actually do at that point in time, they will be replaced and updated after each summative evaluation to reflect the most recent data. Thus, at the end of the semester, the only grade that will count will be their performance on the final assessments (with the exception of the "Citizenship" grade). In addition, these "final" grades will be completed with enough time prior to the end of the semester so that students who wish to try again may have the opportunity to do so.
Objective 1: Comprehend spoken Spanish.
- According to level, students will listen to a word, phrase, or passage using the words and structures they are familiar with and indicate what they understood.
- I try to avoid words in isolation as they are generally presented, practiced, and used in meaningful context both in class and real-life situations.
- Students indicate what they understood in English as this is a clear indication of full comprehension. Partial credit may be given for the correct Spanish answer as this is evidence of partial comprehension.
- Formative Assessments: I will use a variety of assessment techniques, including self-evaluations using rubrics for translations and summaries, so that students and I can get a feel for their comprehension level.
- Summative Assessments: I prefer exact evaluations with right and wrong answers so that they are not open to interpretation or bias.
- Examples:
- Students may hear a sentence and indicate which picture matches the sentence they heard.
- Students may hear a story and put pictures or English sentences in order to match the story.
- Students may hear a story. Then, they may write a summary or answer questions written in English about who the main character was, what problem they had, and how they solved it.
Objective 2: Comprehend written Spanish.
- Very similar to assessments for Objective 1, but with written Spanish!
- According to level, students will read a word, phrase, or passage using the words and structures they are familiar with and indicate what they understood.
- I try to avoid words in isolation as they are generally presented, practiced, and used in meaningful context both in class and real-life situations.
- Students indicate what they understood in English as this is a clear indication of full comprehension. Partial credit may be given for the correct Spanish answer as this is evidence of partial comprehension.
- Formative Assessments: I will use a variety of assessment techniques, including self-evaluations using rubrics for translations and summaries, so that students and I can get a feel for their comprehension level.
- Summative assessments: I prefer exact evaluations with right and wrong answers so that they are not open to interpretation or bias.
- Examples:
- Students may read a sentence and indicate which picture matches the sentence they read.
- Students may read a story and put pictures or English sentences in order to match the story.
- Students may read a story. Then, they may write a summary or answer questions written in English about who the main character was, what problem they had, and how they solved it.
Objective 3: Write 100 words in comprehensible Spanish within 10 minutes. (Note: As level increases, so does the word count requirement.)
- Formative assessment: I do not ask students to do free-writes until about halfway through the first semester. This is the first time their output is assessed. By this point, they have generally acquired enough language that most students surprise themselves with what they are able to write, setting them up to have a positive attitude toward writing. Students are asked to do 5-minute free-writes or re-writes of stories told in class on a regular basis. Though this is only half of the time they will be given for the summative assessment, it is not such a huge task and they generally have a pretty good idea of how they will do based on their 5-minute writes and students are usually. However, these are not collected and it is usually the student's responsibility to ask me if they would like me to read and review their writing, particularly to evaluate comprehensibility. I may, on occasion, review their writing without being requested to do so.
- Summative assessment: The only summative writing assessment that students complete is at the end of the semester for a final grade. However, this "final" is completed early enough that students have the opportunity to do a re-take if needed.
- Evaluation: When the timer goes off, students put an X after their last word and count all of their Spanish words. They write the number of words at the top of the page, circle it, and turn their writing in if you are collecting it.
- Grading:
- Words: The number of words they wrote represents the percentage grade they earned up to 100 (If a student wrote 120 words, they would still just receive 100% and pride that they went beyond the expectation). If the student wrote any English or completely made-up words, five percent is subtracted off their final writing grade for each English word. (For instance, if the student with 120 words wrote 2 English words, their score would be 100%-2*5%=90%)
- Comprehensibility: The goal is for students to be comprehensible to a native speaker. Even broken and basic Spanish with incorrect spelling and grammar can be understood by native speakers, so comprehensibility is evaluated on a fairly lenient rubric. With time and more exposure to Spanish, correct grammar and more complete and complex sentences will emerge.
- I also like the way Scott Benedict does his grading and would like to look into it more in the future: How to Assess Writing Effectively
Objective 4: Speak in Spanish for 30 seconds. (Note: as level increases, so does the time requirement.)
- Students are not formally assessed on speaking until the end of their first semester. Rather, they are encouraged to focus on comprehension and respond with at least one-word answers. Their answers become more complete and complicated as they are exposed to Spanish throughout the class. After their first semester, however, students can be assessed regularly to keep track of growth and improvement as well as their progress toward increasingly difficult goals, such as speaking for a longer amount of time.
- The goal is for students to be comprehensible to a native speaker. Even broken and basic Spanish with incorrect grammar and in a heavy accent can be understood by native speakers, so speaking is comprehensibility on a fairly lenient rubric. With time and more exposure to Spanish, correct grammar and more complete and complex sentences will emerge.
- Scores are given out of 25. As long as the students are comprehensible and continue speaking with a moderate pausing, they will earn 20 points ("B"). Fewer pauses, more complex language, better comprehensibility, creativity, and personalization will increase the grade. More pauses, minimal to no comprehensibility, and the use of English will decrease the grade.
Objective 5: Be an excellent citizen of our class.
- This is the "everything else" grade. Various aspects of this grade can be weighted differently, but each on its own will not overpower any of the standards-based grade. In addition, it sets a clear expectation for students to grow and develop as a citizen.
- Participation and attendance is worth an arbitrary 100 points within the grade book, which I generally weight to be 5% of the total grade. Students loose participation points when they are absent or do not comply with the rules and expectations for the class. They keep participation points by meeting class rules and expectations. Finally, they may (re)gain participation points by completing make-up work for absences and completing any extra credit activities that are offered to the entire class.
- Interactive Notebooks will be central to our class and will help students stay organized as well as provide evidence of their work and achievements. Moreover, students will develop organizational skills that will assist them later in life. Thus, they deserve a place in the grade book and are worth half of the "Citizenship" grade, or 10% of the total grade.
- I will check spot-check notebooks for timely completion on a regular basis by asking students to open to a specific page and award a stamp on that page to students who have completed it to my expectations.
- I will only collect notebooks twice: first at mid-semester and again after finals. Mid-semester checks will only be a quarter of the notebook grade (2.5% of the overall grade) and serve as a check-up to make sure students are on the right track. Final notebook checks will encompass the remaining portion of the notebook grade (7.5% of the overall grade).
- Notebooks will be graded on a rubric that evaluates how neat the notebook is, how well it is organized, how complete it is, and how many stamps the student received from the regular notebook checks.
- Though cultural knowledge is important, the focus of this class is to learn to communicate in Spanish. Thus, culture is only worth 5% of the overall grade. Students will be assessed on important cultural aspects of the Spanish-speaking world as we discuss them. These will be very minor assessments which require students to write about a cultural aspect, apply it to themselves and compare/contrast it with their culture, and/or answer various styles of short questions (i.e. multiple choice, short answer, matching, etc.)
