Inquiring Minds

I finally have something to add to this blog… I hope it is worth it.

I am probably the most guilty of creating outlandish summative tasks that hook students in, take days (even weeks!) to finish and look like inquiry at its best. My thoughts have changed a lot over the past couple of years. An Understanding By Design workshop a few years back asked us, “Is the juice worth the squeeze?”. Is it really worth setting up these amazing activities, when you could get the same outcome in 10-20 minutes.

Another thought from that course was whether rubrics have a role in summative assessment tasks. For me, rubrics are essential for providing instant feedback and scaffolding for a learner – much needed for formative assessment tasks. They are great for developing skills and knowledge. However, I think that they have no place in a summative task. For a task to be truly summative, teachers need to remove the scaffolding and see what students can do unaided. Rubrics provide too many hints in “getting it right.”

A recent workshop with Kath Murdoch nurtured this thought further….. why not have students select their own way of showing their understandings. So last week, I developed this (please note, it is a draft!):

Based on the work of Wiggins and McTighe’s Six Facets of Understanding and that spark from Kath Murdoch, I am starting to wonder if this model can help students select their own summative task.

My proposed structure is having students firstly complete the following sentence starter:

I can _____________ (insert one of the verbs in the middle circle) my understanding of the Central Idea by _____________ing (insert one of the verbs in the outer circle)…. and that is as far as I can get. Obviously the student completes their planned task, but something is missing from the complete equation. Maybe this is where you can come in!

I believe that this model helps open it up to a range of possibilities, allows for great transfer of understandings and encourages creativity.

Feedback more than welcome! I need to get over the final hurdle.