Introduction
Assessment is for Learning as a buzz phrase in Scottish
Schools at the moment. But what about Assessment is for Geography?
Idea 27 – Geography Traffic
Lights
Traffic Lights are means of
self-evaluation that displays how well a student has understood a topic or
activity based on the colours of a traffic light. Green means 'I can do this'; amber means 'I'm reasonably confident'; and red
means 'I need assistance'.
Geography Traffic lights
are different because on the back of your coloured laminated paper there are
pictures of countries or map symbols or whatever you want really. What the
point? Well, it’s about doubling up on a resource. When I hand out my traffic
lights to classes at the start of the lesson, the first think they have to do
is work out which three countries they have on their traffic lights. We then
use the traffic lights like normal. The more we use the country traffic lights
the better they become at identifying countries.
You can download my Country Traffic Light sheets as a PowerPoint presentation below.
I have them then reduced to A5 in size
and I get them laminated into coloured sets. Download country_traffic_light_sheets.ppt
Idea 28 – Student based project work
Give students a choice of
project and remember its all about the sell!
Example:
‘I want you to do a project
on deserts’
‘Now would you like to
study hot or cold deserts, and why?’
‘Ok, that’s a great reason.
Now would you like to focus on people, location, buildings or natural
resources?’
Students will be more
likely to produce good work, if they feel they have had a choice in choosing
what they will do their project on.
Idea 29 – Consider using the rounded assessment
I developed this idea to
give feedback to S1 students on their weather projects. The assessment criteria
I used was recorded on the form called ‘How rounded is your project’.
I looked through each
projects and gave a mark out of 5 for data analysis, project in on time,
creativity, use of ICT, following instructions, content, presentation and
dependence on help sheets (the students knew that this was the marking criteria
before they started the project).
For each of the assessment
criteria I marked a ‘cross’ on the marksheet in the correct section of the
circle and on the correct line (1 – 5). For some of the criteria I also wrote
some feedback (although I kept this minimal). When I handed the projects back I
was met with cries of ‘you haven’t given me a mark!’ and ‘which
project was the best in the class?’.
I explained to the class
that they had to look at how rounded their project was from the circle and
decide on what they could do to improve their attainment. The students then
filled in the box on the right hand side of the mark sheet before I gave them
their overall mark. It was interesting to note that none of the class realised
that the overall mark simply consisted in adding up all of the marks between 1
– 5 for the eight assessment criteria.
You can download a copy of
the mark sheet as a PowerPoint presentation here.Download rounded_assessment.ppt
Idea 30 – Peer Assessment:
Two stars and a wish
Two stars and a wish is a type of feedback given to pupils
that identifies two strengths in their work and one area for future
development. I’ve made some two stars and a wish stick labels that I give out
to students to stick in their jotters before the person next to them evaluates
their work.
Idea 31 – Group Assessment
The narrative below shows one example of how I have used
this method with classes. It is from a Hot Desert
group work poster presentation.
- The class is divided into six random groups.
- Each group is given a folder full of resources (including some coloured paper, some lined paper and one sheet of A2 paper)
- All groups have access to the stationary table (which contain coloured pencils, pens, rulers, glue etc..)
- Each group is given a pack of information
(including books, print outs from web pages and photographs). Each pack of
information is on a different theme. The themes include hot desert plants,
hot desert animals, people who live in hot deserts, hot desert location,
hot desert resources and desertification.
- The task is to produce a professional poster on the theme that they have been given. We then spend some time discussing what a good professional poster looks like and looking at some good and ad examples of past assessment work.
- The class have two lessons to produce their poster. At the end of lesson two the poster must be on the wall or they will fail the task and loose all marks (meeting this tight deadline is a
key part of the assessment).
- The next part is important. It is explained to the class that they have approximately two hours of class time to complete the work. With five people per group this equals ten hours of ‘people
time’. At the end of the assignment it is important that all group members can look at the task and say, ‘yes that is ten hours worth of work,’ or, ‘its not ten hours worth of work because…’
Although the teacher
determines the overall poser grade the group work skills are peer assessed.
Everybody is graded on effort, contribution and communication (these terms are
carefully defined before the peer assessment takes place). Each student’s final
score is their mark for the poster (shared by everyone in the group) added to
the marks awarded by their peers for effort, contribution and communication.
Idea 31 – Use different Assessment Methods
Give students a choice of
assessment method for a project. Foe example if you normally do written project
invite the class to do something else if they want to. Different submission methods
could be a professional poster, newspaper report, PowerPoint presentation,
digital video or a podcast.
Have a look at http://tools.fodey.com or the generator blog to see some of the
ways you can ‘spice up’ written work.
Idea 32 – Give students an audience
Students love having a audience
for their work. Consider giving them an on-line space where people can view
their work and leave comments (could be a blog?) or an off-line space. At Dunbar we gave every single S1 student a space with their
name on it in the corridor. When they did a piece of homework they changed the
contents of their space. Because it had their name on it they felt ownership of
the area and also they new it would be on display to the rest of the school.
Idea 33 – Games can be powerful in education. Use games for
assessment and homework.
Consider using games like Sim City
during the settlement unit. You can download the original version for free from
http://simcit.ea.com. I have set this in
the past as optional settlement homework. I start to build a new city at the same time as the rest of the
class and we have a competition over 3 or four weeks to see who can build the
best city. I believe that students will learn more about city planning,
logistics and infrastructure by playing this than they ever will about me
rambling on about Burgess’s Concentric Ring Model!
The other games that I
sometimes ask students to play for homework are on the OS Map Zone web site. I
know that they have played them because I ask them to take a screen shot of
their best score and to email it to me or to print it out. This way I can set
up a leader board in my classroom.
Other Points
If you want to find out
more about games in education have a look at Darek Robertsons Hot Milky
Drink blog on Games in Education
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