A forum for the discussion of reading instruction in K-12 classroom settings focusing on workshop approaches to literacy instruction. For more information: www.frankserafini.com
Saturday, March 14, 2015
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Classroom Based Reading Assessment
Print-based
student portfolios have been used, misused, discarded, and reintroduced by many
schools and districts over the past thirty years. Keeping track of students’
work, storing these collections, evaluating them, and using them to drive
instruction has had its ups and downs in literacy education. Online and digital
portfolios have been used with similar outcomes in elementary, high school, and
college settings.
The biggest
challenge for portfolio advocates is whether to apply normative or
criterion-referenced standards for evaluating the contents of students’
portfolios by creating rubrics or other grading processes, or allowing
individual students to use portfolios to document and demonstrate their
learning and development over time. The second approach, a learner-referenced
approach, has not been widespread in schools since so many assessment programs
are designed to compare children to other children or schools to other schools.
Portfolios are
collections of one’s work designed to provide opportunities to reflect on
progress or change over a period of time. In most “real-world” instances, for
example interior designers, architects, photographers, or artists, portfolios
are used to demonstrate competencies and accomplishments. This type of
portfolio is rarely scored using a rubric.
As the
requirements for being proficiently literate (of course defining proficiently literate is problematic in
itself) continue to expand and grow more complex in the digital age, the
assessments we use to understand students’ abilities and performances need to
expand as well. Portfolios and other performance assessments offer
possibilities in this arena. For me, the challenge is not how to collect and evaluate portfolios but why to collect and evaluate portfolios. In my book, Classroom
Reading Assessments (Serafini, 2010), I proposed three essential aspects of
portfolio assessment:
1. Help teachers teach more effectively
2. Help students learn more effectively
3. Provide information for stakeholders
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Teaching Reading in the Digital Age
We come to know those things we enjoy and spend time doing with greater
efficiency and speed than those things we despise and those things to which we
pay little attention. It's just that simple sometimes. Being afraid to engage
with or consider the potential impact web-based and digital resources could
have on our teaching ensures we won’t be successful in the digital age. People
may still call for a back to basics focus
for our curriculum, but we must realize that in the digital age the basics have
changed dramatically.
To help teachers move forward into the digital age, they need to be given
time to explore a wide range of digital resources, time to talk with other
teachers about how they have been using these resources in their classrooms,
time to play around with them, provide time for their students to play around
with them, and visualize new ways to use these resources in the reading
workshop. Teachers can’t just read about web-based and digital resources, they
have to begin exploring these resources for themselves. Teachers also need to
begin thinking about how these resources might be used in their reading
workshops.
I will be the first one to admit there are factors that make using new
technologies in one’s classroom a challenge. Teacher limited experience and
familiarity with new technologies and limited resources are probably the first
two challenges that come to mind. But, these challenges must be met head-on if
we are going to take advantage of the web-based and digital resources available
and help our students be successful in the digital age.
For a month last year I kept track of all the different types of reading
I did everyday. My self-study revealed that I read and write extensively in
both print-based and digital environments. From daily email and text messages
to greeting cards, I consistently used both paper-and-pencil and digital
technologies to support my reading life. I have had no problem giving up some
long-held print-based literacy practices in favor of digital technologies when
they have proven to be more efficient and effective.
I am the one that decided when my print-based calendar needed to move
into the digital age. My new calendar program now allows me to sync it with
other family members so we can see what everyone has on their schedule. Making
the shift from a typewriter to my computer and writing letters to email were
easy changes. The advantages of these new technologies were obvious and the
shift was a much a social phenomenon as a personal insight. Other new
technologies have been more difficult to accept. For example, I still write
notes in my paper notebook. The origins of most of this book began in my
notebook and on legal pads before being transferred into a digital document. My
daily “to do” list is still on a sheet of paper so I can keep it in my pocket.
There are hundreds of digital to do lists available but for me the sheet of
paper in my pocket is till the most effective and efficient technology.
As a college professor and former
elementary teacher, I feel the same way about new technologies in the reading
workshop. If the new technologies help me to do something more effectively and
efficiently, if the new technology allows my students to work more
collaboratively, if it improves my students reading abilities, well I am on
board. But I am not afraid to say when the new technologies are more cumbersome
and less efficient. As we move into the digital age, we have to let go of some
outdated practices and embrace the new technologies that support our teaching
and our students’ learning in more effective and efficient ways.
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