"I Can" Writing Proficiency Check-ins

This is a type of writing check-in/assessment which I have learned while serving as a coach for Martina Bex and Elicia Cardenas' Acquisition Boot Camp (which by the way is a GREAT course for those wanting to learn more about CI/ADI instruction). I am not going to spend time here describing this type of assessment, because Martina does such a good job of this in her blog. Essentially it is a writing check-in/assessment over a current reading where students can choose at which level of writing proficiency with which they are most comfortable for that particular reading. However, to use this type of assessment, a teacher truly must have a good understanding of language proficiency. With what degree of language control are students able to communicate? Words? Simple sentences? Create new language?

Whenever it comes to language output with novice and intermediate language learners, we as teachers need to expect errors (and lots of them!). We need to realize that grammatical mistakes and shaky language control are typical in these proficiency levels; therefore, they are expected and okay! As a result, we need to focus on what it is that students are able to communicate and what we as sympathetic receptors can understand from their messages.

Observations

1. I absolutely love this how this is set up - thanks, Martina!
2. I view this type of "assessment" as merely a check-in for students to let me know where they are with the material - what have they acquired so far with the new material? Where are they with language output? Simply, it is a snapshot of their proficiency at the moment, and the snapshot is neither good nor bad. It is simply to inform me (and hopefully students) of where they are at. 
3. Personally, I do not grade these, but I definitely do look at them. If you look at Martina's original directions, you will see how she grades these according to a proficiency-based rubric.
4. I like the choice aspect of this, because it gives students permission to proceed at their preferred level of comfort when it comes to written output. Also, within each level, there is a degree of choice so that students can choose those options which will best display their mastery. 

Picture A/Picture B Listening Assessment

Who says that assessments must be long?!! Here is a very low-key, very quick listening comprehension assessment which I learned this past summer from Martina Bex and Elicia Cardenas while working as a coach for their Acquisition Boot Camp (ABC), and it is very simple for you as the teacher to administer. Simply, you either project two pictures onto a screen or put them on a piece of paper - these pictures are labeled A and B. You read a target sentence aloud, and you ask students to determine if the sentence is describing picture A or picture B. As a teacher, however, it requires a bit of prep work.

Pre-Assessment

1. Taking a story which you have been going over in class, select 7-10 sentences. If it is from a movie talk, you could use screen shots.
2. Illustrate those sentences. 
3. Scan them (or use a web app drawing tool) or illustrate them onto the assessment paper.
4. Place the scanned pictures in pairs onto Google Slides for projection or onto a document. 
5. Label one picture "A" and the other picture "B"
6. For each pair, determine which sentence you read will read in order to match up with the correct picture.

Assessment

1. Explain to students that you are going to read aloud a sentence from the story, and their job is to determine if the sentence being read is Picture A or Picture B. I project the pictures on Google Slides and have students on a sheet of paper number 1-10ish, and they simply answer A or B.
2. Read the sentence a couple times slowly and then move onto the next set of pictures.

Observations

1. Oh my gosh, why did I not learn about this assessment earlier?? It is so easy and quick to administer (although it takes some type to prepare it) - it took less then five minutes to administer. Students simply had to write down either A or B on their paper. If the pictures are on a sheet of paper for them, they simply have to mark the picture being described.
2. I used this as a formative assessment and not as a summative assessment. 
3. These were incredibly easy to grade too, because I was simply looking for either the letters A or B as the answer.
4. Students liked this assessment, because it was fast and easy for them to complete.
5. When picking pairs of pictures, select pairs which require a close listening and inspection of the pictures. In the example above, each of the pictures involved the phrase "duo comites (two comrades)" so students had to listen carefully to the rest of the sentence to determine what distinguished the two pictures. In other words, I could not have one picture have two people in them and the other picture being of a dog, because when students heard the phrase "duo comites," immediately they would know which picture it was and would not listen to the rest of the sentence. 
6. The picture being described needs to be OBVIOUS for students.

Using Vocabulary Know-It Boards as a Formative - Google Slides Manipulatives

As I continue to embark on this hybrid environment of teaching both digital and in-person students simultaneously, I am learning how important formative assessments and observations are in informing me as the teacher how to proceed when for most students I cannot physically witness their progress. My colleague Rachel Ash introduced me to Google Slide manipulatives, and she has demonstrated a way in which students can let me know how well they know their vocabulary: Vocabulary Know-It Boards (look for the specific activity on the page - you can actually make a copy for yourself from her example).

Essentially, from the list of 25ish provided words, students will drag the word to the quadrant which best describes their knowledge of the word: I Really Know It, I Know It, I Kind of Know It, I Don't Know It.

Student Examples:

Observations

1. This is a really easy way for students to "check-in" with me about what they feel like they know and what they do not know.
2. The downside of this is that the vocabulary words are presented in isolation, so in some ways, it may be that students actually do know the words when they see them in context but in isolation, they do not.
3. Using Google Classroom, this is so easy to assign, because I just "Make a Copy for Each Student" and then they can "Turn It In" when finished.
4. I do manually tally what words are most commonly being placed in the "I Kind of Know" and "I Don't Know" quadrants. These become the words which I target.
5. I do make this an assignment for students to ensure that I receive feedback from every student, but I also give them a 100 as a completion grade.
6. I do this assignment every 3-4 weeks to see what students feel like they know and what they feel like they do not know.