COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE

&
CELEBRATION OF LEARNING

EDUC 556 - LT3

Mary Bates, Liza Bauyon, Malia Gray, Rachelle Troendle
STAGE 1 – INSPIRATION AND INQUIRY
 PLC members specialize in a variety of discipline,
yet common themes surrounding assessment and
engagement emerged in group discussions
reflective of experiences during practicum
 Teacher-centred assessment routine with little
student involvement
 Limited student involvement in assessment loops
resulted in…
- decreased engagement
- reduced teacher efficiency
STAGE 1 – INSPIRATION AND INQUIRY

 Inquiry inspired us to consider…

Goal Setting Activities - would individual goal setting help us achieve

student engagement?

A Learner Profile for Everyday Use – would a ‘working copy’ of a

learner profile be a useful strategy we could use with students to refine
our assessment processes?
STAGE 2 – KNOWLEDGE BUILDING PROCESS
o Assessment can and should be used in various forms
that match the intended purposes of the action -
gathering evidence to inform teaching, helping
students to assess their own learning, and reporting
students’ achievement (Stiggins, 2006, p. 2).
o Balanced assessment in learning designs to effectively
report student achievement and support the learning
progression of all students (Stiggins, 2006, p. 1;
Alberta Education, 2009, p. 119-120).
o Assessment as learning - students are part of the
process of assessment and are enabled to decipher
what “...success looks like..” - an awareness of how
they can improve their learning (Stiggins and
Chappuis, 2006, p. 11).
o Sharing of assessment data with the student is where
the student accesses feedback - feedback must be
timely in order for the student to take control of their
learning (Koh, 2011).
 STAGE 2 – KNOWLEDGE BUILDING PROCESS
o Comprehensive assessment and process development that supports the
triangulation of evidence to support learning development and
accuracy in reporting (Foothills School Division, 2009; Western and
Northern Canadian Protocol for Collaboration in Basic Education,
2006, p. 127).
o Assessment should be used to build students confidence in their learning
abilities and understand their responsibility in their learning so they can
become lifelong learners (Stiggins, 2002).
o Assessment as learning - explicit fostering of students’ capacity over
time to be their own best assessors, and teachers need to start by
presenting and modelling structured opportunities for students to assess
themselves (Manitoba Education, Citizenship and Youth, 2006, p. 42).
STAGE 3 - FINDINGS
 STAGE 3 - FINDINGS
 Will mainly serve as student self-assessment
to help students “….develop skills in
evaluating the quality of their own work,
especially during the process of production.”
(Sadler, 1989, p. 143).
 Provide students access to thorough evidence
and explanations for how they can improve,
causing them to “… become consumers of
assessment information too, using evidence of
their own progress to understand what comes
next for them…” (Stiggins, 2006, p. 2-8).
 Directly involving our students in the process
of creating a triangulation of evidence, allows
us, together, to see how their work feeds into
the development of their goals, in this course
and as related to their larger career
aspirations (Foothills School Division, 2009).
  Satisfies our needs as teachers who are
accountable for reporting on outcomes and
designing and coordinating learning
experiences aligned with the Program of
Studies
Enables us to keep student needs at the
center of our teaching and learning

THE LEARNER Provides an diverse range of assessment

evidence and an adequate amount of data,

PROFILE making it an avenue through which we can

“… make program-matic decisions with
respect to readiness, diagnosis and
remediation…” (Sadler, 1989, p. 121)
Is an on-going process of finding reliable
evidence to confirm or disconfirm practice
decisions through everyday teaching and
learning activities (Timperley, 2011, p. 39)
 STAGE 4 - IMPLICATIONS
“ Its is important for teachers to use assessments as investigative tools throughout the year to help them
gather information about what their students currently understand and what they can apply.”
(Western and Northern Canadian Protocol for Collaboration in Basic Education, 2006, p. 30-33)

1. What are the implications for teaching and
learning of your findings?
•We can design a Learner Profile, in which teachers
and students collaborate and benefit – it will be
discipline independent.
• Allows for a frameworkwhere students can engage
the development of metacognition and teachers
can track growth - ties planning and reporting with
student engagement.
2. How will your findings potentially
improve student engagement,
achievement and well-being?
•Student-driven, aligning students' personal goals
with school goals, therefore students are more
inclined towards achieving learning goals.
• Gives students control of their education
by increasing "intrinsic motivation, effort, task
performance, and subsequent learning” (Marzano
and Pickering, 2011, p. 13).
3. How will you implement your
findings?
•Field test the Learner Profile and reflect on its
ability to help our effectiveness as teachers.
• We will use this template as a checkpoint in
planning to help us reflect on our lesson design and
ensure the incorporation of balanced assessment.

4. How might the context affect your
findings?
•In practicum it will depend on the assessments the
partner teacher has suggested or already
provided.
• Students capacity to take responsibility, time
constraint, school/division perspective.
5. What cautions and extensions can
you recommend?
• It needs to evolve with practice – not set in stone.
• Use to inform teaching practice and present
information in an accessible and approachable
way
• Ensure privacy.
6. Did you find anything that surprised
you?
•How we could structure a process that was
functional for teachers across disciplines.
•Literature supports the creation of a learner profile
template.
•Ease of use, and it can be digitized.
 STAGE 4 - REFLECTIONS
Professional Learning Community: "an inclusive and mutually supportive group of people with a
collaborative, reflective and growth-oriented approach towards investigating and learning more about
their practice in order to improve pupils' learning" (Timperley, p. 104).

PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITY

• Expanded our capacity as teachers to enhance our students’ learning

• Played off of everyone’s strengths – Critical Friend Model

• Provided a professional collaborative space and opportunity to critically

and iteratively reflect and investigate our emerging teaching practice
Student-teacher collaboration
• We practiced gaining confidence in our ability to organize our reporting and planning
through a student-centered process and we all feel proud of what we were able to design as
a template
 References

Alberta Education. (2009). French as a second language guide to implementation: Grade 10 to grade 12 (nine-
year) (pp. 119-141) [Program of Studies]. Canada: Alberta. Retrieved from:
https://education.alberta.ca/media/1626359/gr10-12_guidetoimplementation_9y.pdf

Connect Charter School. (n.d.). Principal’s message. Retrieved from:

https://www.connectcharter.ca/downloadfiles/spectrum/Spectrum_2014_11.pdf

Friesen, S. (2009). What Did You Do in School Today? Teaching Effectiveness: A framework and rubric. Canadian
Education Association. Retrieved from: https://www.edcan.ca/wp-content/uploads/cea-2009-wdydist-teaching.pdf

Foothills School Division. (2009). Supporting handbook for assessment, evaluation and reporting of student learning: A
toolbox for educators. Retrieved from: https://www.fsd38.ab.ca/documents/general/Assessment-Handbook-Updated-
2016-1.pdf

Government of Alberta. (2011). Framework for Student Learning: Competencies for Engaged Thinkers and Ethical
Citizens with an Entrepreneurial Spirit. Retrieved from: https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/4c47d713-d1fc-4c94-bc97-
08998d93d3ad/resource/58e18175-5681-4543-b617-c8efe5b7b0e9/download/5365951-2011-framework-
student-learning.pdf

Heritage, M. (2007). Formative assessment: What do teachers need to know and do? Phi Delta Kappan, 89(2), 140-
145. Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca/stable/20442432
Jacobsen, M., Lock, J., & Friesen, S. (2013). Strategies for Engagement: Knowledge Building and Intellectual
Engagement in Participatory Learning Environments. Education Canada, 53(1), nl.

Koh, K. H. (2011). Improving teachers’ assessment literacy through professional development. Teaching Education,
22(3), 255-276, nl.

Manitoba Education, Citizenship and Youth. (2006). Rethinking classroom assessment with purpose in mind: assessment
for learning, assessment as learning, assessment of learning. Retrieved from:
https://www.wncp.ca/media/40539/rethink.pdf

Marzano, R. J., & Pickering, D. J. (2010). The highly engaged classroom. Solution Tree Press. Retrieved from:
https://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=T2oXBwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT15&dq=The+Highly+engaged+clas
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Sadler, D. R. (1989). Formative assessment and the design of instructional systems. Instructional science, 18(2), 119-
144. Retrieved from: https://link-springer-com.ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca/content/pdf/10.1007%2FBF00117714.pdf

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http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.604.8466&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Stiggins, R., & Chappuis, J. (2006). What a difference a word makes: Assessment FOR learning rather than assessment
OF learning helps students succeed. Journal of Staff Development, 27(1), 1015. Retrieved from:
https://learningforward.org/docs/jsd-winter-2006/stiggins271.pdf?sfvrsn=2

Stiggins, R. (2002). Assessment crisis: The absence of assessment for learning. Phi Delta Kappan, 758−765. Retrieved
from: http://journals.sagepub.com.ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca/doi/abs/10.1177/003172170208301 010

Student-teacher collaboration picture. [Digital Image]. Retrieved from:

https://www.kisspng.com/png-group-work-teamwork-social-group-student-teacher-c-3603600/

Timperley, H.S. (2011). Realizing the power of professional learning. New York, NY: Open University Press. [Kindle
Edition]. Retrieved from: https://www.amazon.ca/Realizing-Professional-Learning-Expanding-Educational-
ebook/dp/B005FHEMDY/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Please follow the link to our shared PLC Ideation Google Document for the expanded details of our iterative process:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/12E0jwjadL-bpR6fDl0VUMI55bKTVVdTlKV7BkvcKpl8/edit