A Few Notes from Today's SBG Workshop

I hosted a workshop on SBG at today’s BCScTA conference, links from today are here.

A few extra thoughts about questions I got today:

Am I worried about not having larger tests, as a way to partly help prepare kids for university?

No, not really. I think that anything done at university is so drastically different from what we do in high school that have a 65 minute test won’t help.  I’ve written a bit about this topic here.

That’s just my opinion though, there’s a chance I could be wrong.  I don’t really think that test-taking is the big problem at university though.  Bigger issues are things like independence, fresh autonomy,  learning from a lecture and/or textbook, removal of supports (parents, teachers, tutors, counselors), and basic “get ’er done"ness.

I actually don’t mind giving a one hour test as some type of assignment/assessment.  I mostly feel so squeezed for time I don’t want to take up a class to do it.  As well, I give a physics diagnostics pre/post test every year (FCI). That takes up class time as well…

Do I look at larger, more comprehensive assessments, above what an SBG quiz may be?

Yes, I use transfer tasks and in particular, goal-less problems. I will hold up goal-less problems to the toughest of any other physics 11 or 12 test.  Students need a bit of practice or scaffolding for goal-less problems before you use them for assessment.  Watching kids frantically work for 60 minutes on two questions, where they have to understand and analyze a situation, figure out how to model it, and then go about applying those models (graphs, descriptions, maths, calculations), is a wonderful thing.

Do you have to do re-tests?

In my opinion, and others I spoke with about this, yes.  SBG hinges on two facets imo.  Kids need and deserve clear learning intentions, and they need the option to re-test. Without the re-test, the system doesn’t really work.