Idea for Reflection & Pre / Formative / Summative Assessment

Visible Learning = Pre / Formative / Summative

I had what might be an effective idea today.

I was thinking of different strategies we could use to show our wonderings and enquiries into ratios and proportions. 

As these are new concepts to most of the children, using a KWL chart might not be so effective as their wonderings might be forced rather than natural. I thought of using the central idea for children to record findings and understandings like we have done several times this year, but wondered how to give it more directon.

So, I came up with this idea.  We would create a learning journey about our central idea.  Below is a beginning sample we started today:

The idea is that as we continue through our unit, we will pause and reflect on what we have discovered. This will give each child time to gather their thoughts, perhaps solidify them and also hopefully arouse some wonderings to explore about our central idea.


We began by recording what we already knew about our central idea and then placed a line on the learning journey to indicate where our unit enquiry began.

This was a really useful and effective pre-assessment tool for me to gain insights to who understood what.

We are taking our thinking further by also focusing on our lines of inquiry.

As the children record their understandings OR write wonderings in thought bubbles for their own investigations, they circle each according to each line of inquiry it belongs to.  The children have allocated a different colour for each line of inquiry like this sample:

I was and still am curious how this will pan out.

I asked the children what they thought of this strategy so far and they all thought was an interesting and helpful tool.

A few remarked how they liked the idea of being able to see their growth.

Others commented that it helped them see that they are on a learning journey and were interested to see where this will take them.

I think this might be a winner, but we are at the beginning stages of it.

(And for those of you who follow my blog, you would know by now my thoughts on the negativity of maths tests)

At the completion of our unit, at the bottom of the page, they will have time to reflect on two PYP attitudes they felt they showed the most during their enquiries and give examples of how they showed them.

I'm hoping this will be a really effective continual formative assessment that will help me track where each child is at and this help me to guide them into deeper enquiries.

As PYP teachers, we encourage our students to be risk-takers and so we as their teachers should model this also......

(I'll blog some thoughts and my students' thoughts later when we complete them)