In Chapter 4 of her
text, Assessing Higher-Order Thinking Skills
in Your Classroom, Brookhart discusses ways in which a teacher can assess
student judgment……always a difficult task!!!! In order to do that, we, of course, need to
give students the opportunity to “make some sort of critical judgment.” Brookhart suggests that we consider giving
students the following types of tasks: 1) the opportunity to evaluate the
credibility of a source of information; 2) the opportunity to identify
assumptions implicit in that information, and 3) the opportunity to identify rhetorical
and persuasive methods. Consider just
one of these tasks. You are a teacher
who is anxious to know how your students go about making logical judgments, what
would be your assignment in order to measure their thinking? How
would you assess the student judgment in that particular assignment? You may wish to link this with the yearlong
curriculum assessment that you are now creating.
As a humanities teacher, I often have the opportunity to critique my students' ability to judge (at least academically). Often times, our students are required to evaluate the credibility of an information source. This typically happens when beginning any assignment that requires research: this could be a short paper, a current event assignment, a research paper, or a Power Point presentation. I might begin my students at a basic-level assignment in order to judge their ability to critique the credibility of a resource. For example, every two weeks our students report on a national or international current event that is of some sort of political, historical, or scientific significance. They also receive a worksheet the first week of the year that they are to keep throughout their course of study. This breaks down the two-page current event assignment into six parts. One of these parts requires that they carefully consider the source of the information they're using. I give them several suggestions for major newspapers, websites, or database searches to find legitimate information (for example, we always steer clear of Wikipedia!) Part of their assignment is to compare the info found in their selected source and then find the same story on 2 or 3 other credible websites. If possible, they can also compare the information to an almanac, encyclopedia, or other trusted source. For example, if they read that the population of New York City is 800 million people, that may not sound correct. If they use an almanac, they will find the correct total is more like 6 million. Over time, erroneous information becomes easier to pick out. But until then, they are tasked with the work of "sifting" through what is credible or not and my job as their teacher is to begin the guiding process of explaining to them how to compare sources and what is considered credible and why.
ReplyDeleteIn fifth grade, my students are just beginning to come into their own. Throughout the year I offer plenty of opportunity for students to make “judgment calls” as we analyze various pieces of literature or as we begin a new unit on research. Trial and error in the case of research is a good lesson to be learned. Students are just beginning an educational career and in most cases are embarking on the first of many research assignments. To start off I allow the students two days to gather information on a person to write about. More often than not, I receive a slew of Wikipedia articles which, as we know, are simply not a source we allow students to use. This trial and error technique enables me to show students some of the outlandish and errant information included on many of the Wikipedia sights. If there is enough time in the class period we will go online and add something outlandish to the Wikipedia write up just to further prove the point that judgment calls need to be made. More often than not, this is a student’s first encounter with wizening up when it comes to making a judgment call.
ReplyDeleteAnother task I use quite a bit in class is either independent or partner analyzation of text. Students make judgment calls during this activity and I find it quite intriguing to find what a student picks up on and what a student does not pick up on. Just recently we spent quite a bit of time analyzing campaign commercials and posters. I was quite surprised and impressed at the amount of persuasive techniques the class picked up on. Furthermore, one the students got into the swing of analyzing the campaign posters they were picking up on assumptions and nuances left and right.
This may not answer the question at hand, but I feel it can coincide with: 2.) the opportunity to identify assumptions implicit in that information. Just recently I spoke with my students about yellow journalism and gave the students multiple headlines that all had the same main idea but implied different details. For example: Bride Missing! Suspected Cold Feet in the Case of the Missing Bride! Missing Bride Fought With Groom's Family Before Disappearing!...Then I spoke about the Spanish-American War and the battleship “the Maine” that had exploded. I handed the students two different articles from that time in history and one implied the explosion what done on purpose by the Spanish and the other implied it was accidental.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I agree with what Mike has said, being a social studies teacher I often have the opportunities to evaluate my students judgment. In particular when they are asked to find information, write a research paper, or use the internet for figuring out solutions/answers. When teaching students how to use reliable sources, especially the internet I usually begin with showing them website with obvious false information. I will show it to them as if everything is correct and I look for expression or reactions to students who pick up on misinformation. Then I will proceed to teach them what to look for when using reliable websites.
Since I am proposing the question the hear feedback, I can only think of a few ways that my young students would make critical judgements. My students do have some opportunities for research in the computer lab. Just one example that I can think of would be during February when my student complete a research report/poster on a Famous African American. Another possible way that my students make critical judgements would be when they have to make a decision about if they should do something or not. Many of my students understood the consequences for their actions as well as the rewards for doing good things. I am curious what methods the other teachers of young students show ways of critical judgements.
ReplyDeleteIn order to assess students’ judgment, I often give my students the opportunity to identify assumptions implicit in the information they come across. For example, whenever my students write an open ended response, I ask them to be very specific when providing examples and details. They must note the following within their open ended response: page number, paragraph where information was found, and/or line number where applicable. That way, they are not just making assumptions based solely on their opinion of the text, but they are providing solid facts and examples that support those assumptions. Being able to cite a text is one of the requirements of the Common Core, and I think it is indeed an important skill that students need to learn.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, when analyzing character traits, or the theme of a story, students are required to cite text evidence that support their assumptions about the characters or the story. For example, if students make a statement or an assumption about a character in the story, I often ask them, “where does it say that?” or “how can you tell?” I then let them have the opportunity to search for specific information that is text based. Assessing students’ judgment this way is also effective in other academic areas as well. In math, students sometimes make assumption about how they are supposed to arrive at a solution. In this case, instead of asking them where they found the information, I tell them to “prove it.” This way, students are encouraged to find information from the source rather than just making vague assumptions.
Repost: I agree with the previous posts. During the year, I assign a research paper for students to work on. While the students have the opportunity to pick out books from the library, the students need to assess their website sources for validity. To test a student's judgment I will often play devil's advocate and show them to a certain site like wikipedia. The student will then need to explain to me why certain sites can or cannot be trusted.
ReplyDeleteAside from evaluating the validity of their sources, like Kelly mentioned, I have the students cite their sources to backup any points made in their paper.
Considering I teach kindergarten, my students may making their critical judgments on a different level. For instance, and I hope this is answering the question correctly, my students have to read six books throughout the year in kindergarten and their assessments go up to the superintendent’s office for evaluation. I read the book to my students during circle time and we discussed it in whole group. The students have to draw me a picture about the story. They are making their own judgments about the way the picture should look after watching me flip the pages with all the colorful pictures. They will then have to finish a sentence that I begin for them. They will complete the sentence with what they feel the answer may be on their own. This may sound easy, but for kindergartens this is a difficult task. We are now reading a story called “Pie in the Sky” and the children had to pick their favorite pie and draw a picture of them eating it. Now, they had to think to themselves, I should draw a picture of a table with chairs, etc. We want to evaluate their reading comprehension also.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, another way my students may make critical judgments will be when they are put into groups during their workshop times. I give them activities that are normally “out of the box” and see how they do. For example, my higher level students may make their own game up with being given just a file folder and materials. One particular group made up a game with my bottle top letters and practiced writing out their high frequency words. They did an awesome job. I try to encourage my students to be creative with their work even just in their “fun notebook”. Each child has a notebook they can work on during their free time. They are encouraged to write their letters and numbers. Some of the students are writing words now, its great to see what they think they can do. They love running to me and saying: “Look, what I wrote”. Then, its important to see if they recognize what they wrote on their own.