May 7, 2025 • 39 mins
Gaslight
Defining Dynamic Assessment
Examples from Language Teaching
Formative Assessment in the Classroom
How are we responsive in our assessments?
Dynamic Assessment
Girlboss
Successfully and Accountably Collecting Assessment Data
Taking Advantage of Opportunities to Learn
Opening Assessment Conversations Via Reflections
Baking Reflection Into Every Assessment
References
ACTFL OPI
Dylan Wiliam’s Embedded Formative Assessment
STAMP Test
AnneMarie Chase’s Magic Cards
Class Dojo
Text us about how you’ve Gaslit, or Girlbossed your language classroom.
Email us at info@slayyypod.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
bill (00:00):
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of SLA Second
Language Acquisition foreveryone.
We got Ryan back this week.
Yay.
FishRod (00:11):
We miss a do.
bill (00:11):
and yeah, miss Brian Sach, we're really glad to have you
back.
And this week we are going tochange things up a little bit.
We are going to start withGatekeep and unlock a new
definition maybe for you.
So in one of my classesrecently, I had to.
(00:34):
Incorporate a new assessmentstrategy into a lesson plan.
And I stumbled upon this termdynamic assessment, which once I
give you the definition of itthink you'll see that this is
something that we kind ofalready do quite a bit.
But now you have a name for it.
(00:55):
So the.
The definition comes from a 2012article from Ani and a body and
di dynamic assessment of L twolearner sociocognitive
development via Web 2.0.
Not gonna go into, into thearticle, but it had a good
definition of what dynamicassessment is.
(01:17):
So.
Wanted to use this definitionhere and then just kind of want
to talk about how we see this inthe classroom, how we've done
things similar to dynamicassessment, if not exactly like
dynamic assessment, those thingshave gone well and how how we
(01:38):
girl, boss So to start off,here's the definition, and mind
you, this is from 2012.
So when they say new, not thatnew.
Dynamic assessment is a newapproach to assessment, is based
on dynamic interaction betweenthe examiner and the examinee in
which the examiner mediates theexaminee with support in the
(02:00):
form of leading questions andprompts.
It is the examinee'sresponsiveness to mediation that
provides an indication of theirlikely future development.
Long 2007 Sternberg and.
KO 2002 point out that a centraltenet of dynamic assessment
approach is that it considersabilities to be malleable and
(02:23):
flexible rather than fixed.
The qualitatively orienteddynamic assessment, addresses
learners' problems in a highlyflexible way through
individualized mediation.
So past all of the academicjargony stuff what do we take
from that?
I.
FishRod (02:43):
We were talking a little bit pre-recording about
how this reminds us of the actfull OPI and the format that
that takes where the examiner islistening to the responses that
are given at the beginning ofthe exam in order to formulate
questions at the right level, atthe right at the right content
geared to elicit certain samplesof language from the examinee.
(03:06):
And this is really to kind ofput them so they can put their
best foot forward.
But also responsive to, youknow, if they answer it a
question at a certain level,that then the examiner can push
to the next level and ask aquestion that would elicit a
more advanced sample of languageor a superior sample of
language, et cetera.
And this also just mirrors kindof what we do.
(03:28):
I think what we do when we dowhole class language teaching
and whole class conversation isthat we are trying to be
responsive to the students infront of us.
And that we have a lot of toolsat our disposal to make language
comprehensible, but also tosupport interaction and to give
us material for furtherconversation as well.
Bryan (03:48):
And it's one of those things that really just seems
like, well, this is just goodteaching.
Because
FishRod (03:53):
I.
Bryan (03:53):
you know, if you ask a question and students are not
able to answer it, and then youjust move on to another question
that's at the same level, I.
I mean, you're not really usingthe information that you got
from the first question toadvance the student's learning,
which is the whole point ofassessment.
So it's kind of like to me, likeif you are not doing dynamic
assessment, I wonder what.
(04:13):
you're redoing
FishRod (04:14):
Mm-hmm.
Bryan (04:14):
your formative assessments in terms of like
questioning in class and thingslike that?
It's easier I think in a lot ofways to envision it in terms of
formative assessments andinformal assessments rather
than, you know, something doneat the end of a unit or that
needs to be, you know, recordedin a grade book or something
like that.
Which I suppose there must besome way to do that given, you
(04:35):
know, we have a formalizedassessment such as the OPI that.
And employs that methodology,but I would say probably most
teachers aren't.
If you are, let us know.
I know that I'm not, but yeah,it's just another way to think
about like, yeah, how are weusing the information that we're
gaining from our assessments andto the best benefit of our
students.
FishRod (04:56):
It reminds me also of the, and this is a, a, a, hold
on, maybe see if I can find itreally quickly.
Maybe I can just paraphrase.
I'm gonna give a, I'm gonnaparaphrase the definition of
formative assessment that I gotfrom Dylan, William which is
just activities that weundertake in the class that
provide us evidence that willhelp us.
(05:16):
Make a better informed decisionof what to do next.
So we want, you know, either weare confirmed that we're on the
right course and we can continueon with the learning, with the
conversation, or that we receiveinformation that our students
are not ready for where we are.
I.
Trying to push for right now andneed to backpedal, reteach make
some connections more explicitdo some, you know, do some
(05:39):
further activities to deepen thelearning before pushing the
students to that next spot.
But so anything that gives usthat information to make a
better informed decision.
And it sounds like, based on thedefinition that you read to us,
bill that dynamic assessment isresponsive in this way.
But perhaps in a more liveactive setting.
Question mark.
bill (06:00):
Yeah.
I, I definitely think, yeah,it's, it's responsive as well.
And like we, that came to mindwith when you're talking about
OPI well.
So like I've mentioned before,I've done stamp at school and,
the reading and the listeningportions of those proficiency
(06:20):
tests are, responsive in that.
Okay.
As you continue to get questionscorrect at a certain reading
level or a certain listeninglevel you keep getting
questions.
If you're answering, I don'tknow, like the, how the test
actually works on the back endor anything, but say you get
(06:40):
like five questions at novicelow and you answer all of them
correct.
Then they're gonna start askingyou novice mid questions.
But if out of five, maybe youmiss one, they'll still push you
up to the next level until you,until you no longer are
answering consistently at acertain level.
And that's kind of how I'mthinking of about this as well.
(07:01):
in this assignment that I made,I actually put it into a rubric,
which I don't think I wouldsuggest.
It was just like, for thepurposes of that assignment that
I did, I needed to have, likehow I was going to, or how, how
I or the students were going toevaluate their work or their
completion of a task.
(07:23):
So, started thinking about it,like what would this ad if it
were on a rubric somewhere likebut I don't think I would ever,
ever, ever put a numerical gradeon it.
Like if on one end of thisspectrum of dynamic assessment
it.
students can do thingscompletely independently and on
(07:47):
the other end, or like towardsthe center is something like
student like teacher gave promptto remind student of a word, or
teacher like circum located tohelp the student understand
something like that.
FishRod (08:04):
Provided the TPR gesture maybe.
bill (08:06):
used a TPR gesture.
I know that I often start tojust like say the letter, like
the first letter of the word,like,'cause I'm like, oh, I know
you know this.
Like, I, like I know that you'veprocessed this a lot, this word
a lot.
I know that you know how to saythis.
And so I'll just start with likethe first sound of, of the word
(08:27):
and.
A lot of times not all the time,but students will get the rest
of it.
Like, yeah, see, like to was inthere, like you just needed to
pull it out little bit.
So they weren't able to do thatyet completely on their own,
like complete the sentence thatthey were trying to write or say
whatever they were trying tosay.
(08:47):
but they weren't able to do itcompletely independently.
they had all of the stuff intheir head already.
So really I was just kind ofeliciting what they already know
rather than let them just likeask straight out like, I don't
know how to say this word and Idon't think I know it, and I
give up.
I think it could be like aself-assessment well, maybe
(09:08):
like, which I think we've seenthose before.
Like, I can do this on my own, Ican do this with some help.
Like we've seen those kind ofself-assessments before.
But this is kind of putting iton teacher observation rather of
student progression rather thanputting it on students.
You know, we're our own worstcritics, right?
So like, I might think I can'tdo something yet, but the
(09:30):
teacher might be confident thatI know how to do it.
So like, how are they, what?
How are they determining thelevel of support they think I
need?
Are they just gonna give it tome or do I actually already the
thing?
I just need a little bit ofhelp.
So, yeah.
Students are always harder onthemselves on self-assessments
(09:50):
than I am.
cause I see what they do.
They just see more they coulddo.
Bryan (09:57):
I find that students, my students, because for some
reason, even though I tell themthis is not where your grade is
coming from, they still thinkthat somehow that is.
Where their grade is comingfrom.
So they give themselves topmarks on every category, even if
it literally says like, youknow, very simple language,
like, you need to provideevidence of X, Y,
bill (10:16):
Show me the receipts.
Bryan (10:17):
can't do it.
And so, yeah.
Which I have that problem
bill (10:21):
Yeah they're learning.
just, they're just youngins
Bryan (10:24):
Mm-hmm.
bill (10:25):
still learning that confidence.
Bryan (10:26):
And it just makes me think too like we just did our
state testing and I think thestate tests are now di or
bill (10:32):
Mm-hmm.
Bryan (10:32):
I'm not sure if dynamic is the right word for it, but
like, you know, based on howmany questions you get correct,
or what kinds of questions youanswer correctly, they ask you
more difficult questions.
And actually when I back, backin the day when I designed our
placement test.
For world language which is aGoogle form with reading and
listening questions.
It's kind of like that, youknow, it's like the more you can
(10:53):
do, the more questions you getserved and then the higher level
that places you.
So I kind of think in terms oflike formal assessment it makes
sense for more proficiencyassessment rather than
performance because it's like,well, I mean, the point of a
proficiency assessment is to seewhat you're able to do
independently
bill (11:09):
Right.
Bryan (11:10):
curriculum and whatever.
So it's like.
That's an important measure forthat kind of thing.
bill (11:14):
And you just saying that kind of reminded me or kind of
pointed out to me like.
But that's kind of where theproficiency performance
distinction is kind of lying.
Like how much, how familiar areyou with the topic?
cause it's something that we'vebeen doing in class performance
versus either Kenya still dothis when, from back whenever
(11:37):
you learned it, or can you adaptand.
Use what you already know in anew situation.
So, hmm.
Hmm.
Have to think about that more.
Yeah.
I don't know where else I wasgoing next.
Oh.
so I do have a request from thecommunity.
I.
If anyone uses Canvas and hasplayed around with Mastery Paths
(12:01):
at all, I think could besomething where like, or at
least this idea of dynamicassessment got me thinking about
mastery paths.
'cause I think understanding isyou set up these different
assignments and when students.
Achieve whatever this otherassignment gets unlocked.
(12:21):
'cause that's where they shouldgo next.
But if they score less, then itgoes back to like a remediation.
And I've liked the idea of it,but it seemed like so much work
to like try to set that up.
cause hate having to make theassignments all the time on, on.
The Internet's computer websthings I'm just like, Hey, this
(12:45):
is what we're doing.
And then I the assignment andput points on it.
But,
Bryan (12:52):
Yeah.
bill (12:52):
don't build the stuff on the assignment or like,'cause
we're doing everything else onpaper.
You would just have to haveeverything already printed.
Bryan (12:58):
Yeah, I mean, it actually sounds like something that I did
bill (13:01):
Yeah,
Bryan (13:02):
again, back in the day when I used Classcraft which
unfortunately no
bill (13:06):
I just, I haven't heard that in,
Bryan (13:08):
to.
bill (13:08):
that in a while.
Bryan (13:09):
so in the, it started out as.
In the vein of like ClassDojo oflike a classroom management PBIS
kind of system where you're ableto award points for good
behavior, whatever.
But then they like timed it intolike assignments.
And so basically they had thisfeature called quests.
And so the whole thing aboutclasscraft is like, it's kind of
like a fantasy setting.
(13:30):
Like, oh, you're on an adventureof learning and you got your
team, which is your classmates,you know the table group that
you're with, and like one of youhas these whatever.
And so it's like the quests werelike.
of playing into the storytellingaspect of that, but like, kind
of, I'm not sure how to putthis, but like, making the
assignments seem like anadventure.
So it's like in order to, youknow, progress in the story, you
(13:53):
need
bill (13:53):
Conjugate all these verbs.
Bryan (13:55):
and, or, or whatever the assignment is.
And so like a feature of it wasthat if like as the feature of
the like marker of the quest orlike the point.
Tech point, whatever.
It's like if they pass it, thenthey can move on to this
objective.
Or if they don't, they, they canbe forced back to do a remedial
kind of assessment or whatever.
(14:16):
And so I, I have used it forthings that were on paper and
also things that were fullyonline and it was really great
actually.
And I kind of, now that I'mthinking about it, I'm like,
man, that was fun and I wishthey still had that, but it
doesn't make us anymore.
But it also was a lot of work.
I'm not gonna lie, so.
FishRod (14:32):
That's what I'm thinking and like we a little
bit pre-recording, we're talkingabout.
Systems to kind of keep track ofwhat sorts of supports are we
giving to students in theirlanguage use?
And we want to be aware of thosethings so that we can gradually
take apart those scaffolds and,you know, watch our students
flourish more independently.
But that like, kind of likeBrian said.
(14:52):
Crass cra crass class craftsounds like that you could make
a whole world outta that.
You could make a whole, youknow, class moment out of that.
And I can imagine the timeinvestment it took to get set up
and then to maintain and then torevisit with every class and
kind of learn the languageassociated with it.
And,
bill (15:10):
Mm-hmm.
FishRod (15:12):
They, I was telling Bill and Brian before we
recorded that I have usedAnne-Marie Chase's system of
Magic cards before which is notMagic the Gathering.
However, it is also magical.
Basically, she keeps an indexcard for each student in her
class with their name on it, andshe uses it as a way of
randomization for calling onstudents.
(15:33):
So to try to, you know, in thevein of equity sticks or
whatever.
You know, title, you've giventhem wherever you are.
So pulling kids at random soyou're not always calling on the
same kids.
It also helps with cold callingif you are doing that.
And then she records the qualityof the student's response
directly onto the card so thatshe has essentially a marker of
(15:54):
their performance in classrelative to what has been going
on in class.
So the learning material, so youcould do this different ways.
You could mark down, you know,like, oh, a plus is for if they
answer in more than onesentence, and like a check is if
they answer in a sentence, aminus is if they answer in just
like a word or a phrase, or youcould put a little zero if they
are unable to respond or an x ifthey were just not paying
(16:14):
attention and you had to repeatthe question.
Just as a way to amass lots ofdata on the students as the
quality of their responses,while also, I mean it, again, it
serves the randomization.
Goal as well.
And I have been doing that inprevious years.
Successfully in that it wasuseful to me, and I don't know
that I was always using it asmuch as I would want to, as
consistently as I would want to.
(16:36):
This year I switched to usingClassDojo because I have a
little iPad that I take myattendance on that I can also
use ClassDojo on to assignpoints kind of in a similar way
and do randomization in the sameway and, you know, build groups
really quickly.
And, and it has, its all thoselittle tools essentially built
in.
And I was like, ha ha.
Technology.
But I'm finding that I'm doingless of the magic card sort of
(16:58):
assessment and I have kind ofless of a written down on paper
version of the quality ofunsupported student responses
because I have been hesitant touse my iPad just'cause I.
Find that I want to look at mystudents more rather than
looking at the iPad, it's likeit's so real that we live in a
(17:19):
world where like if a screen ispresent, like your eyes are
gonna go to the screen.
And I don't wanna fall down likethe toilet of just being on the
iPad the whole time.
My students are like, make funof me, and they call me a sticky
iPad baby.
Like a, a baby that's like givena sticky iPad to like be
diverted in its attention sothat way it doesn't ruin family
dinner or whatever.
(17:39):
And so they just call me stickyiPad baby.
Just as an aside enough aboutme.
But you know, I already, like, Ialready am aware that like our
students have problems withdevices themselves, and my
school has implemented a cellphone policy.
That makes it so that cell phoneuse during class time is like
completely prohibited to thepoint of taking phones away, be
a campus supervisor and like allsorts of stuff.
So like we're being fairlyhardcore with them about screen
(18:03):
time and about being consciousabout it.
And I, I think as a millennialadult am trying to be conscious
of my own screen time as well.
So all that to say is that Ihave this useful tool.
Like I essentially moved thepaper thing digital.
And then I'm just not using itanymore.
'cause I don't want to because Ijust don't, I wanna be looking
at my students and make adecision in the moment who I
(18:23):
want to ask the questions to.
So I'm, I'm reflecting that Ienjoyed that system for the
randomization aspect and for thelots of.
Semi quantitative qualitativedata that I was taking on
student responses.
I kind of had, you know, like,oh, this con student is pretty
consistently responding withjust words in class.
I wonder if there's a way topush them.
Or at least, you know, most ofmy students are responding in
(18:44):
sentences.
How can I get them to elaboratea little bit more?
I missed that aspect of it.
And so I'm reflecting now thatlike, in order to be perhaps
more dynamic in my assessment Ineed to have a quick at a glance
like.
Of where the students are inthese like spontaneous
conversations that I can thenuse as kind of the springboard
for what comes next.
bill (19:03):
Yeah.
And, and for me, like recent, Ithink I mentioned this before,
like one of our values at schoolis intellectual engagement.
And like if I, I don't know, I'mstarting to be at with like.
Grad school stuff.
I'm becoming more and more dataminded, I suppose.
And I want to have, like if I'mgoing to, if I'm gonna make a
(19:24):
claim that they're not engagingintellectually, like, here's
here, here you are.
Like so I don't know.
I feel like I have to supportevery single thing, every single
decision.
I'm gonna cut this out.
That was a personal, personalthing.
But think it would be nice tohave.
At least said at a glance, likenot that it's their grade, but
(19:44):
like, are they doing what theyneed to, to get the most out of
class?
and, you know, participationlooks different for different
people.
And I'm not necessarily talkingabout participation I'm talking
about like like are they.
Jotting things down when they'vegot ideas.
Even if they don't wanna speak'em out.
Are they trying to, when I asklike to do like a little turn
(20:07):
and talk am I hearing them speaklike off topic in English, which
is also a behavior thing, butlike, are you taking advantage
of every opportunity to succeed.
So that was just an aside.
But like when they are offtopic, they're not taking
advantage of, opportunities topractice revisiting the language
(20:29):
that we've already used in classand that that's gonna have an
impact on performance later.
I.
Bryan (20:36):
Yeah, I, I guess I'm kind of hearing like using.
A system to track studentbehaviors in class, I guess, so
that you can intervene in termsof like, are they on task or are
they, you know, taking advantageof the opportunities you give
them to practice.
bill (20:56):
Yeah.
Bryan (20:57):
But I guess kind of in my mind, I was seeing dynamic
assessment as more of
bill (21:01):
Yeah.
I, I, I lost the,
Bryan (21:03):
they
bill (21:03):
yeah, I lost the, I lost the plot in there.
I went off on a tangent.
Bryan (21:08):
That's okay.
It happens to all of usprobably.
bill (21:10):
yeah, so it is like about the mediation that they need.
FishRod (21:13):
I've been thinking about while you were talking to
about.
That assessment?
I don't know, maybe sometimes Ithink of it as like, and maybe a
lot of this fall into the trapof thinking it as something that
produces a grade essentially,that like, you know, we produce
an evaluation, a score orsomething.
But I think that it also, inorder for it to be most
(21:33):
effective for the student inmoving their learning forward,
also needs to be in conversationwith them.
And so, you know, talking about.
You know, talking about Bill'sthoughts of, you know, are the
students using their time bestfor learning?
Are they applying themselves as,as you know, as much as we hope
that they can?
I think that any assessment thatwe do should also maybe be
(21:55):
partnered with, you know, areflective assessment by the
student of themselves and thentry to square those things next
to each other.
Communicate to the studentssomehow efficiently.
You know, this is what I sawwhile the student is saying, you
know, this is what I saw myselfdo.
And trying to meet in themiddle, so that way we can talk
about, you know, like, Hey,yeah, you are.
You know, I noticed you'reswitching to English in moments
(22:17):
that I would want you to stick,stick in German.
Can you next time, if you areuncertain what to say, can you,
I don't know, raise your hand orsomething or, you know, provide
some sort of out or, you know,rely on your bank of useful
phrases or ask a, you know,unrelated question just to keep
the conversation going.
Something like that.
Because again, like we, we don'twant it to be something that we
just do to students.
(22:38):
We also want them to build theself-awareness and the
self-efficacy to, in thosemoments kind of evaluate.
Like, I'm feeling lost, I'mfeeling stuck, and so what can I
do?
And if they, you know, somestudents just have that bank of
strategies and either just go,oh, well the teacher clearly
doesn't want me chatting inEnglish, so I'm just not gonna
talk.
And then other students arelike.
Oh, I don't know what to do, soI'm just gonna tell my partner I
(23:00):
don't know what to do.
And then whatever happens afterthat is between, you know, us
and God, I guess.
And so, you know, then, thenthings get wild and crazy.
So, yeah, I think that anyassessment activity that we do
as the teachers, if we'reassessing in the interpretive
mode, if we're assessing in theinterpersonal mode, et cetera
need to be paired with some sortof student reflection.
(23:20):
And if you're struggling withhow to find a structure for that
sort of thing, as I.
I was gonna say was, but maybe,certainly always am is like, how
do I provide that structuremyself?
If you wanna make it easier onyourself?
There's a fantastic book calledThe Roadmap to Reflection by
Kimberly CLE Davis and TiffanyDalton Lopez.
That has reflections specific toworld language teaching that
(23:41):
just sentence frames or, youknow, multiple choice things
that the students can fill outas a way to reflect.
And they tie in.
Two, the different skills ofreading and listening and
speaking and writing.
But they can also tie into kindof bigger conversations that we
would want to have with ourstudents.
Goal setting, future you know,like future orientation,
(24:02):
self-efficacy self-confidencepride things that we want
students to build in theirlearning as like language
learners.
But again, we have to open thoseconversations through the
assessment.
Like, this is what you can do.
Which helps hopefully buildtheir identity as a language
learner and language user.
But then also starting to getthem think about where, where
they're going next and you know,take a moment to bask in the
(24:25):
goodness of what they did, but,you know, build that footpath
kind of to the next step.
bill (24:30):
I think we might have someone who's really good at
making sure students havereflections their learning here,
Brian.
Bryan (24:38):
Is that me?
I was gonna say like if you, ifyou go back to the, the Latin
root of the word assessment, itcomes from asari and Latin
teachers don't drag me.
I don't know if I pronouncedthat correctly, but it means to
sit beside.
So as a teacher giving anassessment, it's not really
about.
Generating a number.
It's about, you know, sittingbehind and guiding the student
to learn from the experienceactually.
(25:01):
And so on that note ofreflection, I actually use a lot
of materials from the roadmap toreflection.
I have students.
Write a reflective essay ontheir their language acquisition
experience throughout thesemester at the end of each
semester.
So they have to, you know, lookback at their prior assessments
(25:21):
and other work they've done inclass and follow, you know
answer those reflectionquestions that are not only
about their growth in thelanguage itself, but also like.
Their perseverance and pride andall those fun things that you
mentioned.
And the first time I did that, Iwas so struck by the, like,
quality or I guess the value ofwhat students were being made
(25:45):
to.
Write about and think aboutthat.
I made it like 10% of mystudents' grades.
So 90% comes from actuallanguage performance and 10% is
the reflection that they do and,and, and other things that they
do throughout the semester, likekeeping a journal and things
like that, that I can't get intoit.
And maybe a different episode,but yeah, I thought it was that
important that it needs to belike that's actually what they
(26:06):
do for their final in my classbecause they do IPAs integrated
performance assessments.
To generate that 90%, but likeby the end of the semester it's
like, tired.
They're tired, like we needsomething else to do.
So that's what they do duringthe final period.
And I, it's again, so valuablethat I've kept it and we do it
every year and students arereally used to like going
(26:27):
throughout that, going throughthat process and that they start
thinking about like, oh yeah, Ican keep, I should keep this
because I want to write about itlater.
And.
You know it's been really,really helpful, I think, because
oftentimes, like as teachers whoteach for proficiency and, you
know we, in languageacquisition, we might find that
students are not alwaysmetacognitively aware of the
(26:49):
progress that they're making inour classes.
And by asking them to reflect onthese kinds of questions and
formalize it, you know byturning something into the
teacher, that's a way of kindof.
Having them notice it, like, ohyeah, I have actually made a lot
of progress and you know, here'sthe proof.
bill (27:06):
Love that.
That's great.
FishRod (27:08):
And if, if, if people are listening to this being like
spilled beans, like what sort ofquestions are you asking?
I think even something as simpleas providing like a three
question.
I have like these quarter sheetsthat I can print on demand and
just then just cut them up intofour and then pass'em out to
kids and that they can answerthe questions is like something
I enjoyed about reading,writing, speaking, listening
today, I have noticedimprovement in my reading,
(27:30):
writing, speaking, listeningtoday because.
What, and I wonder if in thefuture I can, whatever it is.
Even just that it kind of helpsbuild the, the pride in what
they've done today.
The kind of like awareness ofimprovement as well.
Again, like sometimes ourclasses can feel like just
talking, which, because it's themeans and the end of language
(27:51):
acquisition, like we are so finewith, but as students who are.
You know, put in a school systemthat emphasizes products and end
grades and things like that, itcan feel disorienting and kind
of, you know, pointless even.
You know, we can give them that,that inner sense of momentum
that helps hopefully make them,you know, lifelong language
learners and kind of gives themthe sense that like every little
(28:11):
bit that you do counts forsomething.
It counts for your acquisition,it counts for your future
ability to use the language.
And so even those threequestions, you can apply them to
kind of any.
Any mode you like and that thatcan do a lot to build that, that
internal momentum and start thatconversation with you as the
instructor about, yeah.
I have noticed that you're usingmore full sentences class.
(28:34):
I have noticed that you're doingbetter to tune out distractions.
I have noticed that, you know,those sorts of things can be
good moments of affirmation andconfirmation between the teacher
and the learner.
bill (28:43):
And I think that's kinda like another thing that I was
thinking about with Dynamic,dynamic Assessment is that it's
ongoing, like nonstop.
it doesn't have to be like, itcan, like in the context, in the
definition, it was about like anassessment, but like if we were.
Always informally assessing ourstudents you know, whether it's
(29:05):
with like Annmarie Chase's cardmagic cards, or if it's on a
clipboard that you keep, I thinkone of my, like big takeaways is
like, me, I think it would bebeneficial to have some sort of
running tab of like.
This is where students are like,like you said, like have some,
(29:26):
have little symbols like plusbecause they answered in a full
sentence or Just like that givesme something to look at and be
even more specific with myfeedback when it comes time to
Feedback on an assessment orsomething.
Like if I say, Hey, I noticedthat in your speaking
(29:47):
assessment, you did this, this,and this.
I'm noticing in class this,this, and this.
So let's try to like build thatpart, build up the not formal
assessment interactions.
To see if that'll help out onthe to see if that'll help out
(30:08):
on the formal assessment, likesome comments that I've given
before and include things likeI, like I see you, you to talk,
for example, wanted to talkabout what time someone woke up
and whatever it is.
And we talk about this all thetime on like during weekend
(30:29):
chat.
Like what time did you wake upthis morning?
Oh, he woke up at this time.
She they woke up at this time.
so that is a place where youcould like really lean into like
pick up that phrase, thatvocabulary.
So it's just like, which I guessthat's more on me too, but like.
Because I lead that discussion.
(30:49):
but also just these are thethings I'm, no, like, these are
the things that maybe you couldpay more attention to, but that,
yeah, I'm getting back to justlike regular assessment, or
regular like ideas ofassessment.
Like, this is what you did, thisis what you can do to improve.
So.
(31:10):
I don't know.
Now I've, I've circled back onmyself.
I think
Bryan (31:14):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think these are all good things
to think about.
bill (31:18):
Just helps me be more reflective, I guess.
Bryan (31:20):
guess.
Yeah.
Like really what I would say tothose listening, like if you're
wondering like what to take awayfrom this, just like think about
like what are you using yourinteractions and assessments of
students for, like, are youdoing anything with that?
And you know, can you think ofways that you can use the
(31:41):
information you're gaining topush students further?
And I again, like, I feel thatthis is something that like.
Good teachers just intuitivelydo.
But like we, it does help to beable to describe, you know,
those things that, you know,what good teaching looks like.
bill (31:57):
And to just be,
Bryan (31:59):
I
bill (31:59):
Conscious of the reflection that we're doing.
'cause I think if, you said,like we, we do do this all the
time, like.
That's why this topic wasinteresting to me because I'm
like, oh, this is something thatI do and I have like some words
to describe it now.
And now that I can like talkabout like the whole process, I
(32:20):
can leverage it better becauseI'm understanding what's going
on in real time and.
I can be like, oh, yep.
Like that's a piece that's somedata to inform my teaching now.
And then, and the one more thingthat I wanted to kind of like, I
don't know, toss around the ideaof dynamic assessment being
(32:43):
qualitative rather thanquantitative.
So it's about like observation,not just like a number of.
Like number Correct.
On a test or something, which Ithink, you know, our use of
proficiency rubrics orproficiency inspired rubrics,
kind of already does.
Like we are forced to put.
(33:05):
Qualitative information on, youknow,'cause like language
doesn't have just right andwrong answers unless it is like
just a fill in the blank a vocabquiz or something like that.
There's no right or wronganswers.
And I mean, I see that being astruggle for students as well,
like someone who might, theymight perceive as.
(33:25):
Doing worse in class because howwhen they speak up, they make
mistakes.
when it comes time to perform,it's not about how often you
are, right?
It's not, or it's not about howoften you have spoken, quote
unquote correctly.
There are a bunch of otherthings that go into play with
(33:47):
it.
So like.
If you've got a huge amount ofvocabulary and you're like using
really descriptive language, butyou've got some subject verb
agreement issues, and I see aperfect perfectly written
sentence, but it doesn't havevery.
(34:09):
Like, I don't know, specificvocabulary to what we're talking
about or whatever, like, youknow, those, not to say they
even out, but like there's somany things that go into
assessing language more thanjust right and wrong.
And able to show that is really.
It's and it's hard for studentsto understand.
(34:31):
I, I mean, like, I know you dida great job with you, like, you
know, did your whole study ongetting students to understand
your so like we know what'spossible.
I just need to go re-listen.
Bryan (34:43):
Yeah.
And I think like.
I actually do bake inreflections to all of my
assessments as well.
Like after, like all my studentsknow, like after they do a
writing, after they do speaking,they have to, they have to do a
reflection.
It's like part of it.
And so I find that like, reallythat's where the sweet spot is
for pushing them because youknow, like for example, like I
(35:04):
have like a self-assessmentrubric that they can use and
like.
Like a, a sheet that likedescribes different levels of
performance just broadly inwhatever mode we're focusing on.
And students can look at thatand kind of identify where they
currently are and like see justclearly like what the next steps
are for them.
And like, again, they have tojustify where they're at.
(35:26):
And so making them think aboutthat over and over again, I
find.
Has been a lot more helpful thanjust like handing back a number
and like they look at it andthrow it in the
bill (35:34):
Yeah.
Ben, you got any final thoughts?
FishRod (35:38):
No, but I think I dunno, it, it, this conversation
just reminds me to, I.
Build in that sort ofmetacognitive awareness of how a
language acquisition works,again, because it is so unusual
compared to a subject matter.
And that can be just throughthese little reflections.
bill (35:53):
Mm-hmm.
FishRod (35:54):
that we throw at students on the regular to keep
them accountable also tothemselves and to, you know, to
help reinforce the habits oflanguage learning that we, we
know they need.
They need to be payingattention, they need to be
responding to questions, theyneed to be looking at the things
that we're doing to supportvisually.
And hopefully that these, youknow, can increase this sort of
self-regulatory behavior.
(36:14):
And kind of the awareness that.
Yeah, I dunno.
Sometimes kids just need to knowthat they're doing it right.
Like, like, yes, you are, youare increasing your language
skill today because we had aconversation about this.
And that will help increase yourlanguage skill.
So this has kind of been just,you know, another, another
reminder for me to stay, staylooking at my students, you
know, not at the iPad.
And ask them questionsafterwards about how it went and
(36:37):
what their experience was sothat we can keep growing
together.
bill (36:41):
Yeah.
Bryan (36:42):
So something I've been kind of toying with that you
just made me think of it ratherthan necessarily I.
Including like, you know, somekind of quantitative measure of
like how much mediation astudent needed to perform a a
task.
I've thought about the idea ofsomehow including like just the,
how much a student has grown interms of like paying attention
(37:06):
to their own reflections thatthey're making from one unit to
the next.
Like, have they.
Like, okay, they made theobservation.
Have they applied it?
You know, have they donesomething to improve because
like every student has room toimprove and, you know you might
have had the experience ofhaving a heritage speaker or
someone who's, you know, gone toimmersion school, you know, has
some kind of advanced level overeveryone else in your room.
(37:29):
And they may meet all of yourtargets for the course quite
easily, but that doesn't meanthey don't have room to grow.
And so I've been thinking oflike.
Could there be a way toincorporate that somehow into a
grade?
You know, it's like I have mystandards, I know what they
want, what I want them to do,and they know what they need to
do.
could there be a small partthat's like, have you grown?
You know, like I, I don't know.
(37:50):
It's kind of interesting tothink about and I haven't quite
figured out how to do it, but.
bill (37:54):
Yeah, it's a tough one.
Well next week or next episodewill be our.
20th episode.
And after that we're gonna go onsummer break.
But for next episode we're justgonna do summer reflection of
our own.
talk about how we've gaslit gatekept and girl bust this, this
(38:19):
school year, this past.
Double digits worth of podcastepisodes.
We would love to hear from youon how you have gaslit, gatekeep
and girl bossed this year inyour language classroom as well,
so you can email that toinfo@slaypod.com.
Bye.
FishRod (38:38):
Hi.
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of SLA Second
Language Acquisition foreveryone.
We got Ryan back this week.
Yay.
FishRod (00:11):
We miss a do.
bill (00:11):
and yeah, miss Brian Sach, we're really glad to have you
back.
And this week we are going tochange things up a little bit.
We are going to start withGatekeep and unlock a new
definition maybe for you.
So in one of my classesrecently, I had to.
(00:34):
Incorporate a new assessmentstrategy into a lesson plan.
And I stumbled upon this termdynamic assessment, which once I
give you the definition of itthink you'll see that this is
something that we kind ofalready do quite a bit.
But now you have a name for it.
(00:55):
So the.
The definition comes from a 2012article from Ani and a body and
di dynamic assessment of L twolearner sociocognitive
development via Web 2.0.
Not gonna go into, into thearticle, but it had a good
definition of what dynamicassessment is.
(01:17):
So.
Wanted to use this definitionhere and then just kind of want
to talk about how we see this inthe classroom, how we've done
things similar to dynamicassessment, if not exactly like
dynamic assessment, those thingshave gone well and how how we
(01:38):
girl, boss So to start off,here's the definition, and mind
you, this is from 2012.
So when they say new, not thatnew.
Dynamic assessment is a newapproach to assessment, is based
on dynamic interaction betweenthe examiner and the examinee in
which the examiner mediates theexaminee with support in the
(02:00):
form of leading questions andprompts.
It is the examinee'sresponsiveness to mediation that
provides an indication of theirlikely future development.
Long 2007 Sternberg and.
KO 2002 point out that a centraltenet of dynamic assessment
approach is that it considersabilities to be malleable and
(02:23):
flexible rather than fixed.
The qualitatively orienteddynamic assessment, addresses
learners' problems in a highlyflexible way through
individualized mediation.
So past all of the academicjargony stuff what do we take
from that?
I.
FishRod (02:43):
We were talking a little bit pre-recording about
how this reminds us of the actfull OPI and the format that
that takes where the examiner islistening to the responses that
are given at the beginning ofthe exam in order to formulate
questions at the right level, atthe right at the right content
geared to elicit certain samplesof language from the examinee.
(03:06):
And this is really to kind ofput them so they can put their
best foot forward.
But also responsive to, youknow, if they answer it a
question at a certain level,that then the examiner can push
to the next level and ask aquestion that would elicit a
more advanced sample of languageor a superior sample of
language, et cetera.
And this also just mirrors kindof what we do.
(03:28):
I think what we do when we dowhole class language teaching
and whole class conversation isthat we are trying to be
responsive to the students infront of us.
And that we have a lot of toolsat our disposal to make language
comprehensible, but also tosupport interaction and to give
us material for furtherconversation as well.
Bryan (03:48):
And it's one of those things that really just seems
like, well, this is just goodteaching.
Because
FishRod (03:53):
I.
Bryan (03:53):
you know, if you ask a question and students are not
able to answer it, and then youjust move on to another question
that's at the same level, I.
I mean, you're not really usingthe information that you got
from the first question toadvance the student's learning,
which is the whole point ofassessment.
So it's kind of like to me, likeif you are not doing dynamic
assessment, I wonder what.
(04:13):
you're redoing
FishRod (04:14):
Mm-hmm.
Bryan (04:14):
your formative assessments in terms of like
questioning in class and thingslike that?
It's easier I think in a lot ofways to envision it in terms of
formative assessments andinformal assessments rather
than, you know, something doneat the end of a unit or that
needs to be, you know, recordedin a grade book or something
like that.
Which I suppose there must besome way to do that given, you
(04:35):
know, we have a formalizedassessment such as the OPI that.
And employs that methodology,but I would say probably most
teachers aren't.
If you are, let us know.
I know that I'm not, but yeah,it's just another way to think
about like, yeah, how are weusing the information that we're
gaining from our assessments andto the best benefit of our
students.
FishRod (04:56):
It reminds me also of the, and this is a, a, a, hold
on, maybe see if I can find itreally quickly.
Maybe I can just paraphrase.
I'm gonna give a, I'm gonnaparaphrase the definition of
formative assessment that I gotfrom Dylan, William which is
just activities that weundertake in the class that
provide us evidence that willhelp us.
(05:16):
Make a better informed decisionof what to do next.
So we want, you know, either weare confirmed that we're on the
right course and we can continueon with the learning, with the
conversation, or that we receiveinformation that our students
are not ready for where we are.
I.
Trying to push for right now andneed to backpedal, reteach make
some connections more explicitdo some, you know, do some
(05:39):
further activities to deepen thelearning before pushing the
students to that next spot.
But so anything that gives usthat information to make a
better informed decision.
And it sounds like, based on thedefinition that you read to us,
bill that dynamic assessment isresponsive in this way.
But perhaps in a more liveactive setting.
Question mark.
bill (06:00):
Yeah.
I, I definitely think, yeah,it's, it's responsive as well.
And like we, that came to mindwith when you're talking about
OPI well.
So like I've mentioned before,I've done stamp at school and,
the reading and the listeningportions of those proficiency
(06:20):
tests are, responsive in that.
Okay.
As you continue to get questionscorrect at a certain reading
level or a certain listeninglevel you keep getting
questions.
If you're answering, I don'tknow, like the, how the test
actually works on the back endor anything, but say you get
(06:40):
like five questions at novicelow and you answer all of them
correct.
Then they're gonna start askingyou novice mid questions.
But if out of five, maybe youmiss one, they'll still push you
up to the next level until you,until you no longer are
answering consistently at acertain level.
And that's kind of how I'mthinking of about this as well.
(07:01):
in this assignment that I made,I actually put it into a rubric,
which I don't think I wouldsuggest.
It was just like, for thepurposes of that assignment that
I did, I needed to have, likehow I was going to, or how, how
I or the students were going toevaluate their work or their
completion of a task.
(07:23):
So, started thinking about it,like what would this ad if it
were on a rubric somewhere likebut I don't think I would ever,
ever, ever put a numerical gradeon it.
Like if on one end of thisspectrum of dynamic assessment
it.
students can do thingscompletely independently and on
(07:47):
the other end, or like towardsthe center is something like
student like teacher gave promptto remind student of a word, or
teacher like circum located tohelp the student understand
something like that.
FishRod (08:04):
Provided the TPR gesture maybe.
bill (08:06):
used a TPR gesture.
I know that I often start tojust like say the letter, like
the first letter of the word,like,'cause I'm like, oh, I know
you know this.
Like, I, like I know that you'veprocessed this a lot, this word
a lot.
I know that you know how to saythis.
And so I'll just start with likethe first sound of, of the word
(08:27):
and.
A lot of times not all the time,but students will get the rest
of it.
Like, yeah, see, like to was inthere, like you just needed to
pull it out little bit.
So they weren't able to do thatyet completely on their own,
like complete the sentence thatthey were trying to write or say
whatever they were trying tosay.
(08:47):
but they weren't able to do itcompletely independently.
they had all of the stuff intheir head already.
So really I was just kind ofeliciting what they already know
rather than let them just likeask straight out like, I don't
know how to say this word and Idon't think I know it, and I
give up.
I think it could be like aself-assessment well, maybe
(09:08):
like, which I think we've seenthose before.
Like, I can do this on my own, Ican do this with some help.
Like we've seen those kind ofself-assessments before.
But this is kind of putting iton teacher observation rather of
student progression rather thanputting it on students.
You know, we're our own worstcritics, right?
So like, I might think I can'tdo something yet, but the
(09:30):
teacher might be confident thatI know how to do it.
So like, how are they, what?
How are they determining thelevel of support they think I
need?
Are they just gonna give it tome or do I actually already the
thing?
I just need a little bit ofhelp.
So, yeah.
Students are always harder onthemselves on self-assessments
(09:50):
than I am.
cause I see what they do.
They just see more they coulddo.
Bryan (09:57):
I find that students, my students, because for some
reason, even though I tell themthis is not where your grade is
coming from, they still thinkthat somehow that is.
Where their grade is comingfrom.
So they give themselves topmarks on every category, even if
it literally says like, youknow, very simple language,
like, you need to provideevidence of X, Y,
bill (10:16):
Show me the receipts.
Bryan (10:17):
can't do it.
And so, yeah.
Which I have that problem
bill (10:21):
Yeah they're learning.
just, they're just youngins
Bryan (10:24):
Mm-hmm.
bill (10:25):
still learning that confidence.
Bryan (10:26):
And it just makes me think too like we just did our
state testing and I think thestate tests are now di or
bill (10:32):
Mm-hmm.
Bryan (10:32):
I'm not sure if dynamic is the right word for it, but
like, you know, based on howmany questions you get correct,
or what kinds of questions youanswer correctly, they ask you
more difficult questions.
And actually when I back, backin the day when I designed our
placement test.
For world language which is aGoogle form with reading and
listening questions.
It's kind of like that, youknow, it's like the more you can
(10:53):
do, the more questions you getserved and then the higher level
that places you.
So I kind of think in terms oflike formal assessment it makes
sense for more proficiencyassessment rather than
performance because it's like,well, I mean, the point of a
proficiency assessment is to seewhat you're able to do
independently
bill (11:09):
Right.
Bryan (11:10):
curriculum and whatever.
So it's like.
That's an important measure forthat kind of thing.
bill (11:14):
And you just saying that kind of reminded me or kind of
pointed out to me like.
But that's kind of where theproficiency performance
distinction is kind of lying.
Like how much, how familiar areyou with the topic?
cause it's something that we'vebeen doing in class performance
versus either Kenya still dothis when, from back whenever
(11:37):
you learned it, or can you adaptand.
Use what you already know in anew situation.
So, hmm.
Hmm.
Have to think about that more.
Yeah.
I don't know where else I wasgoing next.
Oh.
so I do have a request from thecommunity.
I.
If anyone uses Canvas and hasplayed around with Mastery Paths
(12:01):
at all, I think could besomething where like, or at
least this idea of dynamicassessment got me thinking about
mastery paths.
'cause I think understanding isyou set up these different
assignments and when students.
Achieve whatever this otherassignment gets unlocked.
(12:21):
'cause that's where they shouldgo next.
But if they score less, then itgoes back to like a remediation.
And I've liked the idea of it,but it seemed like so much work
to like try to set that up.
cause hate having to make theassignments all the time on, on.
The Internet's computer websthings I'm just like, Hey, this
(12:45):
is what we're doing.
And then I the assignment andput points on it.
But,
Bryan (12:52):
Yeah.
bill (12:52):
don't build the stuff on the assignment or like,'cause
we're doing everything else onpaper.
You would just have to haveeverything already printed.
Bryan (12:58):
Yeah, I mean, it actually sounds like something that I did
bill (13:01):
Yeah,
Bryan (13:02):
again, back in the day when I used Classcraft which
unfortunately no
bill (13:06):
I just, I haven't heard that in,
Bryan (13:08):
to.
bill (13:08):
that in a while.
Bryan (13:09):
so in the, it started out as.
In the vein of like ClassDojo oflike a classroom management PBIS
kind of system where you're ableto award points for good
behavior, whatever.
But then they like timed it intolike assignments.
And so basically they had thisfeature called quests.
And so the whole thing aboutclasscraft is like, it's kind of
like a fantasy setting.
(13:30):
Like, oh, you're on an adventureof learning and you got your
team, which is your classmates,you know the table group that
you're with, and like one of youhas these whatever.
And so it's like the quests werelike.
of playing into the storytellingaspect of that, but like, kind
of, I'm not sure how to putthis, but like, making the
assignments seem like anadventure.
So it's like in order to, youknow, progress in the story, you
(13:53):
need
bill (13:53):
Conjugate all these verbs.
Bryan (13:55):
and, or, or whatever the assignment is.
And so like a feature of it wasthat if like as the feature of
the like marker of the quest orlike the point.
Tech point, whatever.
It's like if they pass it, thenthey can move on to this
objective.
Or if they don't, they, they canbe forced back to do a remedial
kind of assessment or whatever.
(14:16):
And so I, I have used it forthings that were on paper and
also things that were fullyonline and it was really great
actually.
And I kind of, now that I'mthinking about it, I'm like,
man, that was fun and I wishthey still had that, but it
doesn't make us anymore.
But it also was a lot of work.
I'm not gonna lie, so.
FishRod (14:32):
That's what I'm thinking and like we a little
bit pre-recording, we're talkingabout.
Systems to kind of keep track ofwhat sorts of supports are we
giving to students in theirlanguage use?
And we want to be aware of thosethings so that we can gradually
take apart those scaffolds and,you know, watch our students
flourish more independently.
But that like, kind of likeBrian said.
(14:52):
Crass cra crass class craftsounds like that you could make
a whole world outta that.
You could make a whole, youknow, class moment out of that.
And I can imagine the timeinvestment it took to get set up
and then to maintain and then torevisit with every class and
kind of learn the languageassociated with it.
And,
bill (15:10):
Mm-hmm.
FishRod (15:12):
They, I was telling Bill and Brian before we
recorded that I have usedAnne-Marie Chase's system of
Magic cards before which is notMagic the Gathering.
However, it is also magical.
Basically, she keeps an indexcard for each student in her
class with their name on it, andshe uses it as a way of
randomization for calling onstudents.
(15:33):
So to try to, you know, in thevein of equity sticks or
whatever.
You know, title, you've giventhem wherever you are.
So pulling kids at random soyou're not always calling on the
same kids.
It also helps with cold callingif you are doing that.
And then she records the qualityof the student's response
directly onto the card so thatshe has essentially a marker of
(15:54):
their performance in classrelative to what has been going
on in class.
So the learning material, so youcould do this different ways.
You could mark down, you know,like, oh, a plus is for if they
answer in more than onesentence, and like a check is if
they answer in a sentence, aminus is if they answer in just
like a word or a phrase, or youcould put a little zero if they
are unable to respond or an x ifthey were just not paying
(16:14):
attention and you had to repeatthe question.
Just as a way to amass lots ofdata on the students as the
quality of their responses,while also, I mean it, again, it
serves the randomization.
Goal as well.
And I have been doing that inprevious years.
Successfully in that it wasuseful to me, and I don't know
that I was always using it asmuch as I would want to, as
consistently as I would want to.
(16:36):
This year I switched to usingClassDojo because I have a
little iPad that I take myattendance on that I can also
use ClassDojo on to assignpoints kind of in a similar way
and do randomization in the sameway and, you know, build groups
really quickly.
And, and it has, its all thoselittle tools essentially built
in.
And I was like, ha ha.
Technology.
But I'm finding that I'm doingless of the magic card sort of
(16:58):
assessment and I have kind ofless of a written down on paper
version of the quality ofunsupported student responses
because I have been hesitant touse my iPad just'cause I.
Find that I want to look at mystudents more rather than
looking at the iPad, it's likeit's so real that we live in a
(17:19):
world where like if a screen ispresent, like your eyes are
gonna go to the screen.
And I don't wanna fall down likethe toilet of just being on the
iPad the whole time.
My students are like, make funof me, and they call me a sticky
iPad baby.
Like a, a baby that's like givena sticky iPad to like be
diverted in its attention sothat way it doesn't ruin family
dinner or whatever.
(17:39):
And so they just call me stickyiPad baby.
Just as an aside enough aboutme.
But you know, I already, like, Ialready am aware that like our
students have problems withdevices themselves, and my
school has implemented a cellphone policy.
That makes it so that cell phoneuse during class time is like
completely prohibited to thepoint of taking phones away, be
a campus supervisor and like allsorts of stuff.
So like we're being fairlyhardcore with them about screen
(18:03):
time and about being consciousabout it.
And I, I think as a millennialadult am trying to be conscious
of my own screen time as well.
So all that to say is that Ihave this useful tool.
Like I essentially moved thepaper thing digital.
And then I'm just not using itanymore.
'cause I don't want to because Ijust don't, I wanna be looking
at my students and make adecision in the moment who I
(18:23):
want to ask the questions to.
So I'm, I'm reflecting that Ienjoyed that system for the
randomization aspect and for thelots of.
Semi quantitative qualitativedata that I was taking on
student responses.
I kind of had, you know, like,oh, this con student is pretty
consistently responding withjust words in class.
I wonder if there's a way topush them.
Or at least, you know, most ofmy students are responding in
(18:44):
sentences.
How can I get them to elaboratea little bit more?
I missed that aspect of it.
And so I'm reflecting now thatlike, in order to be perhaps
more dynamic in my assessment Ineed to have a quick at a glance
like.
Of where the students are inthese like spontaneous
conversations that I can thenuse as kind of the springboard
for what comes next.
bill (19:03):
Yeah.
And, and for me, like recent, Ithink I mentioned this before,
like one of our values at schoolis intellectual engagement.
And like if I, I don't know, I'mstarting to be at with like.
Grad school stuff.
I'm becoming more and more dataminded, I suppose.
And I want to have, like if I'mgoing to, if I'm gonna make a
(19:24):
claim that they're not engagingintellectually, like, here's
here, here you are.
Like so I don't know.
I feel like I have to supportevery single thing, every single
decision.
I'm gonna cut this out.
That was a personal, personalthing.
But think it would be nice tohave.
At least said at a glance, likenot that it's their grade, but
(19:44):
like, are they doing what theyneed to, to get the most out of
class?
and, you know, participationlooks different for different
people.
And I'm not necessarily talkingabout participation I'm talking
about like like are they.
Jotting things down when they'vegot ideas.
Even if they don't wanna speak'em out.
Are they trying to, when I asklike to do like a little turn
(20:07):
and talk am I hearing them speaklike off topic in English, which
is also a behavior thing, butlike, are you taking advantage
of every opportunity to succeed.
So that was just an aside.
But like when they are offtopic, they're not taking
advantage of, opportunities topractice revisiting the language
(20:29):
that we've already used in classand that that's gonna have an
impact on performance later.
I.
Bryan (20:36):
Yeah, I, I guess I'm kind of hearing like using.
A system to track studentbehaviors in class, I guess, so
that you can intervene in termsof like, are they on task or are
they, you know, taking advantageof the opportunities you give
them to practice.
bill (20:56):
Yeah.
Bryan (20:57):
But I guess kind of in my mind, I was seeing dynamic
assessment as more of
bill (21:01):
Yeah.
I, I, I lost the,
Bryan (21:03):
they
bill (21:03):
yeah, I lost the, I lost the plot in there.
I went off on a tangent.
Bryan (21:08):
That's okay.
It happens to all of usprobably.
bill (21:10):
yeah, so it is like about the mediation that they need.
FishRod (21:13):
I've been thinking about while you were talking to
about.
That assessment?
I don't know, maybe sometimes Ithink of it as like, and maybe a
lot of this fall into the trapof thinking it as something that
produces a grade essentially,that like, you know, we produce
an evaluation, a score orsomething.
But I think that it also, inorder for it to be most
(21:33):
effective for the student inmoving their learning forward,
also needs to be in conversationwith them.
And so, you know, talking about.
You know, talking about Bill'sthoughts of, you know, are the
students using their time bestfor learning?
Are they applying themselves as,as you know, as much as we hope
that they can?
I think that any assessment thatwe do should also maybe be
(21:55):
partnered with, you know, areflective assessment by the
student of themselves and thentry to square those things next
to each other.
Communicate to the studentssomehow efficiently.
You know, this is what I sawwhile the student is saying, you
know, this is what I saw myselfdo.
And trying to meet in themiddle, so that way we can talk
about, you know, like, Hey,yeah, you are.
You know, I noticed you'reswitching to English in moments
(22:17):
that I would want you to stick,stick in German.
Can you next time, if you areuncertain what to say, can you,
I don't know, raise your hand orsomething or, you know, provide
some sort of out or, you know,rely on your bank of useful
phrases or ask a, you know,unrelated question just to keep
the conversation going.
Something like that.
Because again, like we, we don'twant it to be something that we
just do to students.
(22:38):
We also want them to build theself-awareness and the
self-efficacy to, in thosemoments kind of evaluate.
Like, I'm feeling lost, I'mfeeling stuck, and so what can I
do?
And if they, you know, somestudents just have that bank of
strategies and either just go,oh, well the teacher clearly
doesn't want me chatting inEnglish, so I'm just not gonna
talk.
And then other students arelike.
Oh, I don't know what to do, soI'm just gonna tell my partner I
(23:00):
don't know what to do.
And then whatever happens afterthat is between, you know, us
and God, I guess.
And so, you know, then, thenthings get wild and crazy.
So, yeah, I think that anyassessment activity that we do
as the teachers, if we'reassessing in the interpretive
mode, if we're assessing in theinterpersonal mode, et cetera
need to be paired with some sortof student reflection.
(23:20):
And if you're struggling withhow to find a structure for that
sort of thing, as I.
I was gonna say was, but maybe,certainly always am is like, how
do I provide that structuremyself?
If you wanna make it easier onyourself?
There's a fantastic book calledThe Roadmap to Reflection by
Kimberly CLE Davis and TiffanyDalton Lopez.
That has reflections specific toworld language teaching that
(23:41):
just sentence frames or, youknow, multiple choice things
that the students can fill outas a way to reflect.
And they tie in.
Two, the different skills ofreading and listening and
speaking and writing.
But they can also tie into kindof bigger conversations that we
would want to have with ourstudents.
Goal setting, future you know,like future orientation,
(24:02):
self-efficacy self-confidencepride things that we want
students to build in theirlearning as like language
learners.
But again, we have to open thoseconversations through the
assessment.
Like, this is what you can do.
Which helps hopefully buildtheir identity as a language
learner and language user.
But then also starting to getthem think about where, where
they're going next and you know,take a moment to bask in the
(24:25):
goodness of what they did, but,you know, build that footpath
kind of to the next step.
bill (24:30):
I think we might have someone who's really good at
making sure students havereflections their learning here,
Brian.
Bryan (24:38):
Is that me?
I was gonna say like if you, ifyou go back to the, the Latin
root of the word assessment, itcomes from asari and Latin
teachers don't drag me.
I don't know if I pronouncedthat correctly, but it means to
sit beside.
So as a teacher giving anassessment, it's not really
about.
Generating a number.
It's about, you know, sittingbehind and guiding the student
to learn from the experienceactually.
(25:01):
And so on that note ofreflection, I actually use a lot
of materials from the roadmap toreflection.
I have students.
Write a reflective essay ontheir their language acquisition
experience throughout thesemester at the end of each
semester.
So they have to, you know, lookback at their prior assessments
(25:21):
and other work they've done inclass and follow, you know
answer those reflectionquestions that are not only
about their growth in thelanguage itself, but also like.
Their perseverance and pride andall those fun things that you
mentioned.
And the first time I did that, Iwas so struck by the, like,
quality or I guess the value ofwhat students were being made
(25:45):
to.
Write about and think aboutthat.
I made it like 10% of mystudents' grades.
So 90% comes from actuallanguage performance and 10% is
the reflection that they do and,and, and other things that they
do throughout the semester, likekeeping a journal and things
like that, that I can't get intoit.
And maybe a different episode,but yeah, I thought it was that
important that it needs to belike that's actually what they
(26:06):
do for their final in my classbecause they do IPAs integrated
performance assessments.
To generate that 90%, but likeby the end of the semester it's
like, tired.
They're tired, like we needsomething else to do.
So that's what they do duringthe final period.
And I, it's again, so valuablethat I've kept it and we do it
every year and students arereally used to like going
(26:27):
throughout that, going throughthat process and that they start
thinking about like, oh yeah, Ican keep, I should keep this
because I want to write about itlater.
And.
You know it's been really,really helpful, I think, because
oftentimes, like as teachers whoteach for proficiency and, you
know we, in languageacquisition, we might find that
students are not alwaysmetacognitively aware of the
(26:49):
progress that they're making inour classes.
And by asking them to reflect onthese kinds of questions and
formalize it, you know byturning something into the
teacher, that's a way of kindof.
Having them notice it, like, ohyeah, I have actually made a lot
of progress and you know, here'sthe proof.
bill (27:06):
Love that.
That's great.
FishRod (27:08):
And if, if, if people are listening to this being like
spilled beans, like what sort ofquestions are you asking?
I think even something as simpleas providing like a three
question.
I have like these quarter sheetsthat I can print on demand and
just then just cut them up intofour and then pass'em out to
kids and that they can answerthe questions is like something
I enjoyed about reading,writing, speaking, listening
today, I have noticedimprovement in my reading,
(27:30):
writing, speaking, listeningtoday because.
What, and I wonder if in thefuture I can, whatever it is.
Even just that it kind of helpsbuild the, the pride in what
they've done today.
The kind of like awareness ofimprovement as well.
Again, like sometimes ourclasses can feel like just
talking, which, because it's themeans and the end of language
(27:51):
acquisition, like we are so finewith, but as students who are.
You know, put in a school systemthat emphasizes products and end
grades and things like that, itcan feel disorienting and kind
of, you know, pointless even.
You know, we can give them that,that inner sense of momentum
that helps hopefully make them,you know, lifelong language
learners and kind of gives themthe sense that like every little
(28:11):
bit that you do counts forsomething.
It counts for your acquisition,it counts for your future
ability to use the language.
And so even those threequestions, you can apply them to
kind of any.
Any mode you like and that thatcan do a lot to build that, that
internal momentum and start thatconversation with you as the
instructor about, yeah.
I have noticed that you're usingmore full sentences class.
(28:34):
I have noticed that you're doingbetter to tune out distractions.
I have noticed that, you know,those sorts of things can be
good moments of affirmation andconfirmation between the teacher
and the learner.
bill (28:43):
And I think that's kinda like another thing that I was
thinking about with Dynamic,dynamic Assessment is that it's
ongoing, like nonstop.
it doesn't have to be like, itcan, like in the context, in the
definition, it was about like anassessment, but like if we were.
Always informally assessing ourstudents you know, whether it's
(29:05):
with like Annmarie Chase's cardmagic cards, or if it's on a
clipboard that you keep, I thinkone of my, like big takeaways is
like, me, I think it would bebeneficial to have some sort of
running tab of like.
This is where students are like,like you said, like have some,
(29:26):
have little symbols like plusbecause they answered in a full
sentence or Just like that givesme something to look at and be
even more specific with myfeedback when it comes time to
Feedback on an assessment orsomething.
Like if I say, Hey, I noticedthat in your speaking
(29:47):
assessment, you did this, this,and this.
I'm noticing in class this,this, and this.
So let's try to like build thatpart, build up the not formal
assessment interactions.
To see if that'll help out onthe to see if that'll help out
(30:08):
on the formal assessment, likesome comments that I've given
before and include things likeI, like I see you, you to talk,
for example, wanted to talkabout what time someone woke up
and whatever it is.
And we talk about this all thetime on like during weekend
(30:29):
chat.
Like what time did you wake upthis morning?
Oh, he woke up at this time.
She they woke up at this time.
so that is a place where youcould like really lean into like
pick up that phrase, thatvocabulary.
So it's just like, which I guessthat's more on me too, but like.
Because I lead that discussion.
(30:49):
but also just these are thethings I'm, no, like, these are
the things that maybe you couldpay more attention to, but that,
yeah, I'm getting back to justlike regular assessment, or
regular like ideas ofassessment.
Like, this is what you did, thisis what you can do to improve.
So.
(31:10):
I don't know.
Now I've, I've circled back onmyself.
I think
Bryan (31:14):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think these are all good things
to think about.
bill (31:18):
Just helps me be more reflective, I guess.
Bryan (31:20):
guess.
Yeah.
Like really what I would say tothose listening, like if you're
wondering like what to take awayfrom this, just like think about
like what are you using yourinteractions and assessments of
students for, like, are youdoing anything with that?
And you know, can you think ofways that you can use the
(31:41):
information you're gaining topush students further?
And I again, like, I feel thatthis is something that like.
Good teachers just intuitivelydo.
But like we, it does help to beable to describe, you know,
those things that, you know,what good teaching looks like.
bill (31:57):
And to just be,
Bryan (31:59):
I
bill (31:59):
Conscious of the reflection that we're doing.
'cause I think if, you said,like we, we do do this all the
time, like.
That's why this topic wasinteresting to me because I'm
like, oh, this is something thatI do and I have like some words
to describe it now.
And now that I can like talkabout like the whole process, I
(32:20):
can leverage it better becauseI'm understanding what's going
on in real time and.
I can be like, oh, yep.
Like that's a piece that's somedata to inform my teaching now.
And then, and the one more thingthat I wanted to kind of like, I
don't know, toss around the ideaof dynamic assessment being
(32:43):
qualitative rather thanquantitative.
So it's about like observation,not just like a number of.
Like number Correct.
On a test or something, which Ithink, you know, our use of
proficiency rubrics orproficiency inspired rubrics,
kind of already does.
Like we are forced to put.
(33:05):
Qualitative information on, youknow,'cause like language
doesn't have just right andwrong answers unless it is like
just a fill in the blank a vocabquiz or something like that.
There's no right or wronganswers.
And I mean, I see that being astruggle for students as well,
like someone who might, theymight perceive as.
(33:25):
Doing worse in class because howwhen they speak up, they make
mistakes.
when it comes time to perform,it's not about how often you
are, right?
It's not, or it's not about howoften you have spoken, quote
unquote correctly.
There are a bunch of otherthings that go into play with
(33:47):
it.
So like.
If you've got a huge amount ofvocabulary and you're like using
really descriptive language, butyou've got some subject verb
agreement issues, and I see aperfect perfectly written
sentence, but it doesn't havevery.
(34:09):
Like, I don't know, specificvocabulary to what we're talking
about or whatever, like, youknow, those, not to say they
even out, but like there's somany things that go into
assessing language more thanjust right and wrong.
And able to show that is really.
It's and it's hard for studentsto understand.
(34:31):
I, I mean, like, I know you dida great job with you, like, you
know, did your whole study ongetting students to understand
your so like we know what'spossible.
I just need to go re-listen.
Bryan (34:43):
Yeah.
And I think like.
I actually do bake inreflections to all of my
assessments as well.
Like after, like all my studentsknow, like after they do a
writing, after they do speaking,they have to, they have to do a
reflection.
It's like part of it.
And so I find that like, reallythat's where the sweet spot is
for pushing them because youknow, like for example, like I
(35:04):
have like a self-assessmentrubric that they can use and
like.
Like a, a sheet that likedescribes different levels of
performance just broadly inwhatever mode we're focusing on.
And students can look at thatand kind of identify where they
currently are and like see justclearly like what the next steps
are for them.
And like, again, they have tojustify where they're at.
(35:26):
And so making them think aboutthat over and over again, I
find.
Has been a lot more helpful thanjust like handing back a number
and like they look at it andthrow it in the
bill (35:34):
Yeah.
Ben, you got any final thoughts?
FishRod (35:38):
No, but I think I dunno, it, it, this conversation
just reminds me to, I.
Build in that sort ofmetacognitive awareness of how a
language acquisition works,again, because it is so unusual
compared to a subject matter.
And that can be just throughthese little reflections.
bill (35:53):
Mm-hmm.
FishRod (35:54):
that we throw at students on the regular to keep
them accountable also tothemselves and to, you know, to
help reinforce the habits oflanguage learning that we, we
know they need.
They need to be payingattention, they need to be
responding to questions, theyneed to be looking at the things
that we're doing to supportvisually.
And hopefully that these, youknow, can increase this sort of
self-regulatory behavior.
(36:14):
And kind of the awareness that.
Yeah, I dunno.
Sometimes kids just need to knowthat they're doing it right.
Like, like, yes, you are, youare increasing your language
skill today because we had aconversation about this.
And that will help increase yourlanguage skill.
So this has kind of been just,you know, another, another
reminder for me to stay, staylooking at my students, you
know, not at the iPad.
And ask them questionsafterwards about how it went and
(36:37):
what their experience was sothat we can keep growing
together.
bill (36:41):
Yeah.
Bryan (36:42):
So something I've been kind of toying with that you
just made me think of it ratherthan necessarily I.
Including like, you know, somekind of quantitative measure of
like how much mediation astudent needed to perform a a
task.
I've thought about the idea ofsomehow including like just the,
how much a student has grown interms of like paying attention
(37:06):
to their own reflections thatthey're making from one unit to
the next.
Like, have they.
Like, okay, they made theobservation.
Have they applied it?
You know, have they donesomething to improve because
like every student has room toimprove and, you know you might
have had the experience ofhaving a heritage speaker or
someone who's, you know, gone toimmersion school, you know, has
some kind of advanced level overeveryone else in your room.
(37:29):
And they may meet all of yourtargets for the course quite
easily, but that doesn't meanthey don't have room to grow.
And so I've been thinking oflike.
Could there be a way toincorporate that somehow into a
grade?
You know, it's like I have mystandards, I know what they
want, what I want them to do,and they know what they need to
do.
could there be a small partthat's like, have you grown?
You know, like I, I don't know.
(37:50):
It's kind of interesting tothink about and I haven't quite
figured out how to do it, but.
bill (37:54):
Yeah, it's a tough one.
Well next week or next episodewill be our.
20th episode.
And after that we're gonna go onsummer break.
But for next episode we're justgonna do summer reflection of
our own.
talk about how we've gaslit gatekept and girl bust this, this
(38:19):
school year, this past.
Double digits worth of podcastepisodes.
We would love to hear from youon how you have gaslit, gatekeep
and girl bossed this year inyour language classroom as well,
so you can email that toinfo@slaypod.com.
Bye.
FishRod (38:38):
Hi.
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