An Asset-Based Approach to Instruction and Assessment
Since the start of the school year, teachers and administrators have been discussing how to effectively help students following the interruptions of the previous two years. We know that children now have significantly more intellectual, social, and emotional requirements than in previous years, and a variety of data points confirm what most of us already experience on a daily basis: During the pandemic years, students' reading and math skills suffered. How do we respond as educators, and where do we go from here?
Teacher expectations of pupils, unsurprisingly, have a direct impact on accomplishment. Low or negatively biased expectations can be detrimental to student development, leading to underperformance. Even when expectations are excessively high, long-term student progress and even future student careers benefit. Here are some ideas for raising the bar for all pupils.
THINK ABOUT YOUR PERCEPTIONS OF LEARNERS.
Reflection is always a technique for me. It's critical to be honest with ourselves in this situation. Reflection without judgment is essential for development. These questions will help you reflect on how the year has gone so far:
Can you conceive of a student who you believe will fail the class because it is too difficult?
Can you think of a student who will fail if your expectations are too high?
Are you concentrating on what some pupils cannot achieve rather than on what these students have demonstrated?
I believe most of us can (or once could) respond yes to at least one of these questions. Following the initial reflections, it's essential to consider why we sometimes reach certain judgments. These questions can assist teachers in comprehending the fundamental causes:
What makes me feel this way?
Are my perceptions supported by data?
Am I certain that I have used the data to the best of my professional ability to address student gaps?
Is there anything else that influences my view of student ability?
I invite you to consider your expectations of all students and how these expectations affect student results. Students rise to the occasion when we raise the bar in both instruction and evaluation.
AN ASSET-BASED INSTRUCTION APPROACH
When we satisfy the academic requirements of the students who come into our classrooms with the greatest gaps, they grow the most. In fact, development in literacy and math skill levels declines as pupils progress from K to 12. As a result, accepting the possibility of student progress when children are not in grade level is critical to setting high expectations for all learners.
Furthermore, language is dictated by thinking. When we become enthusiastic about assisting our students in growing, we speak the language of high expectations: trust in student capacity, encouragement to persevere, and an acceptance of the learning that sometimes comes only via failure.
Creating instructional groups: Teachers can use assessment or preassessment data to assign students into tiers and provide small group instruction to those who require additional attention. We may then begin mapping the gap between what each tier of learners already understands on a trajectory toward meeting our expectations, while grade-level proficiency remains the definite, lowest-level target for every student.
Teachers can differentiate by topic and procedure by grouping students into tiers, allowing them to fulfill the requirements of learners at or above grade level (Tier 1) while also providing small group teaching to kids who are behind their peers (Tiers 2 and 3). There is no quick fix for students who enter in our classrooms lacking the skills needed to reach grade-level standards, and resolving the most severe learning gaps needs time and attention to focus on precursor skills.
Building relationships with these students on purpose provides the warmth required to accompany the demand that must be imposed on every kid. However, this is only achievable if we can anticipate our students to progress as well. If we consider the odds to be insurmountable, the same children are likely to progress to the next grade level with the same disparities.
A DATA AND ASSESSMENT APPROACH BASED ON ASSETS
We can't confront skewed perceptions until we can identify them. With this in mind, going through this process gives us a mental cue to pause and reflect when we feel the need to decrease standards for particular pupils. All teacher expectations for children should be data-driven, beginning with grade-level standards and proficiencies. Regardless of how I perceive the children with whom I engage on a daily basis, my aim for every student in my class is to read, write, speak, and listen at grade level.
Formative assessment: Knowing what students already know is an important part of teaching new content. For example, if I am teaching students how to create an argument using evidence to support a claim, I will assign my own low-stakes class work as a preassessment.
This strategy is recommended by me for two reasons. As a teacher, I always had some students who did not perform well on tests but were able to demonstrate knowledge of skills during class activities after training. Furthermore, the low-stakes, teacher-created evaluation allows us to engage our students in a context with which they are already comfortable in order to separate skill from content. When content is not contextualized for pupils, assessing skill becomes more difficult.
In my argument lecture, for example, my preassessment might ask students to defend a claim on a popular subject on social media using evidence from sources I curated. This is a low-stakes task that helps me understand what pupils already know about constructing an argument using evidence. Not only am I confident in my teaching abilities, but I am also confident in the potential of all of my students to develop a deeper grasp of how to properly support a claim using evidence as a result of the training I am facilitating. We must have high expectations for all students, but we must also have high goals for ourselves as educators.
As instructors, we establish a goal for the class, promote instruction and learning through various tactics and activities, and then assess our students' knowledge. When pupils are unable to demonstrate comprehension, an asset-based perspective of student ability recognizes the importance of devising a new way to reteach, reframe, rework, and retry when expectations have not been reached. Finally, if I am confident that my students will always rise to the occasion, I must accept responsibility for ensuring that my instruction is engaging, relevant, and, most importantly, effective.
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