Thinking Out Loud

Been too long since I wrote, all sorts of reasons but none of them meaningful enough really.

I often use this space to air some thoughts and questions and I always value the conversations that ensue either here or over on twitter (where I can be found @mrdardy)

So, here is what I am pondering now and would love to hear some pushback or validation or further questions to help me organize my thoughts. For years – all 32 of them in the classroom – I have told my students that I do not believe in pop quizzes. I said that I do not want quizzes to be seen as punitive, I don’t want them waiting for me to play ‘gotcha’ with them. Similarly, I don’t do surprise HW checks or anything like that. However, I am thinking that I might have been wrong about this. I see (so often!) kids frantically studying (cramming) knowledge into their brains for a short term amount of time with the intent of performing some data dump on their quiz. I have even had students argue that they do not want me to answer any lingering questions from their classmates because they don’t want to forget before the quiz. As if 8 extra minutes will somehow erase meaningful understanding. However, the more I think back on these, the more I realize that the message being sent to me in these conversations is that there is not meaningful long-term knowledge that the students think is their job. Just be able to reply and re-present skills/techniques. I think I do a pretty decent job of asking interesting questions that encourage/allow/demand some real thinking and some really knowledge to be displayed. But if every assessment is announced and planned for and worried about, then I suspect that I am not really getting a meaningful picture of any developing understanding that my students are working on. I wonder if periodic low stakes check ins would be a better use of my time AND a more true picture of what the students are understanding. These check ins would take less time allowing us to have more time to talk/debate/discuss (heck, just BREATHE) in our time together. These would occur more frequently giving me more granular data, more of a sense of continuity in charting their understanding. They would not be a source of stress at home and they might (might!?!) send a different, more meaningful message about what my goals of assessment are. A downside is that these feel like they would be more directed at quick skills check ins rather than meaningful, complex and connected questions. those questions take more time, they might not be at home on a quick exit ticket (or entrance ticket?) type of check in. If I do enough of them – or if I build a system with some drops/mulligans – then any particular ‘bad day’ would not have much of an impact. If I am thoughtful about these and I enact Henri Picciotto’s ideas about lagging HW and think of these as lagging assessments, then the notion of a busy night for school or family activities, would not be a meaningful argument about why a particular quiz might be below par. If I lean in on this idea, I think I would move away from my current practice of quiz / quiz / test rhythm in many of my classes. I would probably feel less stressed about time taken for assessments and would feel that there was reasonable data about student performance and understanding. I have adopted a system of problem sets in two of the three courses I teach, open problems that are sometimes thorny but the students have seven school days to complete them and they are encouraged to collaborate on these assignments. This feature also helps ease the concern about grades to a certain degree.

So, I guess what I am asking dear reader are these questions –

Are unannounced assessments inherently unfair?

Are check ins on developing understanding reasonable data to register and count (in some way) as part of the report on progress that is expected at my school?

Is the habit of cramming an inherent part of the problem that we math teachers see all the time – Fragile knowledge or simple lack of ability to recall and reorganize information that has (allegedly) been learned in previous courses?

Thanks in advance for any wisdom shared here or over on twitter