Hypnotized!

It all started on a cold day in February 2010. It was my first Marzano workshop and, to tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure what I was in for.

Sure I have heard about Marzano and his innovative approach to grading. I have read his books on assessments and have had lengthy discussions about him with my colleagues during our “PLC” time and Institute Days.

I imagined this presentation would only reinforce what I already knew. Wow…was I ever wrong!

Dr. Robert Marzano literally hypnotized me the moment he began his presentation. How so? Well, for starters, I am a Career and Technical Educator. Our PLC individual assessment data is collected differently than the common assessment data collected from math, science, English, etc. (Although, before seeing Marzano, I didn’t know how to effectively collect our data!)

We are a department of singletons. We DO have common departmental goals, essential outcomes, and formative & summative assessments. However, our challenge is collecting the data from teachers of singleton classes. More importantly, our other challenge is “what data are we collecting?”

Marzano began his presentation saying that formative assessment is a PROCESS, not a “specific test”. That’s it! He is right! It IS a process. I have been focusing on the “test” aspect of collecting data and the aspect of us being singletons. That simple beginning to his 6 hour interactive workshop allowed me to really “see” the intricacies of formative assessment.

Yes, as CTE teachers, we are masters of Problem-based learning. We are masters of Problem-based assessments. However, after hearing Marzano and really listening to what he was saying, I realized that we are not yet the masters we think we are; we haven’t fully implemented the three phases of effective teaching and broken down the patterns of responses.

So, what are we waiting for? Let’s get busy…let’s tackle formative assessment Marzano’s way. Will it be a challenge? YES! Will there be resistance? YES! But, if we don’t start now, we’ll never start.
My goal: to track my students’ progress throughout the course of the semester, utilizing Marzano’s teachings of formative assessment.

It’s March, probably too late to start; however, I am going to prepare for the Fall of 2010. I already have my goals and essential outcomes written. What I need to do now is break everything down into different levels of scoring (using Marzano’s 4 through 1 as a guide).

For me, this blog will help me to stay on task and, hopefully, provide me with help from you along the way. I plan to document my successes and frustrations. I plan to share my assessments and rubrics. Please feel free to do the same.

I understand that this is a major commitment, both of time and energy. However, I think of it more as a commitment to my students’ learning.