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ENTRY 1: STUDENT LEARNING AND CONTRIBUTIONS Annotation 1 Great start. The description orients the readers to community life in the present right away. This description will help readers compare present community life to past community life. Annotation 2 It would be interesting to know where the kids who attend the Burke Mountain Academy come from. Specifically, are most of the students from the Burke Town School, or do they filter from elsewhere? This is interesting contextual information especially considering the town is concerned about the division of the communities in East and West Burke. Also, are there any public high schools in Burke? Annotation 3 This comment sets a tone early in the narrative that suggests a mournful comparison of the past to the present. This is particularly relevant when reflecting on how the students compare the past to the present later in the project.  Annotation 4 In addition to the goal that the teachers set for the project (for students to become familiar with their state and its history), the project has the potential of incorporating the goal of unifying two communities by studying the past in relation to the present. From the study of the past, students from different communities could learn that they are not so different in terms of where and how their ancestors lived. Annotation 5 Good demographic summary of the students in the Burke Town School. It would also be interesting to know the percentages of students who come from the three communities in Burke, and how that relates to the 50% of students who qualify for free or reduced lunch. This sort of contextual information can be used in setting the curriculum for the "School House Project." Annotation 6 The list of participants demonstrates teacher and administrator support for place-based learning. A community member played a role in preparing the portfolio, which shows that a good connection exists there. (These points would both be highlighted in Entry 3, Deepening and Spreading Place-Based Learning.) It doesn’t appear that students played a role in the portfolio or in the design or planning of the project. Goes to Student Intellectual Growth: Promotes student ownership and control. Annotation 7 The kit provides a good example of how instructional materials were used to support student learning (Academic Rigor of the Project: Enhances student learning through materials, resources, and support). To get a better sense of how the materials were used, it would be great to see some artifacts from the kit along with an explanation of how specific artifacts were used. Annotation 8 Exhibit A provides evidence related to Student Intellectual Growth: Promoting deep learning about important content, and Promoting student ownership and control. Also Academic Rigor of the Project: Enhancing student learning through materials, resources, and support. A good deal of the learning is to be focused on factual or procedural knowledge, with a few opportunities for students to do "deeper" work by comparing and contrasting information. The project impetus, material selection, and curriculum and instruction are still very much under adult control, with little student input. Annotation 9 Nice description of the evolution of the project. It demonstrates how information from student learning in year 1 altered the scope of the project in year 2. Goes to Assessment: Uses the results of assessment to facilitate learning. Annotation 10 This project has the potential of reaching many students beyond the Burke Town School. This can be used as evidence in Entry 3 under the aspect Spreads to new places. Annotation 11 Goes to Developing students’ appreciation and understanding of place. The portfolio writers have a good sense of the importance of place and the contributions students will make to sustaining their community. From the wording, it looks like the writers do not see students having a current role in sustaining place, which suggests a limit to Helps students take on community roles. Annotation 12 What's intriguing here is the noted "disconnect." This is good evidence of Uses the results of assessment to facilitate learning. The teachers developed the unit in response to a gap they saw in students' understanding and quality of life. Specifics like, "They did not know where their food came from" suggests the ways the teachers reached their assessment and also the importance of addressing the disconnect. The "That was Then, This is Now" unit was therefore designed expressly to Develop students' appreciation and understanding of place. Annotation 13 This comment suggests that student interest in learning about the past was assessed, which goes to Assessment: Uses the results of assessment to facilitate learning, and to some degree to Student Intellectual Growth: Promotes student ownership and control. However, teachers’ goals may have been more narrow than the students’ goals, and ultimately may have limited students understanding of the past. Annotation 14 Goes to Academic Rigor of the Project especially Establishes clear and challenging learning goals. Specific state standards for student learning are outlined in this project. An opportunity for improvement would be to relate the standards, or student learning goals, to the specific instructional plan to assess whether the goals match the activities. As it is currently outlined, it is difficult to see which goal is covered by a specific activity or activities. Many of the cited goals are challenging, e.g., "Students use historical methodology to make interpretations concerning history, change, and continuity." Yet it is not clear in the remainder of the portfolio entry the degree to which the project supported students in making interpretations of conceptual depth. Annotation 15 The rubric and other assignments in this paragraph are evidence that the project used a variety of methods to assess student learning. (See the first two aspects of the theme Assessment.) The rubric, however, focuses heavily on managing student behavior, and little on the quality of student work. Also, the assessment criteria in this rubric relates little to the stated learning goals of the project. Annotation 16 Goes to Student Intellectual Growth: Promotes student ownership and control, though the focus on behavior limits the effectiveness of the self-assessment. Annotation 17 The community dinner is a good example of Authenticity of the Project. The students took on the roles of organizer and presenter (Helps students take on community roles) and had an opportunity to present their results (Engages students in real work that produces results). Public presentations of work also show the breadth of assessment strategies and who is participating in assessment. (See Assessment: Relies on multiple sources of information to assess learning.) Annotation 18 See comments for the rubric itself. The rubric and the reflective questions listed below are good evidence that the project Relies on multiple sources of information to assess learning. Annotation 19 Goes to Promotes student ownership and control and Uses the results of assessment to facilitate learning. There are other places in the ensuing paragraph that suggest that learning was scaffolded on prior learning and student interests, such as "The students used information from their study of Vermont maps to choose a last name from a Vermont town." However, the quality of the learning isn’t indicated, and the attached student work samples suggest that most learning was at a factual or procedural level only. Annotation 20 This section provides evidence that the project had extensive community involvement. It is clear that the adults in the community took an interest in speaking with students about their own childhood and farming experiences. They seemed excited about working with the students. This excitement offers great potential for school-community partnerships that are more dynamic and reciprocal, and extend well beyond adults supplying students with information. This project opened the door for students, school staff, and community members to take on new roles both inside and outside of the school walls, which would be valued in all three portfolio entries. In this entry, the involvement of so many community members goes to Authenticity of the Project: Develops students’ appreciation and understanding of place. Annotation 21 Nice collaboration with another place-based project, which provided the students at that school with an opportunity to take on new roles. Annotation 22 See earlier comments about the activities that students engaged in. Clearly the project entailed a wide range of learning activities, some of which took the students out into the community and brought community members into the school, adding to Authenticity of the Project. The depth of learning - the degree to which it involved students in investigation, inquiry, and problem-solving - isn’t clear, which goes to Academic Rigor of the Project. Annotation 23 Pursuit of grant support shows how committed the teachers are to the project, and receipt of the grant shows that place-based learning is gaining support, as does the community support shown at bingo night. This would be especially valued in Entry 3: Deepening and Spreading Place-Based Learning. Annotation 24 The stipends recognized the farmers expertise and value, which would be valued especially in Entry 2. As a complement to the stipends, the farmers could have also been "paid" in ways that connected the school activities closer to the farm activities. For example, could students and teachers actively learn about farming by working on a local farm? This type of school-community relationship would provide evidence of the Authenticity of the Project, and specifically Helping students take on community roles, and Engaging students in real work that produces results. Annotation 25 Provides additional evidence of community interest in the project. The teachers needed, and received buy-in from the community. Goes to Authenticity. Annotation 26 Good selection of students with unique academic profiles. Annotation 27 Good example of integrating math concepts into the agriculture unit so that students could problem-solve in a real world context. Without feedback on the student work, however, it is difficult to tell what students actually learned from the math problem - most of the student work looks procedural in nature. Annotation 28 For the most part, students are engaging in assignments that rely heavily on reciting factual information. As a result, student work samples look very similar to one another and provide little evidence that students are thoughtful and flexible with their thinking. (See the rubric for Student Intellectual Growth: Promotes deep learning about important content.) Annotation 29 The inquiry journal could have provided a good opportunity for students to engage in inquiry, problem posing, and independent thinking (see Academic Rigor of the Project). However, again looking at the student work samples for this exhibit, student work looks to be very similar; as if the students’ main purpose was to answer the questions on the worksheet with correct answers. Annotation 30 Some amount of student choice about ways of learning and a good amount of choice of presentation formats, which goes to Promotes student ownership and control. However, the similarity of the findings we can see in the actual work samples included suggest that students were working at a largely surface level in their explorations. Annotation 31 The questions in this evaluation provided an opportunity for students to think in an open-ended way about the work they had done and to consolidate their learning, but the surface nature of their responses suggests that students did not feel much ownership and control - they did not delve deeply into self-evaluation or assessing the project. For the most part, the questions elicited recitation on the part of students, and less inquiry and analysis about what students actually learned from the content of the agriculture unit (see the rubric for Promotes deep learning about important content and Engages students in investigation, inquiry, and problem-solving). Also, it is unclear how the assessment activities relate to the stated project learning goals. Specifically, the assessments offer little support that students engaged in standards 2.1, 3.9, 6.4, 6.6, and 7.9 (See Standards for Agriculture Unit). Annotation 32 The Schoolhouse Unit has great potential for providing students with opportunities to engage in investigations about their own lives while examining the lives of students of another era. This idea has the potential of stretching students intellectually by having them collect and analyze complex data dealing with both the past and the present culture of the place that they live in. In order to support meaningful learning that rests on deep concepts and inquiry, teachers would need to utilize a pedagogy where teachers’ and students’ assumptions, opinions, and biases about the past and present are aired and directly addressed in discussion, writing, or other means. However, looking at the student work samples, there is little evidence that students engaged in much self-examination or independent thought. Student worksheets show that they responded to questions requiring them to recall "facts" about the past with "right" or "wrong" answers. There was very little comparison of the actual cultural differences of living in the past and the present, with the differences cited being primarily about severity of punishments and the technological "ease" of life today. Students came away with a very simplistic, and somewhat distorted image of life in the past and seemed to have gained little or no perspective on life in the present. (All students agree that life is "better" now, with no thought to why 19th century folks lives might have been just as satisfying.) See the rubric for Student Intellectual Growth: Promotes deep learning about important content, Academic Rigor of the Project: Engages students in investigation, inquiry, and problem-solving, and Authenticity of the Project: Develops students appreciation and understanding of place. Annotation 33 It would be good to learn more about how this reenactment went. This may have been a place where students demonstrated that they were stretching themselves intellectually. Annotation 34 The evidence suggests that students worked with topics like chores and transportation, so that they could report the main activities or modes accurately. However, surface comparisons may not have helped students understand the past or present in significantly greater ways. (See the rubric for Promotes deep learning about important content.) The heavy emphasis on chores and punishments of the past may have given students a more negative view of the past than what they had before they started the Schoolhouse Unit, which may reflect a cultural bias toward the present (See Academic Rigor). Annotation 35 The analysis of Megan's work starts out by noticing what is present in the work, an excellent first step in Assessment. In the previous description of the students, it was stated that Megan was an average student that didn’t shine in any one area, as well as other specifics about her achievements, concerns, and personal style. While the analysis that follows shows that the writers have looked closely at Megan’s work, it would be stronger if it connected back to some of these specifics, pointing to evidence related to some of Megan’s strengths and challenges as a learner. Annotation 36 It is hard to determine whether Megan’s writing improved over the course of the agriculture unit. Specifically, the question/answer format of the student worksheets provide little evidence that student writing is improving. Annotation 37 Evidence that students acquired a distorted view of the past. There are many instances in the student work samples where the students’ views of the past are strongly negative, and where the teachers do not address it. Goes to Academic Rigor of the Project and Student Intellectual Growth. Annotation 38 Brittany’s interest in the agriculture unit allowed her to take on more responsibility in school. There is evidence that the project Promotes student ownership and control. The comment about Brittany’s increased confidence shows that teachers are valuing more than just academic learning, which goes to Assessment. Annotation 39 Good Analysis of Brittany’s reflection. Brittany may need a more open-ended form of reflection; perhaps even a free-flowing discussion with someone involved in the project. Annotation 40 Not clear why the teachers were looking for students to walk away with the idea that life was more difficult in the past. In fact, looking for that in the assessment is contrary to the stated learning goals, where students act as researchers and "compare and contrast agricultural methods and tools from early VT to the present, and understand how and why changes occurred in local agriculture through our history." (See Standards for Agriculture Unit). The result for students is a lost opportunity to learn to think critically about place (as well as time). Goes to Promotes deep learning about important content, and Develops students’ appreciation and understanding of place. Annotation 41 As described, most of the assessments in the Schoolhouse Unit were behavioral (manners, behavior) or factual (recitation) in focus. Since students clearly took on investigator roles in their quest to "become" a student who lived in the 1820s, assessment centered more around their investigation skills and what they learned would have been appropriate. Having the assessment materials relate more directly to the criteria or learning goals of the project will help to promote student learning on the specified learning goals. Also, the use of rubrics that the students had access to Promoted student ownership and control, but the discussion suggests that students were more concerned with grades than with the content they were learning about. See several aspects of the rubric for Assessment. Annotation 42 Provides evidence that the project generated student interest, which could further Promote student ownership and control. The self-reflection in which student engagement in this type of teaching and learning is compared to engagement in other units and subjects shows that the writers are Using assessment to facilitate learning - in this case their own learning. Annotation 43 This is a tantalizing sentence. It suggests that the project Enhanced student learning through materials, resources, and support. Annotation 44 Provides evidence that the project is beginning to Promote deep learning about important content. The comparisons that were made emphasized surface or factual learning. Little evidence that students understood the "why" behind the differences in the culture of the past and the present, thus coming away with the simplistic notion that the past was "bad" and the present is "good." Annotation 45 There is no question that the level of community interaction was high on this project, which added to the Authenticity of the Project and boosted student interest. Student ownership was enhanced by offering choices and opportunities for feedback. However, teachers designed and led almost every aspect of the project - and the students responded in such similar ways that it suggests that their independence was a new and unclear notion. Annotation 46 The reflection that follows addresses some of the issues raised in the annotations as well as other issues. This shows that the portfolio writers used the process to think critically about their place-based work, which is one of the highest forms of Using the results of assessment to facilitate learning. Annotation 47 The paragraph below hints at students as contributors through the community presentations, but the project as currently conceived tends to treat students as learners, and the community as a resource. Working with the idea that students could occupy roles that sustain the community (as expressed in the rubric for Helps students take on community roles) is a next challenge for this project. Annotation 48 To the outside reader, the intellectual stretch is not easy to see from the work samples and evidence provided. While Brittany made vast improvements in taking responsibility for her school work, it is not clear that she improved in her writing, reading, math, and spelling ability. Brittany’s work samples show little improvement in these areas. From the student work samples, it is also difficult to tell how Megan improved over the course of the project, particularly without having feedback on her work samples. Annotation 49 Good start! Since the project is still early in its inception, this may be an opportune time to involve the community in finding ways to deepen the Academic Rigor and Authenticity of the Project. Annotation 50 This section addresses two of the critical issues in this work: 1) The need to more concretely connect goals, assessment, and instruction; and 2) the need to put the students into a role in which they contribute to the community in a direct way (through the service learning idea). This is strong evidence that they used the portfolio process for their own learning. (See Uses the results of assessment to facilitate learning.) In addition to the suggestions made by the writers, the team may want to consider using assessments and rubrics that value more independent thought and reflection, to really demonstrate and stretch their students’ intellectual capacity. As for instruction, strategies that promote less biased comparison of the past and present will elevate students’ understanding of the two eras as well as the history of their community. Annotation 51 Public presentations are a great way to round out Assessment. Annotation 52 Great idea! This is a concrete example of how community can become involved in standard setting and assessment. This relates to Relies on multiple sources of information to assess learning, and also has high value in Entry 2, particularly in regard to the aspect Promotes shared responsibility and accountability. Annotation 53 Money and time are the structural issues that inhibit the expansion of place-based learning because the type of learning involved requires a new approach to the school day and what is considered worth learning. As these writers suggest, integrating the place-based learning projects fully into the standards and curriculum - not a small task! - will make this work more doable. Annotation 54 Parents, community members, teachers, administrators, and students could all benefit from an educational session on place-based learning. For further information on such training models and support, visit http://www.ruraledu.org Annotation 55 This comment suggests that the writers have an appreciation for certain elements of the past, yet these do not appear to have been communicated in the project. Looking at the student work samples, particularly Exhibits E8 and F8, it does not appear that students went away with an appreciation for the past roles of students. The notions of purpose and recognition cited here go directly to Authenticity of the Project, particularly in regard to Helps students take on community roles, and Engages students in real work that produces results. Annotation 56 Good evidence of Using materials to enhance learning in the theme Academic Rigor of the Project. Annotation 57 This is a very positive outcome! In what ways did children begin to contribute in their families?
Comments on Burke's Evidence Exhibit
A
Exhibit B
Exhibit C This exhibit documents one of the out-of-school activities undertaken in the project. Exhibit D
Exhibit E1 - F8
Exhibit G Great pictures of students and community members coming together to share knowledge and fellowship. There is great potential to build strong school/community connections. Exhibit H Good rubric. The rubric provides an opportunity for students, teachers, and community members (all participants who played a role in assessing the students’ projects) to have a conversation about why they see students at particular places in the rubric. Conversation as such would allow for the assessments to contribute to further student and community growth. See Assessment. Also Promotes student ownership and control. Exhibit I Many of the descriptors in the "What I Learned" column depicts the past in a harsh and troubling light. The phrase "1800’s school was the worst," describes the general feeling that students left the unit with. How did teachers react to the information in the KWL chart? See the rubric for Student Intellectual Growth and Academic Rigor. Exhibit J The activities pictured show students actively engaged, but it’s not clear that they were engaged in activities that were truly typical of a 19th century school. For example, the Pledge of Allegiance is a 20th century addition to the school day. Goes to Depth of learning, and Academic Rigor. Exhibit K The fond stories from the past that adults speak about in this article are not reflected in the student work samples. Goes to Develops students’ appreciation and understanding of place. Exhibit L The KWL chart shows that students had a beginning start in knowledge about agriculture, and they had factual and conceptual questions. The fact that the teachers make such frequent use of KWL strategies is evidence of efforts to Promote student ownership and control, and Enhances student learning through materials, resources, and support. Exhibit M Great examples of involving the community in assessing student learning and the project, in general. See the rubric for Assessment. Exhibit N Documents the enthusiasm, ownership, and creativity shown by Brittany. Exhibit O The invitation provides a great way to get the community involved in school projects. It can open the door to more school/community collaborations. Exhibit P The fact that students came up with so many service-learning projects shows that they are ready and able to be contributors to sustaining their community and to take on Community roles. Soliciting these ideas from the students is evidence of Promotes student ownership and control. |
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The only visible feedback on Megan’s math problem is a large "C,"
and a question asking Megan, "What about this answer? Two part
problem." The feedback suggests that the information from assessment
data is primarily used to assign grades to students and to support procedural
learning (procedures for solving word problems). Megan clearly uses
mathematical reasoning to solve the extra credit question. Megan correctly
concluded that Mr. Dilbert would give Mrs. Kane $300.00 for the fleece,
but incorrectly calculated the amount Mr. Dudley would pay. Even so,
she made a comparison, based on her calculations, about who would give
Mrs. Kane more money. Megan demonstrates good mathematical problem solving
ability. More specific, substantive feedback will promote continued
growth for Megan in mathematical reasoning. This is related to several
themes, including