Ultra Micro MOOC - Fabulous Formative Assessment for Beginners

This week, my CEP 811 assignment was to explore the world of MOOCs.  Yes, MOOCs.  Massively Open Online Courses.  A really fun acronym, huh?  The actually MOOCs are even better.  Check out P2PU - Peer 2 Peer University to check out a few MOOCs if you are interested.  They are all free and the topics are far ranging, from bathroom remodeling to Python programming (seriously!).  Or if you are really motivated, create your own MOOC.  Which is ultimately what I was assigned to do this week.  So here the the outline of my hypothetical P2PU course, Fabulous Formative Assessment for Beginners. 

I chose to feature formative assessment as my course topic because I have been on my elementary's FAME (Formative Assessment for Michigan Educators) Team this past academic year.  My time on in the professional learning team has taught me so much about F.A.  The biggest surprise?  I was already using F.A. strategies and techniques; I just needed to take what I was doing to the next level (analysis & student feedback) to make it truly meaningful to my instructional design and decision-making.  So I thought, why not create a MOOC that would do the same for other educators who may not have such a great learning opportunity otherwise?

In my Fabulous Formative Assessment for Beginners course my peers will master formative assessment by creating a 'toolbox' of techniques and sharing/collaborating with peers about their implementation progress in their own classrooms.

Course Topic:
This course will provide a basis for the implementation of formative assessment in CCSS classrooms.  Members will discover the intent behind formative assessment as well as how to easily implement it and give timely and meaningful feedback to their students. 

Fabulous Formative Assessment for Beginners

Who: 
This is an open space for educators (or anyone else who is curious) to explore formative assessment implementation and tools with other peers.  With the full-implementation of the CCSS looming in the horizon, formative assessment is one of the many catch-phrases being thrown about but many educators haven't explore the instructional impact formative assessment can have on learning targets and goals.  As a newer teacher who has spent the last year implementing formative assessments in my classroom, I have a few tried and true tools and techniques that helped me grasp this catch phrase and make it a meaningful part of my instructional decisions.

What:
At the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Recognize current uses of formative assessments strategies and tools
• Plan and target use of F.A. strategies and tools
• Analyze student evidence
• Provide timely and meaningful feedback to students
• Make instructional decisions based on student evidence

Participants will master formative assessment 'tools' at their own pace and share their discoveries with peers.  This course will stay open for the purpose of future collaboration and peer sharing as participants master and create more F.A. tools and strategies.

Why:
With the higher-level thinking skills required by the CCSS, it is imperative that educators are able to quickly and effectively make instructional decisions based on student progress.  Formative assessments provide not only teachers, but also learners, with valuable insights into knowledge gained and learning progress.  Many educators already use formative assessments in their classrooms everyday and either a) don't realize they do, or b) don't know what to do with the data collected.  This course will correct both of these issues and provide a foundation for effective formative assessment implementation in classrooms.

Formative Assessment Toolbox:
Peers will collect formative assessment 'tools' to put into a 'toolbox' of techniques to use in their own classrooms.  Tools will be posted in the classroom and organized into the following categories:

• Self-Assessment
• Activating Prior Knowledge
• Goal Setting 
• Peer Assessment
• Feedback Use

These categories will serve as the primary method for the toolbox collection as well as sharing and evaluating the effectiveness of the formative assessment strategies and tools throughout the course.

Fitting the Pieces Together: 
Mastery of the formative assessment strategies and tools as presented and shared throughout this course will provide the foundation and framework for the successful and effective implementation of formative assessment within participants' classrooms.  This course will create a learning platform that  encourages professional learning and sharing of resources as well as formative assessment successes and misses.  Peer collaboration and evaluation will encourage self-paced skill mastery as each participant gradually implements F.A. as they move through the course.  This MOOC combines the content knowledge of a FAME (Formative Assessment for Michigan Educators) team member, pedagogical knowledge of educational peers, and the opportunity to share and increase technological knowledge of all participants that incorporates the TPACK framework.

Peer Interaction:
Peers would help each other throughout this course by providing feedback to the tools and strategies implemented and developed.  Most of the higher-level learning would take place during peer interactions and discussions, and peers would learn from others as far was what formative assessment strategies worked, how it worked, and what could be done to make it even better.

Resources:

(n.d.). Peer 2 Peer University. Retrieved from https://p2pu.org/en/

Dodge, J. (2009). 25 quick formative assessments for a differentiated classroom, easy, low-prep assessments that help you pinpoint students\' needs and reach all learne. (1 ed.). Scholastic Teaching Resources. Retrieved from http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/what-are-formative-assessments-and-why-should-we-use-them