Using standards based assessment is a necessity of our time and can be an asset for the prepared and creative. Common Core standards can help provide structure in your class and cohesion between teachers, which allows for greater collaboration. However the greatest stretch for me, in terms of my own creativity, is applying the common core to multiple intelligences. I have tried recently to create a unit that achieves a common core standard and is accessible to different intelligences.
P3 – Practice standards-based assessment. Teacher candidates use standards-based assessment that is systematically analyzed using multiple formative, summative, and self-assessment strategies to monitor and improve instruction.
Whether it is mandated by the federal or state government, the district or a board of trustees, all teacher are, or ought to be, held accountable to some kind of content standard. P3 means to me that a teacher has done their due diligence to apply each standard required to their instruction in order to meet the learning objectives. If a teacher has done this well they should be able to show their adherence to standards and their achievement of those standards with a variety of assessments.
I have not found it difficult to apply these standards to my instruction, as the standards seem very basic. However my own inclination tends to communication skills. I tend to assess these standards in terms of written or verbal communication. These are time honored ways of assessing learning and that is very good, but it ought not to be the only way. Thankfully the social studies standards are so fundamental to every kind of social science that lessons almost automatically incorporate them. However the creative edge is to find a variety of ways to assess these standards that make the best use of the gifts and learning of various intelligences.
So I have made a project that requires students to meet the standard 5.2.1: Student creates and uses research questions that are tied to an essential question to focus inquiry on an idea, issue, or event. Clearly the students need to meet this standard by communicating in either written or oral form their research question. The research question must have as many elements as the essential question or the answers they find will not be sufficient to resolve the essential question for the unit.
Below are pictures of exit tickets that I used to help the students develop their research question in order to meet the standard.
Writing their research question is necessary for the standard but I wanted to open this learning experience to more than one kind of intelligence. So after crafting their question the students made reports that involved artistic ability, as well as research and communication skills. If I do this project again I will broaden it further to involve cultural music to access acoustic intelligence.
Below is a finished project by the same student as the above exit tickets. You will see what great growth she has made in developing answers to a complete research question, and how she uses both visual and written communication skills.
I have learned a lot already from this experiment. This project has been met with universal enthusiasm, even by students who are usually disengaged. Interestingly enough the ELL students are among those whose work demonstrated the most growth. In addition to being appealing to everyone, I have noticed that students which I have come to know as more inclined to spatial visual intelligence, have performed above my expectations on the written components of this assignment. Their enjoyment and eagerness for the visual component of their project has encouraged them to exceed their own expectations for skills outside their favored intelligence. I have also found the inverse to be true, in that students who are very critical of their artistic ability have performed their best because they are excited about the written content of their project. I have learned that teaching to multiple intelligences does not mean shifting between types of intelligence on a lesson by lesson basis, but using multiple intelligences within the same lesson. More specifically, using one kind of intelligence to generate enthusiasm for expanding another form of intelligence.
For socials studies my idea going forward is to try to include in project based learning a visual, auditory, and written element. Each element will be arranged to scaffold the other two elements. If my current experience is any indication, this new idea will yield very good results across all kinds of students.
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