Discussion 1

What went wrong?

"The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery"

Mark Van Doren~ (American writer and poet)

While taking a break from teaching your 7th grade math class you overhear two teachers talking about a ‘failed experiment'. Ms. Smith was explaining to Ms. Jones, the special educator, that she tried something she learned about in a recent workshop where she created cooperative, heterogeneous groups of four students that included children with learning disabilities, ELLs, and ‘typically developing' children and assigned a ‘performance based assessment' with the final outcome being a poster, report, and collaborative presentation.

She thought it was a great idea since the groups seemed to be working hard all week, but when each group presented their findings, poster, and report- she realized that they missed the mark entirely. She can't understand what she did wrong.

As the ELL teacher you can't help but to interject at this point. What suggestions would you give to Ms. Smith to help her get better results next time she uses Performance Based Assessment. Keep in mind the terms: formative assessments, rubrics, and preparation for assessment.

Guided Response: Review your classmates posts and respond to at least three.

Assume the role of Ms. Jones; do you believe the suggestions given by the ELL teacher will also benefit the students who have special needs? Why or why not? What modifications could you make to the suggestions to make them more accessible and beneficial to all students?