Parent Support of Student Assessments

This blog is a parallel commentary from the parent perspective on Mary Ann Burke’s January 11, 2022 post “How Students Own Their Learning Assessments” from her series Student Engagement Assessment: Strategies to Empower All Learners.

What Do Student Learning Assessments Look Like?

When a classroom teacher includes student choice for learning assessments, it can take on many different forms. Often times, they will tend to be project-based assessments where students have full control over demonstrating and evaluating their learning. Here are some examples of learning assessments that might be assigned by your child’s teacher:

A history research project using both primary and secondary sources to learn more about the immigration story in the family.
A science project that demonstrates the effective application of the scientific method.
A cross-curricular Language Arts and Physical Education project to develop scripts for a PSA (Public Service Announcement) campaign regarding physical health or mental health issues.
A smart-water garden design that employs the mathematical computations to find area of landscaping, find plants and other organic materials needed in cubic feet, and calculate the cost of materials to stay within a budget.

What Are The Components Of Student Owned Assessments?

After learning about a concept or theme in class, the teacher will assign a project where students apply their learning. Students will see the assessment more as a real-life application and see how it is important.
Student owned assessments always give students the ability to dictate how they want to demonstrate their learning. As long as it meets the parameters of the assessment grading rubric, students have full reign of designing their project.

Some indicators of how your child has owned their learning assessment:

Your child can state why this assessment is meaningful to their life.
They are willing to make changes and revisions. They take initiative to self-correct areas of the learning assessment without being told.
Your child strives to make this the best assessment they can and frequently refers to the rubric to make sure they are accomplishing their goal.

How Can Parents Support Students As They Evaluate Their Learning Assessments?

Given that learning assessments take a length of time and may be multi-step tasks, parents can provide much support by following these tips:

Work with your young child to set the pace of working on the project. It may be helpful to put mini due dates on the calendar to use as progress checks. For older children, check to see that they are working on a timeline of when to complete certain parts of their project. If their project requires a trip to the store for art supplies or a visit to interview someone, support your child by making time to accompany them on these trips.
At regular intervals, ask your child if they are satisfied with their progress (i.e. “How’s it going?”). Give them the opportunity to show or demonstrate their project’s progress with you and evaluate their work (i.e. “What more needs to be done to meet the requirements as outlined on the rubric?”)
Continue to offer support throughout their process (i.e. “What can I do to support you towards the next steps?” or “Would you be open to some suggestions from me?”).

Authentic learning assessments are a valuable and powerful learning tool for our children. When parents support children to take ownership of their learning, we encourage them to be lifelong learners.

How Parents Can Support Learning at Home

This blog is a parallel commentary from the parent perspective on Mary Ann Burke’s December 7, 2021 post “What Does an Engaged Classroom Look Like?” from her series Student Engagement Assessment: Strategies to Empower All Learners.

How to Create Learning Goals from Academic Standards

When talking with your children about creating learning goals, a good approach to take as a parent is to make sure that your children initiate the learning goals. They can choose to reflect on a class in which they excelled, or they may choose to take a closer look at a class in which they need improvement. The key here is to remember to nurture and instill the growth mindset as children move forward towards their goals.

Students’ Feedback Ensures Realistic Learning Goals

A few questions will help guide children think about their next steps in their learning goals:

Are you satisfied with how you did in _________ class?
1. Yes – then ask “What was the most satisfying?” and use this opportunity to affirm their hard work and validate their efforts.
2. No – then ask “What is concerning you?” and use this opportunity to show empathy for their disappointment and reassure them that this is just one step of their learning journey.
How can I support you in the next step?
1. If they answered yes previously, your children may want to share what new learning goals they have, or they may want to brainstorm new areas of growth with you.
2. If they answered no previously, your children may want to receive some suggestions on what steps they need to take to proceed, or consider other resources to explore (including discussing options with a teacher or school guidance counselor).

Student Engagement Ensures Informative Feedback

When children are active participants in the outcome of their learning, they take ownership of their learning. The more they are able to converse about their thought process, the more they learn how to become better decision makers. It will help foster a sense of responsibility and independence as well. This is especially important for developing self-motivation.

What is a SMART Goal?

SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Based. It provides a framework with which to put together a well thought out goal. Once you have received feedback from your child using the previously suggested conversation prompts in this blog, using the SMART Goal framework will help you and your child work out the details on how to accomplish their goals. Writing them out together will help articulate their ideas and form accountability.

Wishing you much success as you make deliberate steps to support your child’s learning at home!

How Parents Can Support Student Learning

This blog is a parallel commentary from the parent perspective on Mary Ann Burke’s November 2, 2021 post “What teachers and parents can do to increase student learning” from her series Student Engagement Assessment: Strategies to Empower All Learners.

Most second-generation Asian Americans were prodded by parents to achieve the “American Dream” by becoming a doctor, engineer, or lawyer, my parents gave me the freedom of choice. My Asian American idea of achieving the “American Dream” was not so much defined by a career, but that a successful life was one in which I had every opportunity to fulfill my destiny. When I was young, my parents encouraged me to pursue my passions, to develop my talents, and to follow the sense of calling in my life. During this season of Thanksgiving, I am eternally grateful for the gift of freedom my parents have bestowed on me.

Student Ownership of Their Learning

Now that my daughters are in high school and middle school, I too, want to pass on the gift of freedom. When children know they have full autonomy of their learning, they will be self-motivated. All the content they wish to learn will have meaning and relevance in their lives. Moreover, children will know that they have full support from their parents. In my family, we regularly have conversations about what they want to learn and what activities they want to pursue. This will set up the expectation that they are the ones who need to take ownership of their learning. Some questions we have used in conversations include:

What do you want to be when you grow up?
What particular gifts are talents of yours will you be using to fulfill this potential?
How can you use your gifts and talents to help others?
How do you see yourself impacting the world in a positive way with this career?

Student Development of Individualized Learning Intentions

Once we have had the conversation about our children’s future goals, we are able to take the next step to individualize their learning intentions and plans. This is where we talk about classes they need to take or activities to get involved with. Since each person will have different goals and a different path in life, it is important to emphasize here that development of individual plans means taking your time to develop a coaching or mentoring approach with your children.

For example, our older daughter has a strong sense of the goals she wants to pursue. For her, developing learning intentions means that we chart out classes and activities that align with her goals. We check in with her to see that she is doing well in her academic classes and that her activities are providing enough of a challenge to grow as a person. Our younger daughter is still exploring her future options. For her, providing a wide range of learning opportunities will help her discover and develop her strengths. She loves helping people, so her activities include many service projects. To help each daughter articulate her individualized learning intentions, here are some questions we have used in conversations at multiple check-points:

What is something new that you have learned in your classes / activities?
What is a success you have accomplished within your classes / activities?
What do you enjoy the most in your classes / activities?
What struggles do you still have in your classes / activities?

Applying Standards to Student-Owned Learning Intentions

As a parent, guiding your child for success is not so much a looking at your child’s performance on academic standards. What is critical in this parent-child relationship is that you are looking for personal growth towards in your child’s learning intentions. Towards that end, here are some additional conversation starters that will help assess how to continue making progress towards your child’s goals:

What can I do to support you and help you do your best?
Are you satisfied with your current learning experiences, or do you need something different / more challenging / less intense to reach your goals?

May you have much success in supporting your kids to achieve the American Dream!

How Parents Can Support Student Success

This post is a parallel commentary from the parent perspective on Mary Ann Burke’s October 19, 2021 post “How You Can Support Student Success” from her series Student Engagement Assessment: Strategies to Empower All Learners.

Students Must Feel Safe and Secure

One of the basic foundational steps parents could take to foster success is to make sure your child has a designated spot for their studies. When children return home from school, this specific spot signifies a consistent, regular rhythm in their school day. They know that their learning and studies continue in this spot because it is reserved especially for them. When all their learning supplies are in one, accessible location, this spot becomes a reliable source for students to meet the challenge of learning something new, applying knowledge, and accomplishing their dreams. Students feel safe knowing that they can complete assignments and projects in this one spot.

Likewise, students feel secure knowing that a trusted adult has made their education and learning a priority. This adult role-model could show interest in assignments and projects, attend school events with the child, or ask the student if they need help on school studies. In addition to all things related to learning, students also need reassurance that a grown-up has invested time and energy to advocate for their mental health and well-being. A parent or trusted adult could also ask the student about social activities at school, friends they hang around, or for older children, how they feel about external influences like the news, social media, or politics. Asking for a young person’s opinion and respecting their viewpoints is a sure way to help students feel safe and secure.

Students Must Learn How to Ask Teachers to Clarify Learning Intentions

Communication in a classroom must be a two-way street. In order for students to have ownership of their learning, they must also learn how to ask for clarification from the teacher. In moments of frustration, it is easy for students to throw up their hands and say, “I don’t get it!” Parents can be instrumental in guiding students towards articulating and communicating what their learning needs might be from the teacher.

The first step you can take is to ask your child for the learning context. Ask your child “Can you explain what you are learning?” If your child is able to give you general background information about the class content, this is a good start!

Next, ask your child if they understand the learning task. It might sound something like “Do you know what the instructions are asking you to do?” or “What do you think you are supposed to do with the information the teacher gave you?” If your child is able to rephrase the learning task in their own words, they have a good idea what they are supposed to do. If they have difficulty understanding the directions, or they don’t understand what the outcome of the project is supposed to look like, help your child to articulate their question to ask the teacher. If your child is in one of the primary elementary grade levels, you may need to help compose an email to the teacher. As much as it is possible, encourage your child to ask the teacher directly for clarification, whether in class the next day, or by sending an email. This will inform the teacher whether or not they have made their learning intentions clear. With parent or adult support, this is a very valuable lesson for your child to take ownership of their learning!

Learning Assessments Must Inform and Guide Students

Within the range of classroom learning and performance assessments, teachers may give authentic assessments like projects or portfolios for students to demonstrate their learning. Inasmuch as these give students to flexibility to design how they will be assessed, parents must also frame the “traditional” pen and paper test as an informative assessment.

All too often, students receive a chapter review guide, take the chapter test, receive the score, and then quickly file away the test and disregard any learning opportunities from taking the test. Recently, my seventh-grade daughter took a math unit test. They did a lot to practice at home and review in class. Alas, she did not do well on the test! The teacher took the opportunity to use the assessment to inform and guide students to extend learning. He took the time to review the test in class and then gave a couple of options for students who wanted to learn from the assessment; they could either submit a “redo” of the missed test questions or retake the entire test. Either of these options would give them a chance to improve their grade. Additionally, the teacher also offered office hours during lunch and after school. As a parent, encourage your child to learn from their mistakes and take advantage of every opportunity to improve.

Ask the teacher what their policy is about using assessments to inform and guide students. Whether it be authentic assessments or the traditional test, communicate with the teacher that your ultimate goal for your child is that they be able to learn and improve with each learning opportunity.

Students Can Define How They Learn Best

Even as teachers are designing a variety of learning activities and assessments for students, parents can also encourage their children to take initiative to discover a wide spectrum of topics as they desire on the home front. Children may be interested in learning hands-on, kinesthetic activities like automotive mechanics, learning and applying a physical technique or skill in sports, or maybe even playing a musical instrument. Still yet, other children love challenging themselves to conquer math and engineering tasks, tackle outdoor survival skills, or immerse themselves into film production and editing. The possibilities are endless. As we nurture our children’s passions and infuse that with the foundations of learning at school, we support student success!

Get Your Kids Organized for School Success!

There are so many virtues of being organized but how does organization lead to school success for your kids? Here’s the connection: first, being organized helps your child to establish good habits. Completing household tasks efficiently will help your child to feel confident and accomplished. Second, once good habits are established, stress is reduced. Without distractions, your child is free to concentrate on her academic studies. So what does that look like in my household?

Set Clothes Out the Night Before

It’s frustrating for kids to find clothes to wear when they are groggy in the morning. To avoid struggles, I have my kids choose their outfits the night before and set them out at a designated location. This may be at the foot of the bed, on the chair at their desk, or even hanging on hooks in the bathroom.

Use an Alarm Clock to Wake the Kids Up

I used to go into the kids’ bedroom each morning to wake them up by softly saying their name while rubbing their backs. And what did I get for my efforts but whining, complaining children who would accuse me of waking them up from a pleasant dream! A simple alarm clock solved that problem. Now my kids wake up on time and have to get out of bed to turn the alarm clock off. The alarm clock is merely doing its job and mommy is no longer the bad guy. That’s a “win” for Mom!

Prep the Backpack

The backpack is essential for my kids. At the beginning of the day, they go to school wearing a light jacket and place their homework folder and lunch bag inside the backpack. As the day proceeds, the jacket inevitably comes off, lunch is eaten and the bag emptied, and new homework is distributed. Where is all this stuff supposed to go? A backpack is a great way to ensure they have a place to put their belongings while at school so everything is sure to make its way home at the end of the day.

Stock Up on School Supplies

When it comes time for my kids to do their homework, I make sure all their school supplies are stocked and in a central location, whether that be at their own desk or a shared work space. Look for Back-To-School clearance sales or pick up basics at bargain stores. Give your kids the opportunity to say they are ready to complete their homework and learn something new!

Once these basic routines are mastered, your kids will be well on their way to success! What other routines and procedures do you practice at home? Please share!

Wishing you success!

Jaime