Seesaw for Formative Assessments in Math by Rachael Weeks
Students who are gifted struggle with emotional difficulties such as perfectionism, anxiety, depression, and attention. Throughout the years, I have often wondered if I am truly capturing their abilities through summative (and formative) assessments for the above-mentioned reasons. Last year I experimented with students videotaping their explanations to solving word problems and there was a very high success rate. Not only were students more comfortable being assessed in this way, but I was able to gain a much better sense of their understanding of a concept. However, I did not have a good platform with which to share this information with parents. This year I felt that Seesaw could be a great tool to accomplish both of my goals. Ronit and I collaborated to make this happen.
The concept that I was teaching at the time involved solving word problems using Greatest Common Factor and Least Common Multiple. This has always been a tricky concept for the students, so my goal was trying to help them work through these problems and distinguish what the problem was actually asking for. I felt that verbalizing this thought process would be beneficial. During the course of my collaboration with Ronit, we developed lesson plans that coincided with this goal.
Each time she was in my classroom we introduced a new way to use Seesaw to share learning. Students were taught how to take a picture and add captions or pictures, how to take a video and add text to enhance the explanation, along with ideas on how to use Seesaw to document their growth.
After their pre-test, students used the note feature to reflect.
The 5th grade students have far exceeded my expectations with their productions. It was also great to have Ronit to work with to plan my lessons, implement lessons, model for the students, and reflect. I enjoyed it because I don't usually have anyone to bounce my ideas off of in terms of planning for Advanced Math. She also had great ideas and kept me moving in the right direction. It's great to have someone keep you accountable.
Moving forward, my goal is to continue using Seesaw as a platform to assess my students. I would also like them to use it as a tool to reflect. This will happen at the end of each lesson several times a week, unless I find that this plan is not accomplishing my goal! The experience collaborating with Ronit was extremely valuable. I look forward to more collaboration with other teachers and coaches in the future!
The concept that I was teaching at the time involved solving word problems using Greatest Common Factor and Least Common Multiple. This has always been a tricky concept for the students, so my goal was trying to help them work through these problems and distinguish what the problem was actually asking for. I felt that verbalizing this thought process would be beneficial. During the course of my collaboration with Ronit, we developed lesson plans that coincided with this goal.
Each time she was in my classroom we introduced a new way to use Seesaw to share learning. Students were taught how to take a picture and add captions or pictures, how to take a video and add text to enhance the explanation, along with ideas on how to use Seesaw to document their growth.
After their pre-test, students used the note feature to reflect.
Then, students used both the video feature and pictures with caption feature to show their thinking on a formative assessment:
Finally, students shared their reflection on their post test with a video:
Moving forward, my goal is to continue using Seesaw as a platform to assess my students. I would also like them to use it as a tool to reflect. This will happen at the end of each lesson several times a week, unless I find that this plan is not accomplishing my goal! The experience collaborating with Ronit was extremely valuable. I look forward to more collaboration with other teachers and coaches in the future!
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