Playing the Whole Game

I've mentioned this book before, but Making Learning Whole by David Perkins really helped clarify my thinking on assessment. The key idea of the book is to Play The Whole Game.

The need to play the whole game is something that we intuitively understand. In basketball, we don't spend all day just working on dribbling or shooting, eventually, we go out and play an actual game. When painting, we don't just work on our shading, we paint pictures. We don't just work certain chords on a guitar, we play full songs.

Rhett Allain over at Dot Physics argues that grades are a shadow of the real thing. Very true and in fact, I plan to steal that analogy between 10 and 32,000 times over the next year. However, he doesn't go far enough.

School is a shadow of the real thing.

We spend our time working on skills in isolation under idealized conditions. There are exceptions, but most of the time, students are just doing shadows of the real thing.

And that's ok. Our students aren't going to get LHC access or write a novel or create new historical knowledge.

Instead, we focus on creating mini-games. I think Perkins might call them scrimmages, but I could be making that up. Sometimes you don't have uniforms and a ref so you go and play 3 on 3 in the park. That's a mini-game.¹

This is an assessment blog though so I'm not going to focus on creating mini-games (sorry).

In a whole game, you are rarely ever told what skill to use. Most often, the opportunity arises, you identify the need to use a certain skill, and perform the skill.

This is all a roundabout way of saying I like topics over skill lists.²

Skill lists fall short here and we are in danger of falling into the trap of reductionism. In a skills list, you are usually asked to just use the tool, not to pick the right one and definitely not asked to modify it to fit our needs.

Yes, I break down the game into separate skills. Yes, I individually assess those skills. But eventually, I'd like to see those skills in action. My topic scores tell me how they do at playing the whole game. I fully admit that Motion is a vague name for a topic score. But what I really want them to be able to do is measure the motion of something. So they need some vocab and some measuring skills and some formulas and they definitely spend a lot of time practicing the math (Perkins says to work on the hard parts without getting stuck in "elementitis.") In the end though, I want to be able to tell them, "Figure out how much faster you'd get to the mall if you skateboarded instead of walked" and see that they know how to put all those pieces together.

In an earlier post, I mentioned Kate's modeling project. Yes, Kate wants her students to be able to do all sorts of different mathy stuff. But really what she wants her students to do is gather some data, pick a function, justify why they picked it, explain what they're looking at qualitatively and quantitatively, and draw some conclusions (or something like that).

It seems if you include a water tank, you're golden. What's happening here? What skills do I need to pull out of the hat? How is this different from the frictionless, no air resistance, problems we usually deal with?

Note: Even though I'm using "real world" examples, they don't have to be.

Can you create a skills lists for the whole game? Sure. But not nearly as well. You end up in this troubling pattern of having some skills being worth more than others and you'll probably do some strange weighting system that nobody gets. You lose the mental picture a topic creates that "this skill" will help me in "this game." You're also far more likely to include the one-offs with skill lists.³


Anticipated objections:

I can't assess every standard during a single mini-game. 
Well yeah. Chris Sharma doesn't need to dyno (30 seconds in) every hold, but should the need arise, he uses it appropriately. That's what's important; not that students are forcing the round skill into the square test because they know they need to to use that skill and are being directly tested on it.

If it's a crucial skill, most of us are deft enough at creating the conditions that the need for that skill will present itself. If it doesn't ever, that should tell you something about the skill itself.

Topics don't give me detailed information for remediation.
I think that's a legitimate argument. There's an extra step involved in drilling down to the standard. I've tried to fix that by adding traffic lighting of my individual standards to my tracking sheets. But look at the other way around. Doing and assessing the whole game gives information that's meaningful and beyond basic regurgitation. It's good to perform the skill, but now you can see if they know when to use it and if they can break from the algorithm if the situation demands it.

It gives information to the student as well. He or she can see how this fits into the bigger picture and how this skill is used in the whole game. Anyone can move their hand up and down and dribble a basketball. It's not until you're actually playing a game when you realize that there's more to it than that.

Everyone who's played a sport knows this. You practice what you can. You go out and play. You watch film to break down your jump shot. Or more likely, while playing you realized your left hand is still weak and you need to practice.You practice. Then you play again.


My state has the most random set of standards.
It's really hard to find the whole game in the state standards miasma. The state of California gives me a list of slightly less than 60 things to teach. Some of the standards, like this one

Students know the appearance, general composition, relative position and size, and motion of objects in the solar system, including planets, planetary satellites, comets, and asteroids. 

end up lumping a few standards together. Once unpacked I end up with 80ish.  Some of you have more than 100.

This is stupid.

You've got two choices. Race through and spend 1.8 days on each standard. Or focus on playing the whole game. Pick 3-5 Whole Games a quarter. Do something with those isolated skills. Assess it. Remediate the hard parts. Replicate the successes. Repeat.⁴

Play the whole game. Assess the whole game.




1:If you click on the Amazon link, the first review gives a quick rundown of the seven points David Perkins gives. If you're a UbD or PBL/PBL fan, you are likely doing a pretty good job with the mini-games.
2: It also creates a learning progression.
3: Standards that don't go anywhere should be mentioned, not assessed, but that's a different issue.
4: It doesn't have to be a project. You can get at the whole game with a standard written test. It'll just be a lot more open-ended than any skill test you're used to making.

My love affair with topic scales continues

We are 11 school days from the end of the trimester. For as much as I talk about intrinsic motivation, I fully admit that I love when my students realize the end is near and they finally get going.

As students are walking in I have this projected onto the whiteboard (I project right onto the whiteboard so I can draw on it):

They grab their portfolios, check their tracking sheet for the periodic table, and sort themselves out.¹ There are a couple of options at each table along with green, yellow, and red cups to let me know who needs attention. I spend about two minutes at each table to clear up any confusion or problem and spend the rest of the period skittering around the class like a crab. Good times.

This is certainly possible without topic scales. But self-evaluation and self-tracking makes this so much easier.

1: I still have to send three or four kids per class to different spots because they want to sit with their friends instead of work on their weaknesses. I would blame it on being 8th graders, but really I would have done that from K to college. In fact, I still do that at every PD session we have in my district.

The Universal Design of Topics

One of the things that led me to standards-based assessment is Universal Design for Learning. I believe deeply in multiple avenues of expression. UDL was and is very hard in a traditional grading system. Student A wants to create a presentation, Student B wants to write a poem, Student C wants to make a movie. That's at least 3 different rubrics. Plus, there were inevitably projects that were high on creativity and presentation, while low on content. Every time a student wanted the ability to express himself or herself, it meant a ton of work for me. Plus, every once in a while a student would want to do something so different I really had no idea what I wanted it to look like. The major problem with this system is that rubrics focus on the assignment. What it should focus on is the learning.

Now, I have my topic scales. Everything can be evaluated against that scale.

What knowledge did you demonstrate? Well, it looks like you included the 2.0 standards and partially demonstrated your 3.0 standards. This poem/powerpoint/interpretive dance is a 2.5.

Last year's final was simply,"Demonstrate your knowledge of one of the topics from this year in any way you like." There were a few restrictions for ethical and legal reasons and I required something physically, or digitally, turned in (dances and songs could be recorded). I got a video on the forces involved in archery, a group of girls dancing the different states of matter, an animation on how to solve motion problems, a couple of rap songs, a lot of soccer videos, a couple of photojournals, and yes, even some essays.

One more thing I should point out. My problem with multiple avenues of expression was always that certain methods seemed a little....soft. Instead of having them write an essay, you want me to let them draw a poster? That's not the same thing at all.

Now think about when it's evaluated against your topic scale. How hard would it be to state ALL three Newton's laws and apply them to real life situations in a rap song? There is no soft option because the exact same level of knowledge needs to be demonstrated regardless of how it's done.

Next time you're designing a rubric for an assignment, think about what learning you would like to be communicated. Design your rubric for learning and you'll have something that is not only more flexible, but the focus will be on what has been learned rather than on the assignment itself.

In defense of skills sheets

In my last post I wrote about why I prefer topics to skills. On Friday, my favorite math teacher very proudly shows me her skill sheet she just created for her pre-algebra class. Because I'm ever-so-subtle, I've been sending her example skills sheets from The Two Dans. (which, coincidentally, is the name of the show NBC is sticking in the Leno timeslot)

I loved the skills sheet.

Last time, I came out in favor of topics. I love me some Big Ideas and I think topics are the best way to do that. Why did I love her skills sheet?

My favorite math teacher created a list of 15 skills that all of her students will need in order to be successful in her class and next year in Algebra. They're core skills. Things like multiplication tables and adding and subtracting fractions. When they get 100% right they put a sticker on a wall chart and they're done with that skill. She's also added a time component. The test is four minutes. Her argument is that these are skills that should be automatic so time is important. Generally, I'm not in favor of time limits because it's introducing a confounding variable but I can see her point and give her the benefit of the doubt on this one.

In this case a topic wouldn't make sense. There really isn't a Big Idea here. It's just a way for her and for her students to keep track of what has been mastered and what needs to be improved. It easily differentiates and students aren't punished if they pass the 15th time instead of the first.

So skills sheets really are just that. A sheet for skills. If you want to connect them to something more meaningful, what David Perkins calls Playing The Whole Game, topics are the way to go.

p.s. - I'm glad she doesn't read this blog. Otherwise, she'd have been pretty pissed at me for pressing her to create a skills sheet for the last two years and then writing a whole post about why I don't like them.

Dan's concept checklist

If you're semi-conscious in the math blogosphere at all you're aware of dy/dan. (I don't know why I'm providing a link since his traffic is multiple orders of magnitude more than mine.) He's been a long-time advocate of a concept/skills checklist model. Personally, I prefer a topic-based model but that may be based on our subject matters. From what I can tell, here are the differences:

Two quick disclaimers: I've seen this in one form or another in various places so I'm not quite sure what Dan's inspiration was so I can't properly credit it. If I ever happen to run into Dan IRL I'll try to ask. Also, the details are mostly from memory but I think I've captured the spirit.

One more disclaimer: I like the system Dan has developed. I don't want it to seem like I don't. It's a vast improvement over what we normally do. 

Dan's concept checklist:
His specific adaptation of the skills checklist breaks his math topics into a whole bunch of skills. There are more than 30.  His students take a specific test for each skill, with an easy and hard problem. If they get 100% two times, they pass out of that skill and never have to take it again. His skills checklist was 70% of his grade. I don't know if that's still accurate.  He had them track their scores.

My Topic Scores:
After fooling around with all these weird ideas (remind me to tell you about the year I based my grades on Bloom's taxonomy) the baseline for the exact system I use came from this Marzano book. I took my standards and grouped them in to topics based on co-variance. That's a fancy way of saying, "Stuff that is learned together." They get a 0-4 score for each topic, not down to the standard. So far this year we've done Motion, Graphing, Forces, Forces in Fluids, Atoms, Chemical Reactions, and next will be Periodic Table. I have a Scientific Literacy topic all set up but I haven't found the bandwidth in my year to include it yet. There will be 12-15 for the year. I also have them track their scores.

Tracking Forces

The scribd version looks ugly but the big black box is supposed to be a place to bar graph their scores. They put the dates on the right. On the back is a concept checklist and they just traffic light each one. On my tests I have a little letter at the end of each problem that matches to a standard. After we're done checking it they go through a plus/check/minus each one. The number to the left of the standard is the chapter in the book where it can be found.

I have a Word 2003 template if you want me to email it to you. Edit: A link is on the bottom.

Why I prefer topic scores

I prefer the topic scores because it forces connections. This might be a math vs. science thing but I think it helps both me, as the teacher, and my students focus on the larger concepts that link it all. Yeah, you have to learn the vocab and stuff. But keeping it all together helps create a "this is all related" mindset. Even in math, I think separating out is a mistake because of the hierarchical nature. You are losing the "why."

I haven't sat with the math standards long enough to write out an actual topic but I think if I was planning on building a topic it would sound like this in my head:

This unit we're going to solve insane problem X. (Could be a word problem, physics problem, area problem, or could be a scary looking math problem that doesn't contain Arabic numbers or letters in our alphabet). That's our goal. What are the skills my kids are going to need to learn in order to solve that problem? That's the subskills.

In my scoring, crazy, insane problem X would be the 3 and subskills would be the 2.

For a 4 a student would need to be able to take what they've learned and apply it in a new way that I haven't taught directly. So take this problem that we've worked on for a flat surface and apply it to a curved surface.

For me, there progress on this scale is 100% of my grade. Nothing else included.

Dan might argue that his skills checklist is simply to ensure his students have mastered the necessary skills to do the complex thing and he assesses that separately.  I guess I just don't see the point in having this very nice system that differentiates easily and doesn't punish kids for learning at different rates and then only using it part of the time. A little confused there.

I also am confused about his reasoning for overwriting the previous scores on the tracking sheet I linked to earlier. In the system I use, my students can see a graph of the history of their scores. They can see their growth in a very visual way. They lose that in his tracking system.

Too many students focus on the A (4) or on what their peers have, I don't know how many times I've pointed to a student's graph and said, "Don't worry about being behind your friend. Look at how much you've grown."

Again, back to Disclaimer 2. I like the system. I just think mine fits better for what I'm trying to do. I'm not trying to convert anyone (unless you teach at my school, which is statistically very likely if you're reading this post) but it's nice to know that there are other people out there trying to change the way assessment is done.

Edit: Here's a link to the .dot template. It turns out it's Word 2004 on a mac. 
http://www.box.net/shared/6xplu3btfy