Assessment practices and diabetes

Below is a diagram of how a human body typically regulates blood glucose levels:

http://static.ddmcdn.com/gif/diabetes-glucose-regulation.gif

The concept show above is common in biological processes. It is known as a negative feedback loop. A negative feedback loop works because a stimulus (in example below blood sugar level) causes an action. The action results are monitored to stop the action once the it has reached an acceptable level. 

In a person who does not have diabetes (either type I or type II), a high level of blood sugar would cause the pancreas to release insulin that would stimulate the cells of the body to take in the blood glucose and causes the liver to go through the metabolic process of changing glucose into glycogen for storage in the liver (See yellow arrows). In a person who does not have diabetes, a low blood sugar level would cause the pancreas to release glucagon, which has the opposite effect of insulin. Glycogen is broken down in the liver and glucose is released into the bloodstream. When an acceptable level of blood glucose has been reached, the stimulation of the pancreas stops and the insulin and/or glucagon is no longer released.

In a person with diabetes, the body has an abnormal blood glucose tolerance and does not produce insulin (type I diabetes) or has decreased sensitivity to insulin or inability to use their own insulin (type II). Either way, the feedback look is broken. Either the stimulus does not begin the action or the action is not stopped after monitoring.

Our current practices in assessment are like a person who has diabetes. The feedback loop is broken. Students participate in instruction, they take an assessment, and instruction continues, regardless of students' results on the assessment.

If we are to actively utilize assessment for learning (instead of assessment of learning), then the use of these assessments must be formative and instruction must be adapted to match the needs of the students (i.e. blood sugar level). 

From Kanold & Larson (2012), Common Core Mathematics in a PLC at Work, pg. 90

As seen in the cycle above, steps three and four are the key monitoring pieces to achieve step 5. Students must be active contributors to the Teaching-Assessing-Learning cycle. They must reflect on their classroom practices, as teacher should, to help alter actions in class. If this learning environment can be cultivated, both students and teachers will help drive needed changed in instruction to meet the needs of students and to assist them in achievement of their learning goals.

Educators cannot continue to provide assessments without the clear understanding of how they will be used to adapt instruction to help students meet the learning targets. If a student does not demonstrate that they have learned the information/skills from a unit, what sense does it make to just push them down the curriculum road map that is scaffolded upon that previous information?!

Diabetes is a disease that is treatable is monitored closely, but at this time, there is no way to fix what is "broken". We can fix the broken part of the teaching-assessing-learning cycle.

Using Google Forms to provide quick student feedback

What is one of the biggest challenges in teaching today? I would argue that student engagement could be on possible answer to this question. Possible reason for this is that when we provide students the chance to demonstrate what they know/have learned, the feedback that they receive is slow and does not provide the opportunity to learn from their mistakes.

Regardless of students being able to define RPG, LARP, or MMORPG, this is a generation of gamers. Being a gamer today does not mean that you are put on a costume or carry a 20-sided die in your pocket to assist in your daily decision making. With the advent of social networks, there are multiple opportunities for students, both young and old, to participate in a form of learning or entertainment that provides the user with immediate feedback, progress check points, and chances to experiment with choices and then deal with the consequences.

There have been a flurry of articles discussing if homework has outgrown is usefulness. Recently, there was even an article in the Des Moines Register about a teacher providing her students with quests to complete.

Students want to demonstrate what they have learned and how they can improve if they have made some mistakes. Students also want rapid, if not immediate feedback so they can accomplish the former.

To assist with this challenge, you can use a feature of Google Docs to bring a traditional assessment measure closer to the 21st century. I am assuming that you are familiar with Google Forms. If not, you can view the video from Google here:

 

 

While google forms can help with the data collection for an assessment, there is the still the issue of how to provide feedback quickly.

 

Here is one option: (This is strictly a self-grader)

 

 

 

By utilizing some relatively simple spreadsheet formulas, you can have the Google Form grade the answers once they have been submitted.

 

The grading formula is seen below.

=(IF(B2=$B$2,1,0)+IF(C2=$C$2,1,0)+IF(D2=$D$2,1,0)+IF(E2=$E$2,1,0))

 

What you will need to do is to develop your quiz in the Google docs and then enter the answer key as the first entry in the spreadsheet. When you look at the spreadsheet you will see the the questions/column headers are in the first row. Essentially, what the formula is telling the spreadsheet to do is if the entry in cell B2 is the same as $B$2, then give it a score of 1, if not, a score of 0. Now, the difference between B2 and $B$2 is that when you drag this formula down the spreadsheet for every entry, the B2 will change to B3, B4, B5, etc for each subsequent entry; the $ in front of the cell letter and number makes it static, and will not change with a dragging of the formula. (The same is try for C, D, and E). If you have more than 4 items, just extend the formula accordingly

 

Here is another option: (Self-grader with the ability to send results to the student)

 

 

The key to this method is a script that was originally written by Romain Vialard and modified by Dr. Henry Theile. The script can be found here.

 

In the above link, you can see the instructions on how to apply the script to your form and even make modifications to alter how the report is sent (i.e. correct answers only vs hints to improve). You do NOT have to be a programmer to apply these and begin providing students with faster feedback as we transition to more authentic assessments. Those will be discussed in later posts.