SAIIER 2018:Holistic Assessment for Integral Education

Creativity Throughout the Program		Establishing an Affective Curriculum
Holistic Assessment for Integral Education A project of Transition School

Assessment of the student’s progress is a very important component of education. When it is well thought out and used appropriately, it can have a big impact on student learning and growth. Effective assessments give students feedback on their progress, how well they understand and what they need to improve on. It can also give them ideas on how they might improve. At the same time, assessment helps the teacher to better design his or her lessons. It helps the teacher guide the student in his/her personal development.

At Entity::Transition School, we use Student Portfolios as the main form of student assessment. The portfolios are compilations of the students' work together with written reflections.

We regularly review the role of assessment for several reasons:

• Individual teachers have learned a lot through the years, and this information should be shared.
• We want to further develop the portfolio to include all the activities in school and the students’ personal interests that they might be pursuing outside of school.
• We have new teachers who profit and learn from the discussions and workshops.

Description of project:

Several times during this school year, we planned to spend some time sharing ideas on assessment in general and the student portfolio in particular. At the end of the first month of school we had a study session. Many of the participants had been involved in the development of the portfolio for some years, but there are also new people in the school who have not had that much experience or understanding of the portfolio.

We started with a discussion of the use of the portfolio. There are different types of portfolios, such as display portfolio and assessment portfolio. Our student portfolio is an assessment portfolio. Not only is it a chance for the teachers to assess the students’ work, but also students take an active role in their assessment. Every piece that is put in the portfolios comes with an entry slip: a student’s description of the work and how he/she felt about the work and the effort behind it. The portfolio can contain work samples such as:

• Worksheets
• Projects
• Reports
• Essays
• Explanation of science experiments
• Audio and video tapes
• Reflections on meetings or discussions
• Pictures: Art work, presentations…
• Each piece of work has an Entry Slip (a student assessment) attached

As a result of this discussion, many people shared samples of entry slips that they had developed. We opened a file in the teachers’ file on the computer so people could look and use the entry slips.

One point of discussion was the difficulty of classes such as Arts & Crafts and Music and others to show the work of the children. Photographs and recordings were suggested, also was discussion about the research of electronic portfolios. We continued discussion through the year and the children continued to be given time to select and assess items for their portfolio. Older children not only chose their own assignments, but were asked to include specific work.

The team at Transition School also worked on developing an “Auroville” program this year. We will add a new section to the Student Portfolio that is based on this.

Outcomes:

Students learned to present their portfolios to their parents and others. With study, these work samples and the portfolio itself can demonstrate:

• Students’ interests, strengths and weaknesses
• Cognitive, aesthetical aspects of their being
• Emotional development and values for Human Unity
• Growing ability of self-reflection
• Cooperative learning skills
• Communication skills
• Problem solving skills
• Creative and organizational skill

Reflection and conclusion:

We plan to continue this work as we see it as a valuable and subjective holistic assessment tool that involves all who are involved in the learning process: the children and the teachers that they work with. We will continue to work on it and adapt it to the needs of the children.

As part of the reflection we add a report written by the grade 6 teacher about her experiences this year:

This year in the 6th grade, the Jaguars developed individual growth and decision making as well as organizational skills using the portfolio. They could choose how to present the work but had to find how to do it in a logical and systematic way. The children decided to put separators in between each subject with titles. They found many ways to do that using colorful papers and different writing styles and paper layering and paper cutouts, and some even did some collages. Then a lot of time was spent finding the best way to present their work. The kids decided to put the portfolio entry in a pocket on the left and the corresponding chosen work in a pocket on the right. Then they had to decide how to place the work chronologically to show how they progressed during the year. Some chose to put the oldest work at the back and put the newest work on top, others decided to do it the other way around. All along the year the Jaguars handled their portfolios and put care into organizing their work and documenting their progress.