e-asTTle

So today signaled almost the end of a series of professional development staff meetings that began back in term one of this year.  We have been led along the way by Ana Bryne our Assistant Principal.  Ana has been amazing.  She has led the learning of our staff with a quietly positive, reinforcing and simple approach which has enabled us all to learn in a non-threatening and respectful environment.

Here is a run-down of what we have done as a staff and my reflections on the learning I have gained.

Term One:

Week 6: e-asTTle introduction video

This was not a very exciting video, rather long and not overly engaging but gave an adequate overall understanding of what e-asTTle is and how it can be used to assess children's writing.

Term Two:

Weeks 1, 2 and 4: e-asTTle rubric, teacher marking of selected writing samples from e-asTTle exemplars

After these staff meetings I felt much more confident when using the marking rubric, generic exemplars and annotated marking sheets.  The discussion around giving each of the seven components a rubric category was highly beneficial.  It wass important to listen to others because from their korero it often confirmed what you were thinking and why but it also challenged what you were thinking and made me look closely at the exemplar to locate specific evidence that supports what I was saying.  Another reason these staff meetings were beneficial was because we were given time to look closely at the exemplars.  It was a bit scary at first because it seemed to take a long time to mark just one piece of writing.  This was due to a variety of factors some being unfamiliarity with the marking rubric, the use of 'most', a 'range', 'and/or' etc when deciding which rubric category to give, referencing the exemplar with other exemplars, the rubric and online exemplars.  This set us up well for when we had to mark our own class e-asTTle samples.

Weeks 5 & 6: marking of our own class e-asTTle writing

Week 7: writing moderation

Well thank goodness our management team for providing us with two weeks of staff meetings and syndicate meetings dedicated to marking our e-asTTle writing samples.  Boy did we need that time especially with trying to balance the time we do have with writing full mid year reports as well.  Aue, it was challenging but I'm pleased to say that I got all my initial data logged into e-asTTle on time.

What fabulous things did I realised when marking my e-asTTle samples?

Well let me see ...Time, it takes time and you definately need a quiet space to work in with minimal distractions but with a few people whom you can bounce queries or wonderings off every now and then.  Roz, Jodie and I worked independently together in Puriri.  It was great.  We were able to get on with our own mahi but every so often someone would ask for the others' thoughts regarding a particular piece of writing.  Eventually we were able to move from marking two pieces of writing up to 4/5/6 pieces in an hour and a half.

Aue, it's getting a bit late.  I will publish this now and come back another time to complete this post.