KVS: Keeping Track Moving FOrward Ethnographic Approach to Assessment

Definitions of Ethnographic Study on the Web:

• The systematic collection of data derived from direct observation of the everyday life of a particular society, group or subculture. ...
  www.arroweducation.org/Glossary.htm



CH 8 - pp 116-134


1. use a number of data sources to safeguard against simplistic thinking/conclusions

2. Fieldwork= collecting data but also knowing how to access it, revisit, analyze, and use it

HOW?

• Taking notes - use notebooks or observation sheets to focus you on what you are looking for - learner characteristics or group process or observations of minipresentations
• Replaying activities - videotape or record interactions so you can look at them later
• Surveying students - when we have direct questions on our minds - or want input about what is working or not...
• Tracking activity - what ideas have students been interested in over time, or how have certain students' social interactions changed over time, or how have reflections of each changed over time -describing growth articulating goals

Evaluating Growth, Determining goals - not a linear process - converging, expanding never-ending paths...as students learn from and about...

• working with others
• learning how to develop and pursue agendas
• learn to research multiple viewpoints
• learn to listen to others
• learn to re-think their previous positions
• learn to envision different futures, etc.

1. Revisiting Data - put it in your schedule so you do it - make it part of a regular routine
2. Choosing a Focus - create an observation sheet to guide our inquiry
3. Using FLexible Systems: Narratives, Observation sheets, and Locally Generated Criteria - list descriptors aligned with what you hope they are learning how to do - from these, create the obs sheets, surveys, checklists, etc.. that let you record activity and see growth over time
4. Gather many perspectives - more than one observer - staff, students themselves
5. Set goals - students should be able to set concrete goals for their learning and moving forward

CONCLUSION - Literacy is more than mastering a list of sequenced skills, it is becoming a certain sort of person (pg133)

Invitations get students to become not just readers/writers... but THINKERS:

• becoming literate includes...
• asking questions
• developing agendas
• exploring perspectives
• going public with their thinking
• generating new questions and
• working to challenge a simple understanding of the world
  

Invitations get students to use language as they were learning language!!!!! This has always been my underlying philosophy about language teaching and learning...