Easy Assessment Practices That Empower Educators

Transcript

Kris (00:00)

Make sure we hear everything and see everything. Perfect. All right. Here we go. Welcome everyone to the Learning Loop Podcast, your best source for educational insights and trends. I’m Kris, your host, and today’s special guest is Karen. Karen is an instructional technology coach in Virginia and a long time Seesaw user. Today we’ll be sharing how Seesaw is making an impact for educators in her district by empowering and providing powerful assessments and instructional data and so much more. Karen, welcome to the show.

Karen (00:34)

Hi Kris, thanks for having me. I’m really excited to chat.

Kris (00:37)

Absolutely, we’re so excited to hear all your wonderful answers. I’ll start with kind of a baseline question. What role do assessments play in your teaching or in your coaching approach with teachers?

Karen (00:51)

So one of the ways that I started using assessments this year was just for the ability to self -check their work. You know, I work with teachers that support younger learners and a lot of times our assessments aren’t formal. They’re really formative and on the go. So the ability to practice skills using those check my work features of formative assessment is really helpful.

Kris (01:17)

and that allows you to provide the next thing for these students and keeps them moving forward. When you’re thinking about having digital assessments as a part of your repertoire, we’ll call it, how have digital assessments inside of Seesaw really helped your students to move forward?

Karen (01:22)

So, mm -hmm.

Karen (01:36)

So I do know that the automation really is phenomenal. My teachers really appreciated the time saving aspect of that. Not only does it save them time, but families get that information so much quicker. As soon as it’s approved, the family can see a breakdown of not only like what they answered, but was it correct or was it incorrect? And so especially my kindergarten team is really appreciating.

the library of assessments for those end of the unit assessments that they do. So one, saves on paper, definitely. And two, it makes that auto grading that much quicker. So, and you don’t have tiny children, you know, sending home a piece of paper that might get lost maybe on the bus. So.

Kris (02:25)

Absolutely, yeah, and you hit on a really important one there. It keeps the families in the loop too, you know, even your example of the piece of paper coming home, that might not make it home if you had it as a piece of paper, whereas if it was something digital inside of Seesaw, like everybody has their phone next to them, and so it allows them to just be more informed about where their child is at and how to keep them moving forward.

Karen (02:41)

Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Karen (02:47)

And I do love the breakdown of the data trends. So you can look at it question by question, you can look at an overall class summary, and then you can go student by student. So I really like how you’re able to filter the data down.

Kris (03:00)

Absolutely, absolutely. Speaking more about improving student learning and really keeping everybody in the loop, how does feedback really come into play within this? Do you have any teachers who are really using feedback successfully with Seesaw? And if so, what are they doing to really get to that point of moving people forward through feedback?

Karen (03:22)

So I know that a lot of times feedback can happen on a number of levels. I know some teachers that might make a comment that they might type it out for the families so the families can see what kind of feedback. I know that in my own personal experience I used to do both. I would type a comment to my families as far as like feedback on how was this accomplished? Did they do it by themselves? Was it a guided group that we did this activity with or was this?

complete like one on one with the teacher. So it kind of gives the parents an outlook as to how it was completed, not just the final product, but I would also record like comments to the students about what I really liked and what they could try next time to do better. So that definitely that recording feature in the comments for feedback really was helpful as well too.

Kris (04:11)

Absolutely, the recording is not just helpful for students, it’s also helpful for teachers and families as well. Thinking of back to when you were in the classroom, when you were teaching and using Seesaw, can you give an example of a time when you used an assessment to really help move a student forward and how did you really find that perfect moment and design your content so that that assessment was super impactful for students?

Karen (04:39)

So I actually used, I was in the classroom prior to assessments being available. So not just the seesaw formative assessment, but I utilize my activities like those quick on the run checks. And I was really looking for individual learning targets for my students. So I could take one activity, copy and edit it, and tweak it for that.

Kris (04:44)

Yeah. Yeah.

Karen (05:04)

you know, set of students that needed, for example, certain targeted letters for letter sounds or letter identification. And I found it really helpful. It was really easy to kind of recreate and assign right away. And everyone was getting individualized instruction, whether it was independently or maybe we did it together. But then the families could see the, you know, the progress towards success in using those individual activities. So I really liked that.

that particular feature as far as assessment goes.

Kris (05:37)

Absolutely. Absolutely. Speaking of that and how you really were personalizing all that learning, what else did you use that really helped you to get to that point of knowing what students needed so that you could cater that content for them? How did you kind of go through that process in your classroom?

Karen (05:54)

Mm -hmm.

Karen (05:58)

So we always take our anecdotal notes, but I am terrible at post -its. Like, I will lose them. So I am a tech savvy person. And so I would use my seesaw for anecdotal notes. I would capture learning moment. And I would grab that on the run, grab that photo. And at the end of the day, I could go through it. I could post it. I could make a note for families. I could make a note for myself.

The other thing I really loved was the present a class feature. I actually would use that with my small groups or my whole class because then it gave them an opening to understanding what the activity was so that when they tried it on their own, it was less likely that they would go the wrong route. So it was more not assessing, do they know how to do the activity, but do they understand the skill that the activity is assessing?

So I like that extra bit of practice using present to class.

Kris (07:00)

Thinking about when you were using this in different types of teaching placements, we’ll say it, you know, a whole group like you were talking, but also in small group instruction, when you think of seesaw being a parent to that, how would you give advice to a teacher if you wanted to say, if a teacher says, hey, I really want to help to improve my whole group instruction or my small group instruction with seesaw.

What advice would you give to those teachers to really help them to really boost their classroom in those two specific modes?

Karen (07:32)

So I would say that when you’re using seesaw, it’s not the only way to do something. It can be paired with other things. And especially when we’re working with students that are still in that concrete mode of thinking, you can still do your whole group math lesson with hands -on manipulatives, but you can pair it with seesaw so that they can capture everyone’s learning. You’re one teacher with 20 students.

It’s hard to see what this one child over here might be doing while you’re focused over here. So being able to capture not just a picture, but also them talking it out, like what did I take a picture of and how did I do it? That I feel like kind of offers like almost like a teacher, I call it a teacher clone, the ability to check it later for understanding. If you can’t really get to everyone in that whole group setting. And really the same with small group as well.

Again, for me, I would use it more for anecdotal notes. We would capture something that we did hands -on that could then be turnkey to families because that same activity that you do hands -on, you can also do at home hands -on. And again, Seesaw is that tool that offers really like a voice. I want to say like the children’s voices are heard through Seesaw too. It’s not just that final product piece. You can also get the process along the way.

Kris (08:57)

Absolutely, and in a very empowering way as well as you spoke to really making sure that every student has an opportunity to showcase really what they know at a deeper level than potentially that slip of paper that you’re sending home at the end of the day as it goes too. I want to ask one more question on the same line of just providing equitable learning for all your students. In what ways has SeesawW really had a profound impact on you or your teachers?

Karen (09:12)

Mm -hmm.

Kris (09:26)

when it comes to delivering equitable opportunities for all diverse learners to learn.

Karen (09:32)

Well, I mean, I know that we have classrooms in our district that are dual language. And if you’re unfamiliar with that, it means that half the day is taught in English and half the day is taught in Spanish. And so we have a lot of families whose first language might be Spanish. You know, I love the fact that, you know, our dual language Spanish teacher doesn’t have to recreate activities because there’s activities available written in Spanish language.

And there’s also that translation feature whenever there is that caption or that message sent out, you know, the translation feature is high impact. And sometimes on the other end of the spectrum, if you have a student that’s just really shy, doesn’t really want to talk in front of other people, you know, Seesaw can be that safe place where only the iPad hears me right now. And then they might feel more comfortable in sharing their voices as well. So being equitable across languages.

and just personalities in the classroom. You also have the kids that want to share everything. And as much as you want to hear it, it might just be, why don’t we share this with Seesaw? And I promise I’m going to listen to it later and I’ll leave you a comment. And so it’s another way to interact with your kids that I feel like is letting their voices be heard in just different ways.

Kris (10:56)

Absolutely, for sure. I love that testimonial there and the tips that you’re saying of those built -in tools, but more importantly, it’s kind of that, it’s the use of design. It’s the way that this is really built that really enables every student to pick it up, to be able to share their voice and be able to contribute into their learning journal so that you as a teacher and you as a family know exactly what’s happening all the time.

Karen (11:08)

Mm -hmm.

Kris (11:21)

We’re gonna jump to our loopy question. We got two more quick questions left, and our loopy question is just a silly question we ask everybody who joins our podcast. What is your favorite pet and why?

Karen (11:35)

Oh, I’m a dog mom. I love dogs. Tiny dogs. I have tiny dogs. So I guess I love my dogs, especially because I’m going to bring it back to when we were working from home. They were like they were just a stress reliever. I would have a tiny dog sitting in my lap and I would just.

Kris (11:48)

and

Karen (11:57)

find myself unconsciously petting them as I was on a virtual call or maybe working on my computer. And they just have such wonderful personalities. So I’m a definite dog person.

Kris (12:10)

There you go, nothing wrong with that. I would have to agree with you. Love dogs and they love you back just as much as you love them. So that’s very important. As we close up our podcast here, Karen, I just want to ask you one final question. We always ask if somebody’s listening in, if they’re tuning into this, they listen to your advice, what else would you tell somebody who’s listening? Maybe they’re a first time teacher or a first time seesaw user.

Karen (12:12)

Yeah.

Karen (12:16)

Yes.

Kris (12:36)

What else would you tell them to help them to get started on their journey coming into Seesaw? How would you get them to really improve their skills so that they can get to a point that you are today?

Karen (12:48)

say and I tell this to my teachers find your starting point and your starting point could be anywhere and it could be something completely different from someone else’s and that’s okay because seesaw just does so much and you can do so much with seesaw but don’t get overwhelmed you don’t have to do all the things find that one thing to start and then when that’s really comfortable and it becomes a routine you know move on to the next step.

And again, don’t forget, like if you have someone in your district that can support you in enrolling this out, you don’t have to do it alone. Find that teacher bestie, find your teacher coach, and just see where you can get started. It can be a tiny step in the journey, and tiny steps can lead to big, big moves along the learning journey.

Kris (13:37)

For sure. I love what you said about starting where you can start and start in your specific place Because that allows everybody to just jump in at any time and everybody’s ready for that when they can get ready Super appreciate your time here Karen. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here on the learning loop podcast We learned so much from you and your advice around everything instruction really helped us to move forward and Hopefully those of us who are listening gleaned a bunch of different tips from all of this

And we just wanted to say thank you for taking time just to be with us today.

Karen (14:10)

Thanks again for having me.

Kris (14:12)

Of course. Bye bye.