Letter to Parents

Dear Keeler Families, 

As we continue with this new style of teaching and learning, we wanted to take some time to talk about assessment as it pertains to distance learning. Please know that we are very proud of the levels of support families are giving to their children as they navigate teaching and learning online. We know you are deeply invested in your child’s learning and we are so fortunate to have your support! 

Assessment and Distance Learning 

As we work within this new reality, assessment from March 15 to the end of the year will primarily be formative assessment. To help maintain equity in learning at home, student marks will not go down after March 15, but they do have the opportunity to increase. As a result, all assessments will be used to improve student learning. 

When we are assessing formatively, we are looking to find out what a student can do independently so that we can plan for their next steps. This means we need to understand what level of support a child has received. If we know that, we can then provide feedback that the child can use to get to that next step. 

Parent Support in Distance Learning 

The goal is always to move student learning forward. When we receive work in the classroom we do not always mark or correct it because we also need to be given the chance to take risks and make mistakes. When a teacher can see where the misunderstanding occurs, they can give feedback and work to resolve the misunderstanding.  In distance learning, when students submit work in a state of “perfection” or “finality,” students do not get the chance to receive the kind of feedback they need to become even more independent.  When we over-support, we adults take over as the learner and the child does not internalize the feedback they are given, nor is their work authentic to what they are currently capable of doing. Learning happens in tiny little steps, one after the other in a developmental progression. When we follow that progression, the child is much more successful because they learn from their mistakes independently. That said, we do not want to leave any child to struggle too much or become frustrated. We must find a balance between how much support a child needs and how much is too much

So, how much and what support should parents give? Here are some ideas and suggestions to help answer this question:  

• You can support your child by helping to read assignments and questions to children and so they can interpret the work and complete it on their own.  
• As well, we teach children to ask for help when they need it. When they need the help, it will usually come in the form of questions that lead to them having an idea of what to do or how to do it. We do not want to do the thinking for them because that is how they become passive learners.  Vygotsky refers to this as working in the “Zone of Proximal Development.” We give enough support or scaffolding to help the children move to the next stage of learning.  Too much support and the children can’t independently move there on their own and there will be gaps in understanding.   
• It is acceptable to allow your child to submit work that you know contains some errors.  This way you are allowing your child’s teacher to see where the misconception occurred.  You may want to consider submitting the work that the child did independently and then including a second try where more support was given at home.  This way teachers have a better idea of a student’s understanding in a more authentic manner.   
• Giving children visuals and other examples of the concept go far to helping students figure it out. Why not try a math problem with different numbers so your child has an example of what to do before beginning the work? As well, if the teacher has provided an example already, go over that example before beginning the work.   
• When writing, it is important that we accept student work as it is, with the mistakes intact so that we can see what they need to work on next. If we want them to make some corrections it is important that we pick only one or two elements to improve. For example, if a student is writing a paragraph, we might ask them to go back and make sure all sentences have capitals and end punctuation. In another piece, we may ask them only to ensure they are using strong verbs. In this case we may identify two or three for them to improve. Learning improves much more dramatically when we focus on only a few things at a time and do not overwhelm a student. 

Every student can be successful if we know what they are capable of doing independently, plan for their next step, give them actionable feedback and then reassess and provide new feedback (we call these feedback loops). We can only do this when the work children submit is reflective of their capabilities.  Every student is unique and has their own strengths. When we work in this fashion, we are able to better harness their current capabilities and, over time, move them beyond what they would otherwise be able to do. It is a slow process, but a developmentally appropriate one that is extremely effective. 

We know this can be challenge in our current situation of distance learning, which is why we hope this has given you some ideas of how to support in meaningful ways.  If any of this is unclear please do not hesitate to reach out to your classroom teacher,

Sincerely,  

Kenny Yeung

Principal