At T³, Sam and I also facilitated a 90-minute session titled Ask, Don’t Tell: Listen to Learn and Assess.  Here’s the program description and our simple agenda.

Ask, Don’t Tell: Listen to Learn and Assess Can we merge diagnostic and formative assessment to lead learning? How will TI-Nspire™ CAS Handheld action-consequence documents combined with the TI-Nspire™ Navigator™ System allow us to leverage technology to focus on learning? What if we used the ideas of simplicity and restraint when developing and leading lessons? What can be learned if we question our way through an entire lesson? is it possible to allow students to steer the lesson through their questions? Will listening to student questions help us diagnose, assess and chart a course in real-time? Can we lead learning by following their thinking? Will you come to this session and plan to serve as a student, an observer, and a questioner?

(15 min) Introductions and Ignite talk on Assessment (40 min) Sam facilitates Quadratic_Roots.tns, 3-12-3 protocol for questioning, and QuadInvestForm.tns formative assessment (30 min) Jill facilitates Leveled Assessment discussion

I used the same Ignite slide deck from yesterday’s session since our participants were not the same group of people.  Interesting for me…I did not give the same talk, but I used the same images.

Sam then introduced the Ask; Don’t Tell idea by modeling a lesson on the discriminant using the TI-Nspire Quadratic_Roots.tns file and the 3-12-3 protocol.

Want to explore the investigation? Here’s how:  Clicking on the screenshot should enable you to download the TI-Nspire document and open it if you have the TI-Nspire software on your computer.  Clicking on the Launch Player button should open a player file where you can interact with the document without having TI-Nspire software. (Be patient; it is a little slow to launch.)

Using the TI-Nspire document Quadratic_Roots.tns, facilitate a 3-12-3 protocol to generate student questions.

• 3 minutes: Independent investigation of the Quadratic_Roots.tns file.
• 12 minutes: Work with a partner to share questions, convert closed questions to open questions, and generate additional questions. Partners should identify their top 2-3 questions.
• 3 minutes: Use the TI-Nspire Navigator to collect each student’s top question.

Facilitate the class discussion of the lesson by responding to student questions from students as well as the teacher.

Following his “lesson,” Sam check for understanding using the leveled QuadInvestForm.tns formative assessment.

Again, great discussion from our participants.  Sam received good feedback about his assessment.  Participants shared strategies they have used to debrief student responses while using the Navigator.  I thought it was great that Sam opened the discussion up by asking for ideas from the participants.

After experiencing a leveled assessment, I facilitated a discussion about the philosophy and strategies involved in using this type of formative assessment.  The summary of this discussion was captured by Sarah Bauguss (@SBauguss).

I am grateful that Sarah took the time to tweet during the session.  Often I don’t really know what I conveyed. Having this series of tweets offers me another level of feedback.

For other examples of leveled assessments, see the following posts:

• Informing Assessment: Need to Check for Acquisition of Skills over Memorization (Graphing Quadratic Functions leveled assessment)
• Helping Students Level Up (4 different leveled assessments: Slope, Equations of Lines, Direct Variation, and Parallel & Perpendicular Lines.)