Affective Assessment

One of the most relevant and intriguing topics we have covered in our MAT course work has been that of Carol Dweck in her work describing the growth mindset. It was easy to see from the get go, why we started with this work and began to plan our instruction with this important concept in mind. Within our own classrooms, concepts such as this along with the habits that come along with it are of utmost importance and even hold a higher standard then that of content-related knowledge. The whole idea incorporating a growth mindset is having students value the learning process and showcase the ability to work at taking risks, rather than worry about “who’s the smartest” or “who got the highest score”. I realize now being in a classroom, that this type of thinking and behavior is necessary to establish with students before hitting home on some science related material, because without it no student will succeed.

Within my classroom there are a number of ways I can work to establish this growth mindset idea and get kids out of their comfort zone. The number one thing I want my students to do is take risks. When students take risks, it means they are working slightly outside their comfort zone, hence where true growth occurs. When students take these risks, I value their “failures” that may arise. These “failures” spark opportunity to learn from mistakes and to dive deeper in to content to seek answers. In this process students can work with peers to increase collaboration. If at first their way of thinking and completing work did not let them succeed, they can attempt the problem from a different perspective and seek a new strategy. In these instances, students gain a sense of a number of 21^st century skills. To help students feel more comfortable in this process, I make examples out of my own mistakes. I applaud students when they question information I have provided them and make note that I may not be correct with this.

This type of instruction and feedback allows students to gain a sense of comfortability after a few instances. When students feel more comfortable they begin to simultaneously respect the learning process in your class more while also opening up to you. When a greater relationship is produced, I can require students to complete higher levels of thinking and content and know that they will respect it enough to give it a go. A specific example arose recently on a day when I was absent from a class.  There had been a mix-up in the substitute scheduling and students were in class, alone with no supervision, for the first half. Students without a growth mindset could easily do as whatever they please. However, knowing the respect students have between them and myself, they took it upon themselves to pass out the work in the sub-folder and collaboratively work on the assignment. This exemplifies the growth mindset in that these students stepped outside their comfort zone and took a risk without any instruction in working with peers to seek out a solution to this unfortunate event.

Affective assessment comes along with making sure students are valuing the process and feel in that comfortable zone in which we want them. Most of the time I use this domain in lesson closures to gain a familiarity with how students felt each day. A simple thumbs-up survey when asked how students feel working with the material and concepts is the simplest fashion to do so. In many exit quizzes and tickets I add confidence indicators to each individual question so I can narrow in on what aspects students feel comfortable with. Not only can I do this relating to material, but overall their moods on the day. If I can survey their before and after moods, I can gain a sense which type of instruction and content helps to increase student mood.