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Lindy Ekstrand

Gray

Assessment Development

19 September 2022

Teacher Interview

Interview with Sonia Kirby, High School English and Biblical Studies Teacher at Longmont

Christian School

1. What is the most beneficial way of making sure your assessments are reliable and valid?

a. Mrs. Kirby makes sure that her assessments are fair and go over material her

students went over along with things she wants them to critically think about.

Because she teaches English, there is not a right or wrong answer for most of her

assessments, she is usually looking for her students being able to back up their

own ideas. Questions she frequently asks on assessments include “How is this

author’s writing changing?” which makes her students substantiate their own

answers. She also grades students’ essays and other writings based off of their

own past work, instead of comparing them to other students.

b. Mrs. Kirby also ensures that her assessments are valid by simply asking her

students “Was that fair?” She picks students she knows give honest feedback and

always lets all of her students know that her job is not to trick them, but to help

them learn. She also tries to make her assessments as fair as possible by basing

them off of a format she has already made them familiar with.
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i. I remember taking English in high school and always knowing exactly

what my assessments were going to look like. My teacher did a similar

thing to Mrs. Kirby, where he would have us practice the test format

beforehand and make sure we knew that he was never going to trick us. I

love that she is so open with her students and shows them her character. I

think that this gets her students to trust her and be encouraged in their own

learning goals as well.

ii. I would love to imitate Mrs. Kirby’s honesty with her students. I want to

make sure that my students know that my job is not to trick them, and I

want to get them just as excited about improving their own work by

consistently grading their work fairly and based on their own progress

instead of comparison with others.

2. What is your ratio of formative and summative assessments and can you give me an

example of a regular assessment of both types in your classroom?

a. Mrs. Kirby’s formative assessments are a bit odd in her literature class. They

typically consist of socratic discussions after a short story or a couple chapters of

a book. She asks large questions so that students can express their knowledge

open-endedly. She also encourages students to pull from the text, which shows her

their understanding of the reading as well. Formative assessments also look like

reading quizzes. These ensure that students have read the text so that they are all

on the same page during discussions and essays.

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b. Summative assessments in Mrs. Kirby’s literature class are her essays. It includes

all the details they have been learning: content and understanding of grammar and

composition.

c. She uses much more discussions than quizzes and way more quizzes than essays

in order to break up reading. Essays are final capstones, but they can also be

shorter papers to see students’ reactions to some things as well. She includes

about 5 essays per semester.

i. I think that her ratio of formative to summative assessments makes a lot of

sense for the type of class that she is teaching. I like classes that have more

quizzes than tests because I believe that they are extremely beneficial to

future learning. With the discussions as well, I think that Mrs. Kirby does

a really good job at keeping track of student progress and working with

them throughout all of it.

ii. I hope to take Mrs. Kirby’s methods of keeping track of student progress!

She uses discussions and quizzes frequently, so that the students never feel

like they aren’t actively working toward their learning goals and

improving their writing and reading skills. I hope that I can do the same.

3. Can you give me an example of effective feedback you gave to a class that produced

student engagement in their own learning goals?

a. Mrs. Kirby gives feedback in a lot of ways very frequently, but the most important

is the essay. Students come to her often to think through which direction they

want their essay to go in, since she gives them the freedom to take it in any
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direction they choose. Handwritten feedback after essays help a lot too. She lets

students choose their essay topics because she believes that it encourages them to

do better on their essays, since they hold weight in their lives. Her goal is to

connect their learning to real life and when she communicates with students, they

are more driven toward their learning goals because they see it as bigger than just

a grade. An example of this kind of essay prompt would be “When reading

Romeo and Juliet, what does the story show us about human nature?”

i. I love Mrs. Kirby’s accessibility with her students. They seem to know her

well and trust her with advice, whether or not it's about which topic they

choose to write about, what they need to work on in their writing, or

personal issues.

ii. I hope to create a classroom environment like this. Where I can give my

students instructive feedback and advice, and they not only accept it, but

seek it out. I would also like to create a class that encourages students to

progress their own learning, however a math class may be a bit harder to

do that than an English class.

4. How do you make sure you are testing students fairly, no matter what their background

knowledge is?

a. Mrs. Kirby recognizes that she can’t really do anything about students’ grammar.

There are always big discrepancies in students’ writing skills when it comes to

grammar. She takes time out of class to work with these students and tries to give

them more grace with their first essays. She continues to give them grace if she
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can tell that they are really trying, and tries to reward their progress. She tells

students that “I do not compare you with each other, I compare you to your own

writing.”

b. She also uses different forms of literature to help with the diversity of student

brains in order to get an even assessment despite some students’ talents with some

kinds of literature over others.

i. Mrs. Kirby’s idea of only grading students based on their own work

instead of others is a great way to combat discrepancies in background

knowledge. This way, students get graded on their progress instead of their

skill level.

ii. I think taking this advice into a math class is a bit difficult, but I love Mrs.

Kirby’s idea of grading students based on their progress. This could mean

giving grace for certain foundational systems in my math class, or giving

extra points or encouragement for an improved score.

5. What was the most significant error you made as a first year teacher and how did you fix

that?

a. Classroom discipline was hard to get right on the first try. She wanted to be a

teacher as a way to minister to students, but had a hard time finding the line

between being students’ support and friend, and having authority. She lost control

of her classes easily when she first began teaching, especially since she taught

French. Once she switched to teaching English, the nature of the class made it a

lot easier for her to dive deep into personal and real thoughts without losing
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authority and respect as a teacher. She can be hard on them, and they still know

that it is for their benefit out of her love for them.

b. She learned how to be approachable without being a people-pleaser. She found

ways to gain control when she could, like picking teams for students. She also

learned to be very organized, by starting punctually and having a regular routine.

Students know what happens and know what they should be working on as soon

as they enter the door. Even the time where she asks about their day is scheduled

time.

i. I’m actually really glad that she mentioned this, because it is something I

have worried about when thinking about my first year teaching. I would

love my students to know that I care for them and still know that I am the

authority in their classroom, not just a friend or peer.

ii. I intend to take Mrs. Kirby’s advice during my first year of teaching. I

want my students to feel like I truly care about them, but don’t want to

sacrifice control. I love her idea of having scheduled time to ask about

their days. I have thought about having a similar system, but instead

calling it a “real-life problem solving time” in order to ask about their

lives and stress the importance of math being a good tool for practicing

problem solving skills.

6. In what ways have your assessments improved over your years of teaching that you

believe benefit your students the most?

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a. Mrs. Kirby is always incorporating things that help students engage more.

Sometimes it can be hard to do, because as she loosens the reins, the less they get

done, or the more they lead their own learning, depending on the students’

attitude. She finds a balance between traditional teaching and flexible learning by

assessing through mind-mapping as well. She gets them to drive their own

learning this way, but keeps the structure and is still able to track their progress as

an informal assessment. She claims that it puts students in the driver's seat while

showing that they are learning and being able to track that.

i. Hearing about her class, Mrs. Kirby must do an amazing job at allowing

students to drive their own learning. However, I can imagine it must be

hard to find the line here. She has to maintain control while allowing

students to choose their own path.

ii. Mrs. Kirby’s advice of keeping control of her classroom by allowing

students to choose a topic based on a novel or story of her choice, and

keeping a strong routine (as she previously mentioned) is something that

all new teachers can take advantage of.

7. What is the most unexpected lesson you learned over your years of teaching?

a. When she first started teaching high school English, she was approached about

teaching Bible class. She didn’t feel equipped at all. One of her unexpected

lessons came out of this, and she believes it is the most important one she learned.

She didn’t feel like she was qualified to get students to feel passionate about the

Word, but then she realized this idea of a continuum. There is a possible spectrum
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where on one end, students are completely uninterested in your content, and on

the other, they are passionate about it. She started to see her job as simply moving

her students along the spectrum, which took the pressure off. She knew her job

was not simply to pass or fail, but to get them to the next steo in their journey.

“Can you get them to trust the Lord a little more?” seems much more possible and

so much less pressure than trying to get them to trust Him fully. Too much

pressure can lead to anxiety and burn out, which freezes you, instead of freeing

you to use your gift. Trusting in the Lord took the pressure off and freed her to

serve the Lord in her teaching.

i. When Mrs. Kirby first told me this, I was so excited! This piece of advice

changed the way that I thought about teaching. Learning about my career

and preparing for my first year, I felt a lot of pressure to get it perfect the

first time. Not even just good on the first try, perfect. However, thinking of

teaching as simply moving students along the spectrum and getting them

to be a little bit more interested in the content and their learning, takes so

much pressure off!

ii. Out of all the advice Mrs. Kirby gave me, this one will stick with me the

most. I hope to remember this idea throughout my entire teaching career,

seeing myself as a vessel for God’s work in students, instead of the one

responsible for their success in a certain subject.

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Interview with Tim Wes, Mathematics teacher at Bonita High School

1. What is the most beneficial way of making sure your assessments are reliable and valid?

Can you give an example?

a. Mr. Wes gives a lot of assessments and makes sure they mirror class material. If

he gives them the same type of problem in class a few times, he uses the same

kind of question on the assessment. They are usually given in the form of a quiz

twice a week, with four formative questions on the front, where the grading is

very right and wrong, and one summative question on the back, where there are

partial credit points given, since that is the students’ way of showing what they do

and dont know.

i. Speaking as a past student of Mr. Wes, I can look back on my own

experience and see that he did make his assessments well. He often used

practice problems from classwork and redesigned them so that quizzes

mirrored classwork. Sometimes it was as simple as changing the numbers

on a question. As his student, this made quizzes really predictable and

made it easy to prepare beforehand to improve scores.

ii. I hope to have a similar system in my own math class. Helping students

feel more comfortable with assessments by making them predictable and

fair, is a great way to reduce test anxiety and get honest scores. I intend to

use classwork problems on my own assessments and help students practice

different question formats as well.

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2. What is your ratio of formative and summative assessments and can you give an example

of both in your class?

a. He gives formative and summative assessments together twice a week. 15% to

60% ratio. Scoring is partial credit with the summative question, but he is careful

never to give less than 4/10 on summative. However, formative is very cut and

dry. Again, he does a quiz twice a week and includes 4 formative questions on the

front and one summative on the back.

b. Mr. Wes also does not include big summative assessments such as final exams. He

doesn’t like those kinds of make or break exams, instead, he likes building his

grades throughout the semester. This way, no bad grade will kill a students’ grade

and no good grade will save them. He also drops 2 quizzes at the end of the

semester to account for bad test days.

i. I love Mr. Wes’ grading method. Giving no less than 4/10 on a summative

section may seem like giving a freebie, but I think it is a great way to keep

students motivated. Oftentimes, especially in math classes, it is easy for

students to get discouraged and think they simply can’t do something,

instead of understanding that it may just take a learning process. I also

think that having many assessments helps with this as well, encouraging

students by showing them that there is always room for improvement, and

there are no lost causes.

ii. This is something that I am very glad Mr. Wes told me. I have been

struggling to find ways to reduce anxiety when it comes to a math

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classroom. Scoring well and leaving plenty of room for improvement is a

great way to do this. Until I figure out exactly how I want to achieve this

in my own classroom, Mr. Wes’ ideas will be a great place to start!

3. Can you give me an example of effective feedback you gave to a class that produced

student engagement in their own learning goals?

a. The reason Mr. Wes gives so many assessments is because he grades them and

returns them the next day. This way, he uses them as a way to guide his

instruction and teach what the students need to work on, and gets familiar with

what to fix. The main thing that this does is it gets the students to understand the

questions they should be asking.

i. I think that grading and returning assessments right away is a great way to

get students on track with their progress and ask the right questions to get

whatever information they may have missed on the first go.

ii. I plan to do the same as a math teacher, returning work right away in order

to get a good understanding of my students’ knowledge and help them

understand their own. I believe that math is an ongoing process of new

knowledge and I don’t think that would be possible without constantly

checking progress and relearning basics.

4. How do you make sure you are testing students fairly, no matter their background

knowledge?

a. This is tricky with a math class, since you have to rely on background knowledge

and foundational knowledge quite a bit. Mr. Wes always starts out with
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background and tries not to focus on things students should have known prior. He

also tries not to penalize kids for things they missed prior to his class, unless he

has covered it enough himself to where it is now on them.

i. I remember Mr. Wes being really great at teaching background before new

subjects. He taught derivatives by giving an example of a ball dropping

along a parabola, and asking students what speed it was going when.

Then, he taught us about how mathematicians learned how to solve this,

then taught us how. I loved how he always started a new concept with the

reason we need it, and how it was discovered. This leveled the playing

field and opened the subject to one that is completely new to everyone, not

just certain students.

ii. This is an idea I have always wanted to implement into my classroom.

Teaching basics is an extremely important part of a math lesson, and I

think that it often goes overlooked. I hope to start each new concept with a

background of where it came from, and always making students feel

comfortable enough to ask me to reteach basic concepts in order to put

everyone on the same page.

5. What was the most significant error you made as a first year teacher regarding your

assessments and how did you fix that issue?

a. His first year, Mr. Wes struggled with what to do with homework. What do you do

with students who get it all wrong? Do you grade it or not? He didn’t start solving

this problem until he changed his classroom, making his own lesson videos that
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students watch ahead of time. This made his classtime a discussion, where he

goes over homework in detail. He only gives 4 problems and they are meaningful

for them and for him. He makes sure all students feel like they can come to him

with things they are struggling with at all times as well. His biggest fear was

always whether or not students could do the work outside of class. Homework

problems are tied to it too. He loves it because it targets students where they’re at

instead of lecturing to an entire class.

i. So many math teachers handle homework differently, but I remember

loving Mr. Wes’ homework. I always felt like so many math classes had

excessive homework questions that consumed a lot of my afterschool

time, but Mr. Wes only had 5 total questions each night. However, the last

one was always challenging, so it made up for the extra work we weren’t

doing.

ii. I saved Mr. Wes’ homework worksheets from high school because I

wanted to model his. I want to give my students less homework problems

in order to reduce stress. I also want to make sure that the few problems I

do give are well thought out and improve learning, not just busywork.

6. In what ways have your assessments improved over your years of teaching that you

believe benefitted your students the most?

a. Once he got that formative/summative idea where students have a chance to

practice before showing him what they learned for real. The no formal tests have
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also helped students stay accountable for building knowledge instead of

cramming and forgetting. Frequent tests also lower test anxiety as well.

i. I was a bit surprised when Mr. Wes told me that he never had final exams.

One, because I didn’t remember that, and two, because I wondered how he

manages that. However, hearing about how each quiz includes formative

and summative content, it makes sense! I like how it gives students a

chance to work toward their grade by showing their learning progress,

instead of cramming and forgetting.

ii. I don’t know if I will use the same system as Mr. Wes, where I would only

give quizzes twice a week that include both formative and summative

content, but I love the way that it really encourages students to simply

prove their progress instead of rewarding good test scores. I also love how

this reduces test anxiety, as this is something extremely important to me.

7. What is the most unexpected lesson you learned over your years of teaching?

a. Mr. Wes’ first year at Bonita made him really attached to his students because

they were so interested in math as AP students, and then he never really heard

from them again because they graduate and move on. Then, new kids came in and

the cycle taught him how to attach to students but also be able to connect to the

next class, without holding on for too long. He tried not to dwell on one class too

much. When they come back, of course he remembers them, but he learned not to

dwell after a longer period of time.

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i. This was super funny to hear as a past student of his. However, I also grew

up with my mom being a teacher and therefore understand how this works,

so I am not shocked or offended. It would be impossible to think about

past students all the time and still be able to pour into the next class,

which, I believe, is the best way to minister to students through teaching.

ii. I have a bit of a different perspective than Mr. Wes, since I see teaching as

a form of ministry. However, this advice is still good. It is important not to

dwell on the past, and it would make it very difficult to pour into a new

class if you did. I want to make sure each class feels cared for and

encouraged by me, and will still probably pray for old students once and a

while, but will not let it prohibit my connection with the next students.