Assessment Genre: Menu board
Just as kids love choosing their favorite, unhealthy, most expensive item off the menu, students eat up the idea of choosing their form of assessment. A "Choice Board" or "Learning Menu" allows students to choose their presentation or learning
representation product. From the familiar Google Slides to a scrapbook, students create what they want and how they want it abiding by the requirement of demonstrating their knowledge and understanding from the unit or lesson. Menus are often used as summative assessments collecting student understanding before moving onto the next unit in subjects such as language arts or social studies (Juliani, 2020). If a student is struggling or presents misinformation (or a lack of information), teachers can use this information to inform instruction and further differentiation moving forward with the unit or lesson.
More than ever, student choice is extremely prominent in schools with hybrid or online learning during this pandemic. Teachers provide these opportunities for self expression, promoting creativity, and differentiation. However, summarizing and self-accountability are a few other skills students practice along the way.
As a social studies teacher, I thrive on the visible learning, innovation and creativity from my students as they present extraordinary and unique projects.
Evaluation
In my opinion, menu boards can be used as both formative and summative assessment. #CEP813 refers to formative assessments as "assessments for learning" which allows students to continue learning and working to summarize their pieces of knowledge collected during instructions (MAET, 2020). Teachers can also use this as summative information to inform instruction as an "assessment of learning."
Implementing and including menu boards, and determining specific choices, can only be truly effective through Understanding by Design (UbD). Teachers must prioritize and determine the desired result before even considering their options of assessment for students (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). With results and student understanding more goal focused, we are more likely to see students transfer their understanding in other contexts as well as for long-term applications.
My Assessment Design Checklist (ADC) currently includes two questions analyzing assessment effectiveness and measurement.
Does this assessment effectively measure student understanding of (new) content?
What is the actual impact of this assessment in the learning process?
For a student menu board, I can confidently state, through UbD and backwards design (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005), this genre can effectively measure student understanding of (new) content. Additionally, this assessment genre impacts the learning process by offering choices and opportunity for students to reflect on their understanding of the material which will inform teachers to modify or redesign instruction.
Recommendation
Before jumping into this genre of assessment and putting together a menu for students next week, we need to consider the purpose. Wiggins & McTighe (2005) suggest we identify clear and specific desired results before choosing any materials or instructional approaches. Therefore, I suggest fellow educators focus on the goal, objective or essential question(s) prior to creating a menu board. From experience, I've noticed coworkers find menu boards from TeachersPayTeachers, Pinterest, or Google Images, when the options suggested for students do not meet the learning needs or specific demonstration of student understanding, known as "activity-oriented" (p. 3). Choosing and creating a menu board for students can be effective through backward design (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005) as teachers model thoughtful design and identifying specific purposes for instruction. I suggest, to all my educators out there, to offer a menu board when the time is right? When is the time ever right in education? When you have time to understand by design and create a menu board for students that offer options where students can walk away with a "genuine understanding" (p. 55) and preparedness to apply that understanding.
Digital context
The dessert to this assessment genre (insert chef kiss) is the multitude of digital options available for student choice. This menu can include, but is definitely not limited to, various presentation opportunities through: Canva, Google Slides, WeVideo, Kahoot!, Adobe Spark, Jeopardy, Quizziz, Chatterpix, Jamboard, Smore, Quizlet, Book Creator, Explain Everything, Padlet, Tellagami, Meme Generator, Moovly, Kidblog, PlayPosIt, Tik Tok and Powtoon as these are just a few of my favorites. Many of my colleagues express their hesitation toward using social media (Twitter, Snapchat, etc.) as options on their Menu Board because they're unaware of the appropriateness and professionalism. However, we need to remember the professionals who use Twitter to share their voice. Don't we want to model a positive digital footprint and approach to social media?
Students in classrooms today are often referred to as "digital natives" which can leave teachers to mistakenly assume their experience and ability to manipulate technology for academic purposes. Through experience, I've realized editing Tik Tok videos doesn't mean students can edit a Google Doc. Just like Tik Tok influencers Charli D'Amelio and Addison Rae (Influencer Marketing, 2020) create tutorials for their followers, teachers need to similarly identify student needs and support their learners to effectively and equitably offer the Menu Board as an option for assessment. I, for one, absolutely love the Tik Toks students spend hours to create and edit because I can see their passion in learning (and presenting their learning) through a platform they love and are familiar with. Moving further into a digital era, educators need to challenge themselves and students to integrate technology effective and equitably into instruction and assessment. No better way to practice and get started than with a Menu Board.
Resources:
Juliani, A. (2020). The Ultimate Guide to Choice Boards and Learning Menus. A.J. Juliani. Retrieved from http://ajjuliani.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-choice-boards-and-learning-menus/
Master of Arts in Educational Technology (2020). Unit 2.4: Explore Formative Design. Michigan State University, CEP 813 https://d2l.msu.edu
Wiggins, G.P. & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/lib/michstate-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3002118
Influencer Marketing (2020). Top 20 Female Tik Tok Influencers to Follow in 2020. Influencer MarketingHub. Retrieved from https://influencermarketinghub.com/female-tiktok-influencers/