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Ken O'Connor says feedback is the focus
164 Plays2 years ago
Ken O’Connor is an independent consultant on grading and reporting. He has been a professional development presenter in 35 countries outside North America, 47 states in the USA, all provinces and two territories in Canada.
His 23 year teaching career included experience as a geography teacher and department head at 6 schools in Toronto and Melbourne (Grades 7-12) starting in 1967.
He is the author of A Repair Kit for Grading: 15 Fixes for Broken Grades. Third Edition, FIRST Educational Resources, 2022 and How to Grade for Learning: K-12, Fourth Edition, Corwin, 2018.
He is the moderator of the Standards-Based Learning and Grading Facebook group and a founding member of the Canadian Assessment for Learning Network (CAfLN)
Facebook - Ken O’Connor
Twitter - www.twitter.com/kenoc7
Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=ken+o%27connor&crid=2FWQAMLDS0H2L&sprefix=Ken+O%27Connor%2Caps%2C118&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_12
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Transcript
Introduction to Hosts and Podcast Theme
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to the Learner Centered Spaces podcast, where we empower and inspire ownership of learning, sponsored by Mastery Portfolio. And I'm one of your hosts, Star Saxton. I'm another host, Emma Chapeta. And I'm Crystal Frommert. In each episode, we will bring you engaging conversations with a wide variety of educators, both in and out of the classroom.
00:00:30
Speaker
This podcast is created for educators who want to learn more about how to make the shift toward learner-centered spaces for their students, schools, and districts or education at large. So get ready to be inspired as we dive right into the conversation with today's guests.
Introducing Guest Ken O'Connor
00:00:53
Speaker
Today's guest is Ken O'Connor. He is an independent consultant on grading and reporting. He has been a professional development presenter in 35 countries outside of North America, 47 states in the USA, all provinces and two territories in Canada.
00:01:11
Speaker
His 23-year teaching career included experience as a geography teacher and department head at six schools in Toronto and Melbourne in grades 7 through 12. He started teaching in 1967. He is the author of A Repair Kit for Grading, 15 Fixes for Broken Grades, 3rd Edition, 1st Educational Resources in 2022, and How to Grade for Learning K-12, 4th Edition by Corwin in 2018.
00:01:40
Speaker
He is the moderator of the Standards-Based Learning and Grading Facebook Group and founding member of the Canadian Assessment for Learning Network. Please welcome Ken to our show today. It's so great to have Ken O'Connor on with us today.
Ken's Career Journey
00:01:56
Speaker
Ken, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your role, your location, what your journey's been like, and something interesting about you?
00:02:04
Speaker
Thank you for this opportunity. I'm always happy to do these sorts of things. And yes, currently I describe myself as a consultant and an author. I live in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and I do consulting on grading and reporting. I currently have two books on grading and reporting in print. My background is as a classroom teacher. I had 23 years in the classroom.
00:02:34
Speaker
teaching from grade seven to grade 12, mainly geography. And then for 10 years, I was a curriculum coordinator for a large school district. We had about 85,000 students, about 155 schools. And I retired from that school district in June of 99. So I've been working as an independent consultant since then.
00:02:58
Speaker
My journey, I think, really
What Shifted Ken's View on Assessment?
00:03:01
Speaker
started when I attended a train the trainer session with Rick Stiggins in Toronto in May of 1993.
00:03:11
Speaker
He totally opened my eyes to a completely new view of assessment as student-centered assessment as assessment for learning. And my role with the school board was coordinator of assessment and evaluation. And increasingly, over that time, I focused more and more on grading and reporting.
00:03:37
Speaker
My first article on grading was published in May of 1995.
00:03:42
Speaker
my first book in October of 1998. So it's been a fairly long journey. I suppose an interesting thing about me that most people wouldn't know is that I was an international field hockey umpire. I umpired the men's field hockey at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles and the 1990 World Cup in Lahore, Pakistan.
Defining Learner-Centered Spaces
00:04:09
Speaker
And I guess I'd also add that currently I'm a keen and pretty frequent pickleball player. So I think that probably covers the things that you suggested I talk about.
00:04:22
Speaker
Wow, that's so fascinating. And I've heard that pickleball is starting to become more popular with the younger generations. My own teenage daughter has started playing pickleball on the weekends now. So our whole podcast, the theme is learner-centered spaces. And I'm curious, in your experience as a consultant and as an educator, what does a learner-centered space look like or feel like or sound like to you?
00:04:51
Speaker
A learner-centered space for me would be where there is lots of conversation, not so much students just sitting and doing things individually. I think there would be a lot of different possibilities for the students in terms of how they participated in the learning process.
00:05:15
Speaker
I think there hopefully would maybe be some standing tables, some sitting tables, maybe an area with some comfortable chairs where they could sit around and have dialogue. But lots of student talk, lots of teacher listening, not so much teacher talking.
00:05:40
Speaker
To that end, Ken, when you talk about what is the benefit to having even the flexible seating arrangements to facilitate that kind of talk you're talking about,
00:05:51
Speaker
Well, I think the benefit is, and especially if we're talking about middle and high school students, is that, and I would say this maybe somewhat recent focus is I have twin grandchildren who are 15, nearly 16. And when I watch them, they,
00:06:13
Speaker
sit and stand and move around in all sorts of different ways. And when they seem to be most engaged very often, it's when they're sitting in a comfortable chair, almost rolled up in a ball.
Impact of Flexible Spaces in Education
00:06:28
Speaker
And if they do that away from school and are very engaged in what they're doing, it seems to me there should be times when they were able to do that in school, that they're not just sitting in desks in rows.
00:06:43
Speaker
which I see still far too often. Yeah, I'm with you on that. I know in my high school English classroom when I was teaching, I had mostly tables, but I encouraged my students to sit on the floor if they wanted or just, you know, to I had beanbags. I also allowed them to be in the hallway if they were doing different things. And I think when you're comfortable, you're
00:07:07
Speaker
more able to take risks. So having that flexible seating, I think, leads to all the other things that we kind of hope will happen in a learner-centered space.
00:07:22
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I think I would take that maybe a little bit further, and that is that there would also be all sorts of spaces around the school. You talked about letting them go into the hallway. But I've been in a few schools, and admittedly, some that are building, they have fairly recent buildings, where they've deliberately developed them. So there are all sorts of different spaces where students can get together outside the classroom.
00:07:50
Speaker
I work in a school that's pre-K to 12th grade and we have a brand new building and we purposely put that into the plans of a lot of small conference room type spaces where students can get together and they have screens, television type screens where kids can project for each other. A lot of comfortable seating and I'm a math teacher
00:08:16
Speaker
And a lot of what we do in my classroom is handwriting. We write with our pencils. And I find that I'm able to achieve the flexible spaces with the just use of a basic clipboard. So I always have clipboards available in my classroom.
00:08:32
Speaker
and they can go outside when the weather's nice. I'm in Houston, so the weather's rarely nice, but we can go outside, we can sit in some of these comfortable spaces, they can go into the cafeteria where there's soft seating in the cafeteria even. So I completely agree with you that I think that's the new focus right now when there's new buildings being built on campus or renovations being done. That sounds like a school that I would have liked to have been in.
Key Elements of Student-Centered Assessment
00:09:02
Speaker
Yeah, there's lots of great things going on at Crystal School. To that end, Ken, as we kind of move into how assessment works with these learner-centered spaces, can you talk a little bit about how assessment plays a role when it comes to centering students in the learning?
00:09:23
Speaker
Yes, I mean, I think what it has to be about from a learner-centered point of view is that students have to know what the learning goals are, where they are, where they're going. And so to me, it's about what I, and this isn't original, but the learning questions for each student. Where am I going? Where am I now?
00:09:46
Speaker
What can I do better or close the gap? And so that assessment should be in the service of students being very clear about those three questions. So it means the learning goals have to be really clear. There has to be lots of we have to build students self-assessment and peer assessment skills so they know where they are now.
00:10:09
Speaker
There has to be lots of descriptive feedback so that they know what they can do better, how they can close the gaps. And so the focus is very much on assessment for learning. And that is what most of the time informally and formally assessment is about.
00:10:31
Speaker
Would you have any thinking about that assessment piece? And I totally agree. Our work here really lines up nicely in terms of the visible learning questions that you just mentioned. So how do we support teachers who maybe struggle with giving really good strategic feedback?
00:10:54
Speaker
and the building of assessments that line up with those kinds of questions. Because some of the things that I see when I work with teacher teams is that they don't, the teachers don't necessarily have the clarity they need to be able to achieve that with their students. So how do we help teachers get clear so that they could give students that freedom to answer the questions in a meaningful way that you just mentioned?
Developing Assessment Literacy in Teachers
00:11:24
Speaker
As a very broad statement, I would say it's about building assessment literacy because when teachers are less assessment literate, they will they will do those things. But I think in terms of if we're thinking more in terms of individuals, it's getting them to think about their own learning.
00:11:43
Speaker
and when they have had really good learning experiences. And almost certainly the things that we just talked about is what will come out. And so if that was what worked for them, then I think they can come to understand hopefully reasonably quickly and with support, do much better in terms of standards aligned assessments and quality feedback. Okay.
00:12:10
Speaker
Thank you for that. I'm curious, you talked about how, Rick, earlier in your career really changed your mindset on assessment and learning-centered spaces, and you're talking now about teachers who need to learn assessment literacy. I'm curious if you have any advice or tips on how school leaders can help their teachers to gain that assessment literacy. What advice would you give to them?
00:12:38
Speaker
Well, I unless we're talking about, you know, sort of organized professional development, which hopefully would give the teachers some choices. I think it would mainly come down to individual coaching of those teachers. I genuinely believe that, you know, most teachers
00:12:58
Speaker
want to do the best job they possibly can. And so if it becomes clear to them in whatever way that happens, then I think mostly they will be open. And we should be doing things in such a way that teachers will be open to being coached to do those things better and better.
00:13:23
Speaker
I like that. Thank you. I'm a big fan of coaching as well in the education setting. Thank you for that. I'm curious, where could our listeners, where could they find you online if they wanted to learn more about you or see your work? What kind of social media are you on?
00:13:42
Speaker
I'm on Facebook, and I use Facebook quite regularly. I am one of the two administrators of the Standards-Based Learning and Grading Facebook group, and so I try to monitor that and engage fairly frequently. I'm also on Twitter at kenox7, and I
00:14:05
Speaker
I'd say my involvement in Twitter is somewhat intermittent, but I do engage fairly frequently. I'm sort of a little bit old school, I guess, in the way that the way that I still prefer to communicate online is with email and I'm at kenark at aol.com, probably the last person in the world on AOL. So those would be the three things.
00:14:31
Speaker
Thanks so much, Ken. As somebody who's on your standards-based grading group, I think for folks who are really new to this or have been doing it for a while, it's an excellent forum with a lot of really good resources.
00:14:48
Speaker
for folks to get involved with. So if you're not a part of that group and this is work that you're interested in and you're listening, I highly recommend joining that group. To that end, do you have folks you want to shout out? Are there particular thinkers around the work that you do that you think other people should be reading, following, listening to?
Recommended Resources for Educators
00:15:09
Speaker
to help them make this work better in their spaces. Yeah. That's a really interesting question. In fact, now there are just so many people, I think. And one would certainly be you, Starr. You have certainly been a leader in getting us to think about how we can do assessment more effectively, how we can hack assessment, how we can
00:15:36
Speaker
do less grading. Rick Stiggins, although he's not active in terms of consulting, his books are still articles that I think are really valuable.
00:15:52
Speaker
Another person would be Nicole Vagle, one of the people who's with Solution Tree, but she's doing really interesting things with a school in Minneapolis. I still think Grant Wiggins is somebody that people should look at.
00:16:09
Speaker
Another person is Damien Cooper has a wonderful, relatively new book out titled Rebooting Assessment, which is really about looking at conversations and performances rather than simply products. Just an amazing book.
00:16:31
Speaker
And the other person I would say is Matt Townsley because of the way that he connects what we're doing or what we're trying to do with research. And he has an amazing website, all things SPG. There are lots of other people, but that's probably a sufficient list to start off with.
00:16:57
Speaker
Yeah, I think all of those people have influenced me. And as Crystal stated earlier, you know that I credit you as well with being the person who kind of got me on this path. Your book fell into my lap. The toolkit for grading fell into my lap literally at the just right time. And I think you do definitely have to be open to doing things differently. Do you have that just right book?
00:17:27
Speaker
come across your desk when you're just ready to read it and like truly and honestly reflect on your own practice and what that looks like.
00:17:38
Speaker
and how you could do better by kids. And I just remember reading that book and thinking to myself, man, I do a lot of this stuff he's saying I shouldn't be doing.
Influential Readings on Grading and Assessment
00:17:51
Speaker
And the rationale provided is just so, so helpful to rethink what this could look like. And from there,
00:17:59
Speaker
you know, I kind of felt like anything was possible in my classroom once I got rid of some of the things that seemed to be holding my students back. So thanks so much.
00:18:09
Speaker
Well I'm glad to hear that and it really is a little bit like what got me started because what got me started was in about the middle of 1995 reading an article titled Guidelines for Grading that was written by a college professor and I didn't think it made a lot of sense and eventually the editor
00:18:34
Speaker
challenged me to write a response. And I think his article made me realize all the things that I thought were wrong. And that led to my first article, Eight Guidelines for Grading, and then the rest of it developed from that. That's amazing. As an educator, I really hope that all of us have the opportunity to have that right book land in our labs at the right time or the right coach to come across
00:19:05
Speaker
to help us see how we can shed some of these old confines that we've had around the archaic system of grading and how we view what's fair and what's equitable and what's right for our kids. So I really hope that for every educator that they have that moment like Starr mentioned. And I really, really appreciate this conversation. This has been, I think, so helpful for me and for so many listeners as well.
00:19:33
Speaker
Well, thank you. It's been a pleasure.
Conclusion and Contact Information
00:19:41
Speaker
Thank you for learning with us today. We hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as we did. If you'd like any additional information from the show, check out the show notes, learn more about mastery portfolio and how we support schools at mastery portfolio.com. You can follow us on Twitter at mastery for all and on LinkedIn on our mastery portfolio page.
00:20:03
Speaker
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