Natalie Vardabasso is a special education teacher and assessment lead working at Calgary Academy, a private school in Alberta, Canada. She has extensive experience in education and has taught Jr High humanities and done some instructional design and coaching as well. She also hosts the always inspiring EduCrush Podcast. Natalie is absolutely fired up about rehumanizing education through dialogue, community, and creativity.

In this episode Natalie and Natalie discuss the ins and outs of assessment and how to best use assessment tools to foster growth and enthusiasm around learning. Topics discussed include co-designing success criteria, the importance of formative assessment and how to use professional judgement above all else. 

 

Timestamps 

• Just two small town girls talking assessment [2:10]
• Natalie Vardabasso answers a question with a question [4:58]
• Co-designing success criteria [6:29]
• The importance of building background knowledge [8:48]
• Purposes and impacts of formative assessment [10:19]
• Experimenting with portfolios [11:42]
• Shifting to inviting others to change [14:40]
• Assessment is cyclical, not linear [16:57]
• The ultimate debate in assessment [17:34]
• Professional judgement over gradebook calculations [19:13]
• Caution! Delay showing students their score [20:40]
• Switching to learning outcomes and proficiency scales [21:50]
• Consistency within your teaching team [23:48]
• What are grading conferences? [25:43]
• Students have all the answers! [27:37]
• Special Education and Assessment [28:37]
• The outcomes isn’t a task or test, it’s the learning [29:17]
• Applying all this to math [32:05]

 

Selected Links from the Episode

This Week’s Freebie!

Feedback Conversation Guide for Educators

Websites!

Spaces Website - https://spacesedu.com/

Peter Liljedahl’s Website - ​​https://www.peterliljedahl.com/teachers

Books!

Upgrading by S. Blum and A. Kohn

Building Thinking Classrooms in Math by Peter Liljedahl