Image created by Colleen Farris using Canva for Education free images. Preparing first-year culinary arts students for the World Food Safety Organization (WFSO) Essentials of Food Hygiene (EFH) credential exam requires intentional, equitable assessment design that provides learners with the time, tools, and support they need to achieve mastery (Bloom, 1974; Shepard, 2000). This post presents a manageable, data-driven, competency-aligned, differentiated assessment design that

Image created by Colleen Farris using Canva for Education free images. I have a problem. I am the queen of authentic assessments, but my classroom assessment design skills are lacking. The hands-on assessments I design for my culinary arts students are rich demonstrations of learning. However, I rarely design classroom assessments because my curriculum always includes school-system mandated electronic assessments. In North Carolina, I measured proficiency by selecting test ba

I have been exploring assessment for almost three months. While I did not have the benefit of a broad teacher preparation program as a lateral entry teacher, my recent exposure to the history of grading, assessment, and educational technology in the United States opened my eyes to the manipulation, for political purposes, of our nation’s narrative concerning assessment (Au, 2008; Corrigan and Beazley, 2020, Lampland and Star, 2009). Prior to this, I understood that public edu

As I near completion of the Master of Arts in Educational Technology (MAET) program at Michigan State University (MSU), I am acutely aware of how much more there is to learn. That is not what I expected when I entered the program. I imagined an MAET degree would be a means to an end, but it has become a means to a beginning. When I graduate, I will continue to build on my strengths—my love of learning, my curiosity, my creativity, my facility with technology, and my proble

How a creative assessment challenge revealed my thinking about evaluation of student learning After producing six new creative assessments for my culinary arts classroom in a short period of time, I have clear evidence of how I approach evaluation of student learning. I like rubrics. I avoid grades, but like standards. I use both peer and teacher feedback as evaluative tools. I build creative projects around required curriculum content. I minimize the impact of grades by sett

Who wins the game of high-stakes testing? In 2012, I decided to become a high school teacher. In my state, a teaching degree was required—except for hard-to-fill positions such as family and consumer sciences. Since that was the job I was applying for, I only needed to pass the Praxis®  exam for my content area. I registered and began studying diligently. While I was an expert in food, nutrition, and culinary arts, the Family and Consumer Sciences Praxis®  exam covered severa

Image Credit: Colleen Farris made with ChatGPT For years, I believed I was challenging my students, holding them to high standards, and designing authentic assessments. But now I realize I can do so much better. With a master’s in educational technology almost complete, my perspectives on teaching and learning have widened dramatically. This school year I shifted to what I call “thinking quizzes” with funny names, characters, and realistic scenarios. I meet students at the do

For the last five years, I’ve been fortunate to teach without an end-of-course standardized test. But in the seven years before that, I taught Culinary Arts in North Carolina, where state exams were required. I had to prepare students for a 100-question test at the end of the year, using a practice test bank, a textbook, and the provided lesson plans and materials. One experience crystallized for me how useless and misaligned these tests were with the essential understandings

Photo and video credits: Colleen Farris Music credit: Back to Ibiza ©Made by RoyaltyFreeMusic by pixabay via Canva. Cl ockwise from top left to bottom left: bridge, Incheon, ROK; walking path, Asan, ROK; The River Liffey, Dublin, Ireland; University of Galway, Galway, Ireland. My Starting Point I am a classroom teacher with 12 years of experience at the high school level for 14- to 18-year-ol

Photo Credit: Colleen Farris Is it possible to teach hands-on skills online? After viewing Martha Ramirez’s (2020) YouTube video about...

Learning Theory in Culinary Arts Children’s learning occurs in social settings in which they are gradually introduced to and learn to use cultural-specific knowledge-building tools with the help of competent adults or peers.

Empathy Research Interviews on Inventory Management Canned tomato inventory items Photo credit Colleen Farris I am taking a Learning...

An empathy exercise A traditional Korean folktale mask. Image credit Colleen Farris In my Learning Technology through Design  course, we...

Creative protest 26 July 2024 Since I arrived in Ireland, I have been noticing everything, and taking photos of everything that I notice....

A photo study 26 July 2024

Stuck on What if? 25 July 2024 I think I have discovered why I have not been successful at being innovative in the last few years. The...

Better assessments yield better learning outcomes 25 July 2024 In the United States, standardized tests are part of most teacher and...

Pizza without a recipe Image credit Jacob Pullman Testing a recipe for success If you read my previous two blog posts, Ten Dollar Words  and Interrogating Teaching Practice , you know that I have been doing some heavy theoretical lifting and introspection to learn how to “ do better ” in my teaching practice. Put all those tools and insights together, and you have a recipe for great teaching and learning. Want a taste? Keep reading. My Why My goal is to improve student knowle

Why, What if, and How to "do better" 24 July 2024 Image credit Colleen Farris “You know better!”  I always process how I think the school year went over the summer. This summer I asked myself why, at the end of the year, some students still were not demonstrating what they learned in the classroom when working in the kitchen. I found myself repeating “You know better! Show me what you know.” I started processing my thoughts about this phenomenon in my previous blog post entit

Million dollar outcomes 23 July 2024 Recently, I road tested some fundamental educational concepts: constructivism and constructionism;...