USING THE TRAFFIC LIGHT ASSESSMENT
DURING BUMP IT UP WALL WRITING SESSION
Not only can the TRAFFIC LIGHT system be used for ‘On-The-Fly’ assessment (akin to Thumbs Up / Thumbs Down), I have found it useful in conjunction with a form of TIERING as well as ASSESSMENT AS LEARNING:
Prior to the unit, I had students fill in a pre-test of concepts and definitions associated with essay-writing (such as thesis, topic sentence, etc.) but also a sheet where I listed those same essay ingredients and concepts and asked students to do a form of self diagnostic using the Traffic Light.
In other words, the student would read the word “thesis” and I would ask them to give themselves a Traffic Light colour about a) whether they knew what the concept was and b) were they able to use that concept right now. A number of students gave themselves, for example, a Green Light about knowing what a thesis was but only gave themselves a Yellow Light for using one.
(SIDE BAR: I found this sheet to be very informative for me and I have come to a place where adding that step of having the students self-diagnose can be very powerful for the students’ learning but also for a level of accountability.
That is to say, I have had students who have been frustrated when I have given feedback that their writing was at a Level 2 as opposed to the Level 4 they thought it was, and it is then that we will access some of this Traffic Light feedback. And the ensuing
conversation can be very powerful when I say “The reason you have Level 2 is because, for example, your thesis is a little vague and disorganized. What traffic light colour did you give yourself about making a thesis?” And the student and I can then ‘triangulate‘ where the gap or the disconnect is in what they thought they knew versus what they actually know.
If I decide to make all of the students reflect on whether they made the right choice for themselves, then this becomes a form of ASSESSMENT AS LEARNING, I believe.)
“Assessment as learning…gives particular importance to the role of the student in coming to own his or her success as a learner.” — p. 73, Differentiation and The Brain, Sousa and Tomlinson
At certain stages of this Bump It Up Wall process, I have told students what my next step was going to be (based on the plan I was following) and have then used the Traffic Light to differentiate how the students have moved forward in the writing process. For example, after I wrote a Level 1 example of a paragraph for the students, I had the entire class write suggestions for improving ONE thing in the paragraph. I then said to my students,
“I have read all of your feedback so far (pre-test and Traffic Light self-assessment) and, based on that feedback, I have the following three paths you can take with this stage of learning the writing process:
– if you are feeling RED LIGHT about essay writing today, I recommend that you take Path #1 which means that I will write the body paragraph with the group on the SMARTBoard allowing us to talk it out and to make decisions together, which will allow you to see the process completed in front of your eyes;
– if you are feeling Yellow Light, then you can take this paragraph that we are going to improve and you can take Path #2, which means that you try re-writing this paragraph on your own or with a partner and then you can compare with what we have written;
– and if you are feeling GREEN LIGHT today and about essay writing in general, you can choose one of these other topics from this list and you can ‘prove’ your writing skills by creating a paragraph on your own about that topic.”
This, in essence, is a form of self-directed TIERING;
by having the students choose their path by using the Traffic Light, I am hoping that this “…increases student ownership of learning and (as well as their) independence.” (Sousa and Tomlinson)