Get Me Outside! Bringing Assessment to Life
“We get so stuck in our classrooms that sometimes
I forget we can take our kids outside to learn!” Gr. 5 Teacher
Having students show us what they know doesn’t have to mean sitting at a desk with a pencil in hand. It can be transformed into a hands-on, deeply engaging experience for both students and teachers.
Our assessment experiences are rooted in this philosophy: using place-based, experiential learning is a powerful way to teach the big concepts and assess learning of curricular outcomes, while providing embedded professional learning for teachers in their own spaces.
This month we hosted assessment experiences in two vastly different environments, a rural outdoor learning centre and an urban neighbourhood. They were connected by one central theme: This is assessment!
Exploring Stories and Numbers Under Prairie Skies at Youngstown Outdoor Learning Space.
Our journey out to Prairie Land School Division’s purpose-built outdoor learning space began under the expansive prairie sky. We started the day hopping into a side-by-side, driven by Kelly Lewis, the Outdoor Project Lead, for a tour of the 100+ acre site. Sparked by a group of students’ desire for play to learn outdoors, Youngstown’s former golf course has been thoughtfully reimagined into a vast learning centre, with walking trails, workout benches, native grasslands, a fish pond, science pond, amphitheater and gathering space.
Over two days we learned alongside more than 100 students and their teachers, using the land as our learning space.
Stories everywhere: Each direction was filled with possibility. Everywhere we looked was an opportunity to build vocabulary, use elaborate detail, describe personal experience, build in a sequence of events, and to tell stories. Our tales were built from connection to each other and to the place we were in. We listened, we responded, we reflected and we felt rooted together in story.
Math in the Wild: We looked for numbers in nature, and using found objects like rocks, sticks, and leaves we reviewed decimal concepts by creating our own currency, pricing found objects and ‘selling’ them to each other.
Anchoring big ideas into engagement with nature, students demonstrated their thinking and grew their confidence and sense of community with students from across the division.
Wonder Kids in the City with Nellie Carlson School, Edmonton.
Every outdoor setting holds endless potential for learning! While dedicated outdoor facilities are a wonderful asset, vibrant urban environments offer equally rich opportunities for deep curricular discovery and meaningful, place-based experiences.
Nellie Carlson School in Edmonton invited us to work with Grades 3 to 5 students and teachers to blend social studies and literacy into a walk through the community.
Using what was right outside the school doors, we let student curiosity guide the way:
- We created timelines and predictions to explain the artifacts that we came upon.
- We explored local biodiversity and community history on foot, discovering how the land shapes how people design their homes and communities
- We asked and answered open ended questions – I wonder…, I notice…, It reminds me.
- We found stories of past, present and future all around us.
- We built in the forest and examined what happens when natural disasters happen or borders change, and how that impacts people’s daily lives.
- We made connections between the big ideas explored on our walk and through our nature activities by reflecting using hexagonal thinking.
- We found new ways to see the place in front of us.
- We noticed daily sights with a new perspective.
Ready to Transform Classroom Assessment in Your School?
Bringing the big ideas to life outside the classroom wall builds lasting confidence for students and provides impactful, hands-on professional learning for teachers.
Interested in bringing this kind of embedded professional learning and assessment experience to your school or division?
- Visit our Assessment Experience website to learn more.
- Reach out to us directly at info@aac.ab.ca to start planning your custom experience!