Formative Assessment
Throughout this suggested activity, you will support students in achieving the following skills that are the focuses for assessment:
The following formative assessment opportunities are provided to help students unpack and develop the focus skills for assessment. Feedback prompts are also provided to help students enhance their demonstration of the focus skills for this activity. Formative assessment support is not intended to generate a grade or score.
Formative Assessment: Assessment for Learning Opportunities
Explain Cause and Effect
Involve students in a peer review to examine the perceptiveness of the cause and effect statements in their templates/graphic organizers. Use the feedback prompts below to provide structure in guiding students through this formative assessment opportunity.
Feedback Prompts:
- Does the description of the event (the cause) provide enough information to help the reader understand what happened?
- Does the result (the effect) make sense?
- Do the cause and effect statements deal with the most important parts of the events?
These feedback prompts have been incorporated into the Explain Cause and Effect: Peer Coaching Tool 
, which can be copied or adapted for student use. Samples of tools created for a similar skill within a different formative assessment context may be found in the Social Studies 10-4 Formative Assessment Summary 
.
Communicate Information
Involve students in a peer review to examine the effectiveness of the communication in the format that they have selected. Use the feedback prompts below to provide structure in guiding students through this formative assessment opportunity.
Feedback Prompts (for an oral presentation—adjust as necessary to suit the selected format):
In my oral communication, do I …
- speak with appropriate volume?
- demonstrate appropriate pacing?
- use gestures appropriately for emphasis?
- make my voice interesting by varying the tone?
- avoid distracting or repetitive words or phrases such as "um" and "like"?
These feedback prompts have been incorporated into the Communicate Information: Peer Coaching Tool , which can be copied or adapted for student use. Samples of tools created for a similar skill within a different formative assessment context may be found in the Social Studies 10-4 Formative Assessment Summary .
Linking to the Summative Assessment Task
- As students explain cause and effect and communicate information through the suggested activity Exploring the Effects of Historical Globalization, they will have completed the Summative Assessment Task: Reflecting on Residential Schools in Canada .
- Students should consult the assessment task and the assessment task rubric to ensure that they have provided the information required.
- Encourage students to use the feedback received during the formative assessment opportunities to make enhancements to their work in progress.
- If necessary, continue to use the feedback prompts from the formative assessment opportunities to coach students toward completion of a quality product.
- If student performance does not yet fall within the three levels described in the summative assessment task rubric, work with the student to formulate a plan to address the student's learning needs.
Students use the information gathered previously from oral, print and multimedia sources to explain the impact of the residential school experience on Aboriginal peoples.
Instructional Support
A number of possible tasks are provided in this suggested activity. It is not intended that you work through all of the tasks, but rather select those tasks and resources that will best meet the learning needs of your students. The focus should be on ensuring that students have the background and support to be successful with the skills that are the focuses for assessment (explain cause and effect, and communicate information).
Each assessment focus is presented sequentially in this suggested activity, although these focuses actually occur in a more integrated format.
Setting the Context for Learning
Students practised the skill of explaining impact through the Summative Assessment Task: Perspectives on First Contact . During this suggested activity, students will work with other graphic organizers to assist them in understanding the impact of the residential school experience on Aboriginal peoples.
- Review with students the information gathered in their research.
- Involve students in a think-pair-share activity in response to the following question: Were the Canadian government's goals of the Indian Act achieved through the establishment of residential schools? As students provide the reasons for their response, they will be starting to consider the direct impacts of the residential school experience on Aboriginal peoples, or, in other words, the cause and effect relationship.
Explain Cause and Effect
In order to effectively explain cause and effect, students must move beyond simply recounting facts and details surrounding an event. They must look for relationships between and among events, and for the effects of events on people who were involved. Understanding these relationships regarding residential schools is important as students continue their inquiry in this suggested activity and in the suggested activities for Building a Positive Future.
- Ask students to reflect on the information they have already gathered and describe how residential school experiences affected Aboriginal peoples. Two possible templates (see the links below) can serve as models to guide students' responses. Help students select the format that makes the most sense to them and that will allow them to best articulate the cause and effect relationship. These templates are provided as graphic organizers that can be copied or adapted for student use.
- Assist students in understanding that although the templates are helpful in beginning to establish relationships between events, the impact of the residential school experience is more far-reaching than can be portrayed in a simple, linear fashion. The impact of the residential school experience has been felt through many generations, and is known as a multigenerational historical trauma. Ask students to consider why this term has been used to describe the effects of the residential school experience. Students can reflect upon the direct effects of the residential schools experience and how these effects continue to impact Aboriginal peoples and communities today.
Communicate Information
Although the skill of communicating information is an important one, it should not overshadow the need to provide quality information for the audience. Regardless of the format selected, students must ensure that they are using respectful language as they share what they have learned about the residential school experience and its impact on Aboriginal peoples.
- Invite students who have chosen the same presentation format to revisit their brainstormed list of the technical presentation qualities that were generated in the previous suggested activity, Origins of Residential Schools.
- Invite students to select what they believe to be the most important qualities for their selected format; usually 3–5 would be sufficient. These qualities could be placed in the left-hand column of the Communicate Information: Peer Coaching Tool . Students can use this tool to guide a peer review of their work in progress.
- Ask students to consider these qualities as they complete the summative assessment task. Remind students that although the assessment task rubric looks holistically at the effectiveness of the communication to inform and engage the audience, and the technical presentation qualities on the brainstormed list are not graded discretely, as students focus their attention toward these details, the quality of their communication will likely improve.
Suggested Supporting Resources
Textbook References
Student Basic Resource—Oxford University Press, Living in a Globalizing World:
- Pages 165–169 Responding to the Legacies
Teaching Resource—Oxford University Press, Understandings of Ideologies:
- RM 4.3 Skill Path: Understanding Cause and Effect Relationships and the Historical Significance of Changes and Events
Teaching Resource—Duval House Publishing, Aboriginal Studies 10: Aboriginal Perspectives:
Web Resources
Web Links for Online Sources:
Knowledge and Employability Studio:
Distributed Learning/Tools4Teachers Resources:
Critical Challenges:
Community Resources (e.g., Elders, Knowledge Keepers, Cultural and Community Experts)
- Arrange for interviews with Elders. Contact your area's FNMI liaison (within your school or jurisdiction, or through the community Friendship Centre).
Stories and Other Media (e.g., films, stories/literature, nonfiction, graphic novels)
- Porcupines and China Dolls, by Robert Arthur Alexie (novel, Theytus Books)
- My Name is Seepeetza, by Shirley Sterling (novel, Douglas & McIntyre)
- Muffins for Granny (documentary, 2007, Mongrel Media, Nadia McLaren, 88 minutes)
