Episode 711: Valuing Process Over Product: An Approach to Authentic and Adaptive Assessment

Ashley Mengwasser:

As educators, you're familiar with the age-old resistance queries students launched like flaming arrows. Why do we have to do this? What does this have to do with real life? Questions like these are satisfied through personalized learning where students drive their learning trajectory and see answers in practice. We invited to the podcast a decorated application person who hits that why bullseye, no strings attached, and she integrates authentic and adaptive assessment. Let's go.

Educators, welcome. This is Classroom Conversations, a place for you to share and learn. Classroom Convos is a collaboration of the Georgia Department of Education and Georgia Public Broadcasting. Pleased to meet you at the near-end of season seven. I'm Ashley Mengwasser, your host and guide through this season about personalized learning instruction and its 10 standards.

As you know, students will test their teachers with questions about learning relevance. My guest has uncovered how getting them hooked on intriguing standards-driven assignments naturally keeps students on target. And there's another aspect of personalized learning that we haven't yet addressed this season, how to gauge student mastery in the personalized learning context. I'm talking assessment, authentic and adaptive assessment. The person next to me has that pretty much in the bag, too.

Her students call her the STEM Lady, she calls herself the Application Person, and I call her first runner-up for our 2025 Georgia Teacher of the Year. Alicia Reno is a national board certified STEM teacher for grades three through five at Talley Street Upper Elementary in Decatur. That's part of City Schools of Decatur. Alicia was Talley Street's Teacher of the Year in 2024.

Thanks for being here, Alicia. How are you?

Alicia Reno:

I'm doing great. I'm excited to be here.

Ashley Mengwasser:

You look excited. How was your drive from Decatur, the shortest commute to our studio ever?

Alicia Reno:

Shortest commute ever, it's fantastic. I love this part of the city.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Do you like working in Decatur?

Alicia Reno:

I love working in Decatur, it's amazing.

Ashley Mengwasser:

I want to reference your local publication Decaturish.

Alicia Reno:

Yes!

Ashley Mengwasser:

Are you familiar?

Alicia Reno:

Oh, I am very familiar.

Ashley Mengwasser:

You had a very vocal shoutout in a May 2024 article. Your Assistant Superintendent of City Schools of Decatur Jennifer Burton said this. "Alicia is an educator who has made an unforgettable impression on her school, our district, and the field of STEM education. She creates an engaging and energizing learning environment for her students, fostering a love of discovery and problem solving in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math." How does this legacy make you feel?

Alicia Reno:

Oh, my gosh. I know, I wasn't expecting that. It's amazing. I was excited to be a part of it. When I started in Decatur, we didn't have a STEM program for grades K-five and I teach at a three to five school so I was really, really honored to be tapped with the responsibility of starting that.

Ashley Mengwasser:

To bear the torch.

Alicia Reno:

Yeah.

Ashley Mengwasser:

You are celebrated, as we heard, for the way you teach. Can you share what topic you addressed in your Georgia Teacher of the Year application?

Alicia Reno:

Oh, sure. Yeah. We go through an interview and applications, and part of that is that we give a speech at the end. Our topic was why public education matters, why it's important. I just shared a story about a student I had that came in everyday just to use my microwave because I'm a softy and I said yes. He came in every morning to use my microwave to pop his popcorn. We started conversations, we started having a relationship because he was in every single day. I became his safe space. He would come up to me, he would just mess around with electronics in the back, or build things just on his own. During his recess even, he would come up and say hi.

One day I had a meeting and I rushed into my room, completely forgot that he would be there. I got there and my room smelled like popcorn and I had a pile of popcorn on my desk with a note that said, "Thank you for always letting me pop my popcorn." It hit me then. It's not about the popcorn or the use of the microwave, he just really liked our time together. The fact that he had left a little something behind for me was really sweet. I ended my speech saying that success to me smells like popcorn.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Wow.

Alicia Reno:

It was a fun speech. My fellow finalists often, every time they smell popcorn, they'll send me a text or let me know that they remember it. It was pretty fun.

Ashley Mengwasser:

What a wonderful way to be remembered.

Alicia Reno:

Yeah.

Ashley Mengwasser:

By something so delicious.

Alicia Reno:

Right. Every time I smell it now, I think of this kid. It's pretty cool.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Yeah, definitely first runner-up worthy. Congratulations.

Alicia Reno:

Thank you.

Ashley Mengwasser:

That is incredible.

Alicia Reno:

Thanks.

Ashley Mengwasser:

I know that that's tough. There are 10 applicants, right?

Alicia Reno:

There are.

Ashley Mengwasser:

In the Teacher of the Year process, so I know you all get to know each other pretty well.

Alicia Reno:

We do, we do. We are very close. It starts with all the applicants, all the district Teachers of the Year in Georgia, and then it's narrowed down to the top 10. Then we are run through a gauntlet of activity, and applications, and speeches, and interviews, things like that. We become really, really super close. I literally talk to them daily, we have a text chain.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Oh, I'd love to see that.

Alicia Reno:

I know.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Oh, to be a fly on the wall.

Alicia Reno:

It's wonderful to have that support.

Ashley Mengwasser:

You call come to the experience with your unique vantage point.

Alicia Reno:

Yes.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Yours being popcorn on the surface, but underneath, student relationships.

Alicia Reno:

Yes.

Ashley Mengwasser:

That's going to be very much a part of what we talk about today.

Alicia Reno:

It is.

Ashley Mengwasser:

You've got, what is it, nearly 25 years in education?

Alicia Reno:

Yes.

Ashley Mengwasser:

That is a commitment to this line of work.

Alicia Reno:

It sure is, yes.

Ashley Mengwasser:

What led you to schools in the first place?

Alicia Reno:

It's so funny. My family, all of them are public servants. I have military, I have police officers, but most of my family are teachers or work in the education field in some way. I was determined to not do that. I was going to be-

Ashley Mengwasser:

Of course.

Alicia Reno:

... the opposite. The rebel.

Ashley Mengwasser:

You rebel.

Alicia Reno:

I wanted to do something where I could make a difference, but have my voice heard and get to experience amazing things. I was going to be a journalist and I love journalists, I think they're amazing.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Respect, thank you.

Alicia Reno:

Yeah, that's what I wanted to be. I started off going to school for journalism. When I started, I had this, "Maybe this isn't for me," but I kept going. I looked forward to my classes. I got into my class one day and there was a poster on the wall that just said, "Whatever you are, be a good one." That really spoke to me at that moment because I was like, "You know what, I don't know if I'm going to be good at this."

Ashley Mengwasser:

Wow.

Alicia Reno:

It just hit me, "This isn't where my heart is." I went and changed my major to elementary education begrudgingly. That started my path. As soon as I entered the College of Education at Georgia State University, whoop, whoop-

Ashley Mengwasser:

Whoop, whoop.

Alicia Reno:

... I knew that I was home and this is where I needed to be. From there, I started teaching fifth grade in Cobb County and decided I wanted to move to Los Angeles and try my craft out there. I was in LA for 16 years and then came back here. It turns out that you can make a difference, have your voice heard, and do lots of cool things being a teacher, too.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Yes.

Alicia Reno:

Yeah.

Ashley Mengwasser:

You're a little bit of a transplant here, too?

Alicia Reno:

I am. I grew up in Georgia. I graduated from Harrison High School in Cobb County, and then I went to Georgia State University. Then, yeah, I moved there. By the time I came back, the city was a completely different place.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Whatever you are, be a good one.

Alicia Reno:

Yeah.

Ashley Mengwasser:

You're definitely a good educator.

Alicia Reno:

Well, thank you.

Ashley Mengwasser:

A top tier of Georgia, which is very impressive.

Alicia Reno:

Thanks.

Ashley Mengwasser:

And you developed the STEM program at your school.

Alicia Reno:

I did.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Let's get into that next. Talk to us how the STEM program is formatted at Talley.

Alicia Reno:

Well, it's an interesting thing because we started ... At the time when we started the STEM program, there weren't CTAE STEM standards yet. We looked at what I could teach and we discovered there were computer science standards, so we started building off of that. Then what I decided to do was build off ofthe science content standards, look at those, and then figure out ways that I could apply those standards with the students to make them real-world, make them applicable to them.

Third through fourth grade, I follow that linear science curriculum. Then for fifth grade, I like to flip the script a little bit and I start with the end. Whatever they're studying at the end of the year, I start with. That way, I'm either pre-teaching something for fifth grade or I am re-teaching something that they already know. That's been helpful when our kids are starting to study for their Milestones, they can remember the things that they learned at the beginning of the year. That's what I started with.

Ashley Mengwasser:

We're going to dive deep into that later because I think that is so fascinating.

Alicia Reno:

Yeah.

Ashley Mengwasser:

As you know, we are examining personalized learning with a microscope.

Alicia Reno:

Yes.

Ashley Mengwasser:

This'll be one of our last episodes on it, but we've got 10 this season. All season, we've explored how PL is an instructional strategy that really sees the individual learner.

Alicia Reno:

Totally.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Which I think is a gift for educators and a gift for students. As a teacher who sees every learner, how do you intentionally plan to meet the diverse needs of your students?

Alicia Reno:

Yeah. It's not easy. I spend a lot of the beginning of my year studying students.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Ah.

Alicia Reno:

I spend a lot of the time before I start obviously going over things that are 504 plans or IEPs, the things that I know my students need. But then, every student isn't defined by that and every student doesn't have an IEP, but they all learn in a completely different way.

Ashley Mengwasser:

An IEP is?

Alicia Reno:

Oh, an individualized education program. Those are our students with special needs. I know a little bit about them coming in. But the benefit of teaching all the students all the time, so third, fourth, and fifth, is by the time my students get to fifth grade, I know them inside and out, I know how they work. I am able to study these kids the first couple of weeks, I watch them interact with each other in groups. I see which kid might need to be the person that's building, which might make more sense for them if they're designing on paper or if they're using the computer. You start to see these strengths grow throughout the year, and then you capitalize on those.

I use those strengths to create these intentional groupings where I know I'm not putting three builders in one group.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Ah!

Alicia Reno:

Or I'm not putting all my computer coding kids in the same group. I like to intentionally mix them up, allow their strengths to flourish. It takes a couple of weeks to get to know my new kiddos, my new third-graders. I am a student of students, so I keep copious anecdotal notes just like a regular classroom teacher would. As they come in, I look through all their records, I try to find what makes them tick, and then use that to my advantage.

Ashley Mengwasser:

You are definitely a relationship builder, and I might add eye-catching.

Alicia Reno:

Thank you.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Can we just hold up that nail polish to those glasses rims there? How did you perfectly match that electric blue nail polish with the rims of your glasses? That looks amazing, Alicia.

Alicia Reno:

Thank you. Thank you.

Ashley Mengwasser:

It feels like only STEM ladies do this, I swear. You've also called yourself the Application Person. What do you mean by that, and why is that so important in the STEM context?

Alicia Reno:

It is so important in the STEM context. I think that content knowledge is super important. It's great. My kids, when they're in their homerooms learning their science content knowledge, and we have amazing teachers that are teaching them this content knowledge, they're doing the hands-on experiments to prove that this is what happens, this is why this works. My focus, my two favorite words are why and yet. Yeah, we don't know why that works yet. We don't know how we can use this information yet. We also need to know why this information is important.

When those kids come to me, they know that the heavier car goes faster down the ramp, but why does that matter? How do we use that in our real lives? We talk about why engineers might need to know that when we're designing cars. Why is that important? How can we apply this to our lives? I take what they've learned, they're learning about weather systems and they've learned all of these things about hurricanes. When they come to me, great. Let's use what we know to build a house that would be hurricane-proof. What are the aspects of a hurricane and how can we create something that would keep a family safe during that time? I'm not teaching them content knowledge necessarily, I'm teaching them how to apply what they've learned, if that makes sense.

Ashley Mengwasser:

It does make sense. Are you able to find a real-world connection for every standard?

Alicia Reno:

I am.

Ashley Mengwasser:

That almost sounds impossible to me.

Alicia Reno:

I know. I am. Science, it's not so hard. We study microbiology. You might have taken a biology class in high school and memorized a whole bunch of vocabulary.

Ashley Mengwasser:

I might have, right, yes.

Alicia Reno:

When you come to me, why does that matter? Why do we need to know about one-celled organisms? Why is it important that scientists classify them? How can we do that? Is there a better way that we could classify these things? What are some careers that we could have where this matters? Oh, you like medicine, this is interesting to you, but you don't want to be doctor? There's all these other jobs that you can do. Any science standard is applicable to the real world, otherwise it wouldn't be a science standard. We wouldn't have discovered it. It wouldn't be important.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Good point.

Alicia Reno:

There has to be a way to use it. Even the stuff, we talk about classification of animals, which is pretty dry on the surface. It's just what's the genus, and the kingdom, and all this stuff. We actually have to take that and apply it to real life. Why do scientists need to know this? What if we have a brand new organism, why is it important?

Or, sometimes I even will talk to my students, this is one of my favorite things to do is when we talk about motion and forces, and we're talking about this big, high-level concepts, Newton's law. I just will talk about Newton's law and I say, "Okay, well, I don't want to teach this to you, I need you to teach it to me." I'll send them out, "I want you to find the real world application. I want you to prove that this works and why it matters." Forcing that upon them really gets them to start thinking at a very high level of what science is and how science affects their daily lives. When I have these kids come in and they're like, "Oh, science." By the end they're leaving and they're like, "Oh, science!"

Ashley Mengwasser:

Science!

Alicia Reno:

They're getting why it matters. To do that at the age of eight, nine, 10 I think is so vital. Even younger is so vital because then these kids go into middle school, go into high school, they have some ideas about even careers or topics that they're really excited about and they go into that high school physics class not looking at it as physics. Looking at, "Oh, this is really important because it can help me when I'm designing a new kind of car, or when I'm doing this." They're looking for those applications, so when they're learning that content knowledge, they're automatically thinking about how that applies to the real world.

Ashley Mengwasser:

I admire that you've asked them to justify the why. You come back to me.

Alicia Reno:

Right.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Find somewhere that this is relevant and why this might be beneficial.

Alicia Reno:

Right.

Ashley Mengwasser:

That's part of personalized learning is you're giving students that autonomy and that agency to go forth.

Alicia Reno:

Exactly.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Back to your format of this instruction for just a bit. You see, your school is upper elementary, three through five. Do you teach every student STEM?

Alicia Reno:

I do, I teach every student STEM. We made it part of our specials rotation. Students get STEM just like they get art, music, PE, so every kid gets to have it. I think that's so vitally important. Sometimes STEM is set aside for our gifted learners or our kids that are really good at science. I cannot tell you how many times I've had a student come in where the teacher's like, "This kid's struggling a little academically." They come into my classroom and they are designing these ... I had a kid make a fan out of a Pringles can.

Ashley Mengwasser:

What?

Alicia Reno:

With leftover wires and batteries and he got it to work. I was like, "This kid, I didn't teach him electricity, he did this on his own." That's why STEM's so important, because we're finding those kids. Those kids don't have to be electrical engineers.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Right.

Alicia Reno:

But there's so many ... This is so important for our workforce development as well. I sat this kid down and I'm like, "Holy cow, look at what you did! You could be an electrician. You could be an electrical engineer." There's no ceiling to what you can do. I think all kids need the opportunity to apply what they've learned, see why it's important, and persevere, and struggle, and fail.

The first thing I say to my students is, "Hi, I'm your new teacher. You're going to fail in this class." They all just look at me like.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Terrifying.

Alicia Reno:

Yeah.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Why did she say that?

Alicia Reno:

Right. I'm like, "You've never had a teacher tell you that you're going to fail?" I said, "Well, you are and that's the best part of this class." Because then you are able to go back and you're able to say, "Why didn't this work? How could I make it work better?" You know what, it may never work and that's okay. Because eventually, when you're down the line in that middle school, that high school class you're going to be like, "That's it, that's why that didn't work," and you're going to be able to figure stuff out.

I just really want to grasp them.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Yes.

Alicia Reno:

Make them understand the importance of science so that when they leave, even if they decide to be liberal arts majors or whatever, they still see the importance of that in their life.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Yes. It sounds like they're coming alive in your classroom through this process. Working with students with different abilities at the same table-

Alicia Reno:

Absolutely.

Ashley Mengwasser:

... which is another cool thing about your paradigm.

Alicia Reno:

Yeah.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Well, I summoned you here, Alicia, because we need insight into how mastery is gained through personalized learning and how you assess that. PLE Standard Five, we haven't talked about it yet this season, it's authentic and adaptive assessment. Georgia's DOE Suitcase tells us that for this standard, the educator co-plans with the learner to collect evidence of mastery using varied data-rich performances that are ongoing, authentic, flexible, and relevant. That teachers will prepare learners to self-assess by identifying, documenting, even defending their learning. I hear keywords here.

Alicia Reno:

Yes.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Self-assessment, defending learning. They will build portfolios and have multiple means of demonstration. Why is this important in assessing personalized learning?

Alicia Reno:

Test scores are great, they're fantastic. All day, all along, I can make 100s on every test score and have no idea how to apply what I learned. I love the adaptive assessments where it's real and it's applicable. In my classroom, I don't necessarily focus on that end product, that end score. We talk about what our rubric is or what I want them to do, their success criteria, and most of it is based in the process. We talk about everything, we have check points throughout. Okay, let's talk about your plan, that plan's great. That's a formative assessment right there. Then I move on to the next station. Okay, you guys are going to work together as a team.

I think of all of the CTAE standards. The career workplace standards where I'm learning how to work as a team, I'm learning how to speak in front of a crowd, but I'm also learning the science and how to apply it. All of those are part of my assessment with students. Then at the end, they present what they've done. It may not be perfect, it may not work, and they have to defend their work. If it does, why does this work? Why is this important? If it didn't work, the kids that are able to tell me why it didn't work and what they would change in the future do just as well as the kids that have something that's perfect.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Right. It's a unique way of assessing that values process.

Alicia Reno:

Yes.

Ashley Mengwasser:

You said the process in your class-

Alicia Reno:

Process over product, absolutely.

Ashley Mengwasser:

... is more important. You said you don't give your students vocabulary, but you encourage them to use the tools of the classroom.

Alicia Reno:

Oh, absolutely.

Ashley Mengwasser:

How so?

Alicia Reno:

Yeah. They're coming in with content knowledge so they already know the baseline. One of our favorite quotes in my class is by Albert Einstein where he says, "Imagination is more important than knowledge." We spend a lot of our time talking about that baseline knowledge that they have. They're going to be taking the Georgia Milestones Test, all of these STAR assessments in their classrooms, and those are great. If we can't apply that knowledge and use our imagination to do that, what's the point?

They are using the tools of the classroom, for example vocabulary, but they're coming in and they have to show me why that works, how that works. When I'm talking about force and motion I might say, "All right, you guys have to explain to me the concept of Newton's first law. I know you know it, I know you can answer that question on a test. But to me, the real knowledge, the real understanding comes when you are able to demonstrate and come up with your own ideas." Yes, using the stuff from the classroom, that they coming in and actually applying that.

Ashley Mengwasser:

It sounds like you're assessing them individually, but also as a group?

Alicia Reno:

That's right, yes. Every kid comes in, we have different jobs that they can gravitate towards. We have the captain, the managing person. We have the kiddo that's working with materials that loves to touch things and build things.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Yes.

Alicia Reno:

And then we have timers and people that are testing projects, and things like that. They all have their individual roles. We talk about what are those individual roles? That's what I tell them. When I come around, I need to be able to look at you and say, "What was your part of this project? How did you help build this? How did you help design this?" The kids have to be able to tell me what their individual role was. That way, I'm ensuring that everyone is shining in their own way, they get to shine in a way that makes sense for them, personalized, individualized.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Well, yeah. There are asset-based dispositions.

Alicia Reno:

Yes.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Yes, using their assets.

Alicia Reno:

Using their assets, how were they able to use their assets to contribute to this group project? I'm able to assess individually, but also the group project is the final item that we're going to be discussing, that we're going to be sharing and defending. Again, it's the process is what I'm looking for.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Right.

Alicia Reno:

The end project's great, the fact that you can defend it is fantastic, but how did you contribute to that project? Because in the real world, we're all working in groups essentially.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Right.

Alicia Reno:

When you go work in an office, there's very few jobs that you're just on your own behind a desk. I also find that those are really vital skills for my STEM students to have.

Ashley Mengwasser:

To your disclaimer about, "Hey, you're going to fail in here," it's almost more interesting when they do in these presentations.

Alicia Reno:

Absolutely.

Ashley Mengwasser:

How do the students in the class listening to their presentations, their portfolios, their defenses, how do they react to these failure moments?

Alicia Reno:

I think we've built up enough of a safe space where the kids feel like they are okay to fail. I try to build an environment where that's more interesting to me.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Yeah.

Alicia Reno:

When I come over, I'm like, "Oh, it didn't work? Oh, man, that's so cool. Why didn't it work? What would you do next time? What can we do?" I have those really kind of like a fishbowl atmosphere where the rest of the class is watching me interact with these students that have failed and how excited I am about what the possibilities are in the future. "Okay, now we know this doesn't work. Check that off the list and move to the next one." They all see, "Oh, we can make it even better."

Even the ones that work are now trying to make their projects better. Add an aspect to it that we hadn't thought of yet. Because they really want the kids in the class to interact with them, so we often have a question and answer session. "Okay, after you've done that, does anyone have any comments on what they said?" That's also really great assessment.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Yeah.

Alicia Reno:

Because the kids are using what they've learned to comment on what other kids have created. There's so many authentic opportunities for assessment that you might just not even think about unless you're like, "Oh, yeah, asking questions is a form of assessment."

Ashley Mengwasser:

Of assessment, yes. Okay. Help us understand, tease out those two words, authentic and adaptive. What makes these measures authentic and adaptive? That you're using maybe checklists, you're using the natural course of discussion. What makes them those two things?

Alicia Reno:

Right. I have to have checklists and rubrics and success criteria, and I do have those things. I think the authenticity of my assessments are when kids are able to choose sometimes how they do something. I will give them a topic, "We're going to be building a house and I need you to figure out a way to wire this house for electricity so that when I flip a switch, all the lights come on. These are your materials. Have at it." That I think is really authentic because then you're having those assets play out.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Yes.

Alicia Reno:

The kids can try, "Oh, I know, I'm going to do this. I can do this part." You see them get really excited. To me, that's very authentic. That's a real-world thing. You have to be able to turn on the lights in a house. Oh, wait, but you also have to pass inspection. You also have to get a permit. You also have to do this. I constantly am throwing things at them. They think they've got it and then I'm like, "Oh, no, the permit office rejected your permit. You know why?" Then we talk about why. "How do you fix this?" Then they get right back at it.

That's authentic to me, something they're going to encounter in the real world. "Oh, you know what? Decatur sometimes has issues with their streets flooding because their drainage isn't great." We did a whole city planning thing. "Okay, how can we fix this? How do we fix the drainage system? What science is involved in this? Who would come help us?" We talked to city officials, things like that. Making it authentic to me means making it personal to the kids. They can go home and they can be like, "Oh, you know what, we need to fix this drainage system," and talk to their parents about what's happening in their area.

Now, adaptive, it might change. I've been halfway through a project and realized, "Oh, these kids are more interested in this aspect," so we pivot a little bit. "Tell me more about this." I learn just as much from the children as they learn from me, probably even more. It changes every year. I have a group of kids that are coming up that have been really interested in robotics. I've really leaned into that, taught them the robotics, the coding. But then I say, "You know what, now these are resources, these are tools for you. When we're building our houses or we're learning the moon phases, if you can figure out a way to incorporate those robots to tell me what you've learned, that's great." I've adapted that for that kid that's really great at coding and may not be as great with their engineering skills.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Right.

Alicia Reno:

Giving them the opportunity to show what they know, and what they've learned, and how it applies to them in the real world in a different way, they don't all have to be the same. When we give a traditional assessment, it's the same thing.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Yes.

Alicia Reno:

Everyone has to learn and-

Ashley Mengwasser:

Static.

Alicia Reno:

... regurgitate in the same way. Whereas I feel like this kind of assessment, the authentic, the adaptive assessment is just so much more meaningful. I have kids stop me that are eight and ninth grade now that'll be like, "Oh, you know what, I took this woodworking class and I was able to build this tower." They will come and talk to me about things that they remember doing in elementary school and how that's affecting them. Those are the authentic assessments.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Yes.

Alicia Reno:

The ones that are going to stick with kids, the ones that matter, they're not going to remember the score they got on their economics test. How did that apply to my life? That's a different story. That's my goal is making these assessments make sense.

Ashley Mengwasser:

And they're able to embrace the tools of the classroom that most resonate with their skills-

Alicia Reno:

Yes, absolutely.

Ashley Mengwasser:

... and harness those for a learning objective.

Alicia Reno:

Yeah.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Okay, you're very inspiring, STEM Lady. What approaches do you use to collaborate with other teachers in the school?

Alicia Reno:

I do. Well, I have to because I like meeting with my grade-level teachers. Sometimes there's science concepts that are really hard to do in a traditional classroom in the 45-minute constraint of time. I have the luxury of stretching projects out and giving the kids more space. I have storage. What do you want me to do? What is a concept that your kids are struggling with that I can make come to life? That might be different every year. They might be teaching erosion and weathering one year and these kids just aren't getting it. How can we make that a real life applicable situation? I'll pull that, just working with them to flip my curriculum. I do that a lot.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Yeah, let's talk about that.

Alicia Reno:

Yeah.

Ashley Mengwasser:

That's a cool standards strategy you got there.

Alicia Reno:

Yeah. It works because they are teaching the content, basic content like I said, and doing the hands-on. The kids come to me with concepts and then I'm applying. I figured a lot of time, you learn something at the beginning of the year and by the end of the year, it's like it never happened.

Ashley Mengwasser:

It's gone.

Alicia Reno:

Yeah. If you don't have something to attach that to. The kid goes to the next year and the teacher's like, "Remember last year when you did this?" They're all like, "We never learned that." Their last year's teacher is going crazy. What I do is I look at their yearlong curriculum and I start at the end. I'm introducing concepts to them. I'm not going in-depth, I'm not teaching them, like I said, all of the fill-in-the-blank vocabulary, all of this. I'm like, "Hey, you guys, listen, rocks and minerals are pretty cool."

Ashley Mengwasser:

Yeah.

Alicia Reno:

"You don't know a whole lot about them, but let me talk to you about the different kinds of soil. Look, let's touch the different kinds of soil." One year, I had my third-graders build mud bricks.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Oh!

Alicia Reno:

We watched videos about how homes are built with mud bricks. I gave them all these different materials, we talked about the properties of all these different materials, and they came up with their own recipe. Then we used ice cube trays and we packed them with mud and let them dry in the sun. Then they used them to build a building. Then we tested the weight, how much weight that building would hold. When they got to rocks and minerals and types of soil in third grade, they already had, "Oh, I know what peat is. I remember, that was the one that-"

Ashley Mengwasser:

Background knowledge.

Alicia Reno:

Yes, they had that background knowledge. At a school like mine, where we have our Title I kids, we have our English language learners, we have our kids with special needs, we have all different kids. We have kids that get to travel, kids that don't get to travel. We run the gamut in Decatur. That background knowledge is so vital because some of these kids don't have the same background knowledge. Trying to build that up, that the beginning of my year is giving them that background knowledge.

Now by the end of the year, the stuff I'm doing, they've already learned. Then, that comes to extension, that application. Okay, "Oh, you've already learned about microbiology. Why does this matter? I want you to discover this. You have to raise a tardigrade," we have to do all of these different things. That's when we bring in partners at the CDC, or we talk about different things that we can do to elevate what they've learned.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Yeah.

Alicia Reno:

It's a review. We're talking about assessment. The biggest assessment we have in Georgia is the Georgia Milestones, so that actually helps kids, instead of cramming all this science knowledge into their brain at the end of the year and making them hate it, it's just a review. "Oh, we've been doing this all year. We understand."

Ashley Mengwasser:

It's more application.

Alicia Reno:

We're bringing it back, it's application. "Oh, erosion and weathering." Then I also like to talk to the fifth-graders after. "Don't tell me questions, just concepts. What was difficult this year?" I did that last year, I talked to my kids. "What was difficult for you?" A lot of them were like, "You know, erosion and weathering, all that vocabulary, it was really tough." I said, "All right." This year, that's what we're going to focus on. We're going to find a way to apply that.

I'm constantly learning from the kids, constantly changing. I don't do the same thing every year, much to the chagrin of my family when I come home. I'm like, "No, no, no, I have to rewrite the lesson." They're like, "You did it last year!" I think that's part of teaching. If you're not moving constantly, you just die out.

Ashley Mengwasser:

You got to know your audience.

Alicia Reno:

Yes.

Ashley Mengwasser:

You're being very adaptive to your audience, which is a key to personalized learning. You mentioned collaboration with outsiders. How do you collaborate with outside organizations? Maybe parents are part of this?

Alicia Reno:

I love outsiders.

Ashley Mengwasser:

They're insiders.

Alicia Reno:

They are. Well, they're such an amazing aspect of our community. We have people that are doctors that work in the CDC, we have people that work for our city. I have the luxury of having a very small city so I'm able to email the mayor and be like, "Hey, we want to talk about city drainage. Who do I contact? We want to talk about the recycling." I had some kids that got really upset about our recycling program and I emailed the mayor and she sent me who I need. They came out and had a meeting with the kids and talked about it. We're lucky in the fact that I can reach out to who makes sense to come in, show them there's a job for that. I have parents come in and give feedback on projects sometimes. When my kids build their houses, we'll have a real estate agent come in or a parent that can give them some feedback, an electrical engineer, or someone's parent who's an electrician, that kind of thing, come in and ask the kids questions and talk to them. There's just so many resources out there.

When we have our STEM night, we bring in everyone from the community. We have the Wylde Center, we have the city of Decatur, we have a bird rescue, Legacy Park. Everything that I can grab, I send it out early, I send it out often. Meet and greet just happened for us, so I had a couple of parents talk to me about, "Oh, I love tardigrades." I'm like, "Oh, you do?"

Ashley Mengwasser:

Noted.

Alicia Reno:

"Would you like to come in?" Having those parents come in, because then kids are going to see ... They see me every day. They get to see someone else that has a different level of expertise.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Enriching.

Alicia Reno:

It's so enriching because I don't know everything, I never will know everything.

Ashley Mengwasser:

I don't believe that for a second based on what I've heard.

Alicia Reno:

If I can bring in an expert though, then they're going to meet my kids where they are, then that's even better.

Ashley Mengwasser:

It's making that skill of communicating and collaborating just baseline.

Alicia Reno:

Yes.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Instead of it being extra and additional, and then we're dealing with social skills when we get in the much higher grades.

Alicia Reno:

Yes.

Ashley Mengwasser:

This is something that is practiced young. All right, can you leave us with some final strategies to help our fellow educators who want to make their assessments more authentic and adaptive?

Alicia Reno:

Yeah. I would say talk to your students. What do they want to do? You have your standards you have to teach. Is there a different way that you can meet that standard other than having them write a five-paragraph essay or have them taking a quiz? Ask them, "How can you show me what you've learned? This is your standard, this is what I need for mastery, you have to be able to do this. How can you show me that you know this in a creative way?" Leaving it up to them, those passion projects. There is time for that. All the time you spend, it doesn't have to be a huge, big project. How could you write a poem about this? Do you love writing, could you do this? Painting a picture, creating a model. I don't care how you do it, but you have to prove to me that you understand.

Is it harder to grade that way? Yeah. Do you have different rubrics for different things? Yes. It's not easy, it's more time-consuming, but in the end that's what that kid's going to remember. They're going to remember coming to school with their musical instrument they created to demonstrate sound waves more so than the test they took where there were two questions on sound waves.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Yeah.

Alicia Reno:

I think that focusing on the kids, letting them lead the way with assessment-

Ashley Mengwasser:

Which is personalized learning, baby.

Alicia Reno:

That's right. Let them be creative, let them show their strengths, their assets. How can we let them do that? I think if we do that more often in class, our kids are going to remember what they learned and they're also going to love what they learned. I think that's really important.

Ashley Mengwasser:

And they're going to apply what they learned.

Alicia Reno:

Right.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Which is all the Application Person wants for them.

Alicia Reno:

That's all I need.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Alicia, you're amazing. I'd call you our Reno 911 based on your last name, but that show is sheer satire.

Alicia Reno:

I love it, though.

Ashley Mengwasser:

It's satirical, it's a great time. You definitely pass our test.

Alicia Reno:

Thank you.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Thank you for being here. Congrats on all your success.

Alicia Reno:

Well, thank you.

Ashley Mengwasser:

And your work is very STEMulating.

Alicia Reno:

Oh, I'm going to use that.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Keep it going. Keep it going out there in Decatur.

Alicia Reno:

I appreciate it.

Ashley Mengwasser:

Thank you, Alicia. Teachers, please give application-grounded instruction and authentic and adaptive assessment your best shot. These fluid, creative marks of personalized learning make it all the more engaging and effective, as you've just heard. You're a great teacher. I'm Ashley Mengwasser. Hope you'll keep listening to our final personalized learning episodes on the platform for Georgia's teachers as we wind down season seven. It ain't over until it's over. Goodbye for now.

The personalized learning series of Classroom Conversations is funded by the GRE4T Initiative. In the fall of 2020, the Georgia Department of Education made a commitment to student-centered approaches through Georgia's ReStart: Embrace, Engage, Expand, and Enhance Learning with Technology Initiative.