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The Embrace the Messy Podcast with Shannon Schinkel

The Embrace the Messy Podcast with Shannon Schinkel

By: Shannon Schinkel
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 I’m Shannon Schinkel. I’m a high school educator, challenge seeker, lifelong learner, and embracer of all things messy. I find my inspiration from individuals who are passionate about learning and embracing change. Join me as I share my own experiences and interview people who will inspire you to embrace the messy too. Interviews drop every 2-3 weeks. Messy Minutes: Assessment Edition segments drop every Friday.Copyright 2023 All rights reserved. Education
Episodes
  • Messy Minutes Assessment Edition Special Proficiency Scale Series Episode 6: If You Build It, They Will Grow

    Messy Minutes Assessment Edition Special Proficiency Scale Series Episode 6: If You Build It, They Will Grow
    Jan 23 2025
    TRANSCRIPT: Opening: Welcome back to Messy Minutes: Assessment Edition! I’m your host, Shannon Schinkel, from the Embrace the Messy Podcast. Over the past five episodes, we’ve journeyed through the art and science of building meaningful criteria. We’ve explored backward design, unpacked standards using Bloom’s taxonomy, created task-neutral criteria, refined them with quality language, added “This means that…” to ensure clarity for students and teachers alike, and made them first person so students see themselves in the assessment. Now, in our final episode of this series, we’re looking at what comes next. We’ll explore how your criteria can drive meaningful learning experiences while empowering students to take ownership of their progress…because “If You Build It, They Will Grow!” ________________________________________ Here’s the Issue: We have beautiful criteria. Now what? Criteria aren’t just for you to assess students—they’re for teaching, self-assessment, portfolios, communication and more! But it begins with this criteria. In speaking with educators’ things like retakes and redos, self-assessment, portfolio building and supporting students with disabilities have been difficult to manage. But guess what? The criteria you’ve built can now support you with all of these things! ________________________________________ Let’s Break It Down 1. Make Criteria the Heart of Teaching: Criteria are not just an endpoint—they form the foundation for planning, instruction, and assessment. o Design intentional tasks: Learning tasks should align directly with the skills and understandings outlined in the criteria. This ensures that students engage in activities that build toward proficiency rather than just completing unrelated tasks. o Let go or refabricate old tasks: Move away from activities that no longer serve the criteria. Redesign tasks to focus on developing skills and understandings that align with the criteria, ensuring every task has purpose and relevance. o Repurpose old rubrics and checklists: While these tools may no longer be central to assessment, they can support students in organizing their work and meeting task-specific expectations. However, they should not override the broader purpose of teaching to the criteria. o Emphasize skill-building over task completion: Shift the focus from completing assignments to developing and refining skills over time. 2. Feedback That Moves Learning Forward: Clear criteria simplify feedback, making it specific, actionable, and focused on growth. o Align feedback with criteria: Because the criteria are clear, strengths and areas for improvement often emerge directly from the criteria itself. This clarity ensures that feedback is targeted, meaningful, and easy for students to understand. o Celebrate progress and identify next steps: Feedback should both affirm accomplishments and highlight specific areas for continued growth, helping students focus on actionable steps to improve. o Incorporate feedback into learning: Feedback should not be a one-time event but an ongoing process that supports students as they refine their understanding and skills over time. 3. Support Students with Disabilities and Diverse Needs: Criteria create clear grade-level expectations while providing opportunities to meet students where they are by designing “windows” that guide them toward the criteria. o Illuminate and celebrate every level: Meeting students “where they are” does not mean pushing them to the next level immediately. Instead, it means creating pathways that highlight and celebrate their current level of achievement. o Design windows to the criteria: Windows are more than scaffolding; they provide accessible steps leading up to the criteria, allowing students to see the connections between where they are and where they can go. o Tailor next steps purposefully: Supporting students’ progress could mean helping a pre-level 1 student build foundational skills to reach level 1, assisting a level 3 student to move to level 4, or ensuring a level 4 student maintains their mastery. o Build confidence through recognition: By celebrating every level, students gain the confidence to embrace their learning journey. 4. Empower Students Through Self-Assessment: Clear criteria and “This means that” statements give students the confidence to reflect on their learning in meaningful ways. o Clarity builds confidence: The “This means that” statements provide students with a clear understanding of what the criteria look like in action, helping them accurately reflect on their progress. o Self-assessment supports reflection, not control: Self-assessment doesn’t mean students are in charge of determining their level, but it does allow them to speak confidently about their strengths, areas for improvement, and next steps. o Foster ownership of learning: By guiding students through self-assessment, you help them take an active role in ...
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    15 mins
  • Messy Minutes Assessment Edition Special Proficiency Scale Series Episode 5 - To boldly build criteria where no one has gone before

    Messy Minutes Assessment Edition Special Proficiency Scale Series Episode 5 - To boldly build criteria where no one has gone before
    Jan 23 2025
    TRANSCRIPT: Opening: Welcome back to Messy Minutes: Assessment Edition! I’m your host, Shannon Schinkel, from the Embrace the Messy Podcast. Over the past four episodes, we’ve unpacked backward design, explored standards, and crafted criteria that are both task-neutral and detailed. Now, we need To boldly build criteria where no one has gone before. Hyperbole aside, we need to take those to the next level by refining them to be student-centered and accessible. It’s good, but how can we make it great? ________________________________________ Here’s the Issue: 1) Writing criteria in third person—“Students will be able to…” can feel teacher-centric, even when task-neutral and strength-based. True it is our responsibility to assess students and use our professional judgment, but what if we shifted to first-person language? Could this small change help students take a more active role in assessment, build confidence, and foster ownership of their learning? What if we thought about criteria not just as something the teacher uses only but something that invites students into the process, which could help them move from compliance to authentic engagement. What if first person language helps students see the purpose and relevance of their learning. 2) What if we make sure our criteria is accessible, meaningful and clear to not just us but our students– couldn’t that bridge some of the gaps that even the most thoughtfully written criteria leaves? When looking at criteria, students often ask, “What does this mean?” or “I get that you have expectations, but what do I actually need to do?”—questions we can address with clear, actionable language like “This means that…” It translates criteria into steps that guide students toward standards with confidence and clarity. ________________________________________ Let’s revisit our Hiking 101 course and the standard: “Apply appropriate strategies and tools to complete a hike, ensuring safety, pacing, and environmental awareness.” We’ve already crafted criteria for four levels of proficiency. Now, we’re adding some clarifying “this means that” language. Then we’ll put it all into first-person language. I’m going to work through this slowly so you can follow along. ________________________________________ Level 1: Before we get started, imagine a student at the very beginning of their journey. They’re just starting to figure things out and may feel a little unsure along the way. Previously we had: “Is in the beginning stages of identifying and attempting to apply strategies and tools for safety, pacing, and environmental awareness, and is working towards demonstrating understanding and consistency.” Now answer, what do you mean? – what does attempting and beginning stages look like? How will a student know they are there? This means that the student is figuring out which strategies and tools to use and may need help to adjust them during the hike. The result is that the student can complete the hike but may feel unsure or need to stop and rethink their approach along the way. Change it to first person: “I am in the beginning stages of identifying and attempting to apply strategies and tools for safety, pacing, and environmental awareness, and working towards demonstrating understanding and consistency. This means that I am figuring out which strategies and tools to use, and I may need help to adjust them during the hike. The result is that I can complete the hike, but I may feel unsure or need to stop and rethink my approach along the way.” ________________________________________ Level 2: Next, let’s picture a student who is starting to get the hang of it. They’re making progress but still figuring out how to handle unexpected challenges. Previously we had: “Applies some strategies and tools for safety, pacing, and environmental awareness with limited success, while continuing to work through challenges they are having in understanding and consistency.” Now answer, what do you mean? – what does limited success and working through challenges look like? This means that the student can use some strategies and tools on their own but may still need to make adjustments during the hike. The result is that the student is able to handle some challenges but might not feel fully prepared or confident in every situation. Change it to first person: “I can apply some strategies and tools for safety, pacing, and environmental awareness with limited success, while continuing to work through challenges I am having in understanding and consistency. This means that I can use some strategies and tools on my own, but I may still need to make adjustments during the hike. The result is that I am able to handle some challenges, but I might not feel fully prepared or confident in every situation.” ________________________________________ Level 3: Now think about a student who is feeling confident and capable. ...
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    16 mins
  • Messy Minutes Assessment Edition Special Proficiency Scale Series Episode 4 - I Feel the Need, the Need for Detailed Criteria!

    Messy Minutes Assessment Edition Special Proficiency Scale Series Episode 4 - I Feel the Need, the Need for Detailed Criteria!
    Jan 23 2025
    TRANSCRIPT: Welcome back to Messy Minutes: Assessment Edition! I’m your host, Shannon Schinkel, from the Embrace the Messy Podcast. Over the past three episodes, we’ve been hiking our way through the Hiking 101 standard. We started with backward design, unpacked the standard, and explored how to create task-neutral criteria. Today, we’re going to take those task-neutral criteria a step further by making them detailed and actionable: I Feel the Need, the Need for Detailed Criteria! ________________________________________ Here’s the Issue: In In the last episode, we designed criteria using some quality performance indicators. Here’s a recap. • Level 1: Is beginning to apply strategies and tools for safety, pacing, and environmental awareness. • Level 2: Applies strategies and tools for safety, pacing, and environmental awareness with limited effectiveness. • Level 3: Applies strategies and tools for safety, pacing, and environmental awareness effectively. • Level 4: Demonstrates expert application of strategies and tools with thoughtful precision. Now we need to address what the difference is between "limited effectiveness" and "effectively," or how "thoughtful precision" can feel too subjective. Using words like this can be an important first step—but they’re often geared only toward the teacher who wrote them and can feel ambiguous to others. Words like "adequate" or "proficient" help establish a baseline for understanding, but without further detail, they can leave too much room for interpretation and make it harder to communicate expectations clearly. This is where clear and descriptive criteria come in. They provide measurable outcomes, creating a shared understanding of what performance looks like among educators. When criteria are well-defined, they give teachers a consistent framework for evaluating performance, even for more qualitative aspects. Professional judgment plays a critical role in this process, as it does in all professions, but anchoring it in established criteria ensures that it’s professional and evidence-based, not personal or arbitrary. This balance is essential for fostering fairness and ensuring meaningful assessments that reflect the complexities of learning. So, detailed criteria solve this problem by painting a clear picture of what each level of performance looks like. They give teachers a solid foundation for consistent evaluations and informed decision-making. Here’s the key takeaway: detailed doesn’t mean complicated. Think of detailed criteria as a roadmap—it needs to be clear, concise, and actionable, not overwhelming. With this approach, educators can bridge the gap between subjective language and measurable results, enabling reliable and professional assessments. ________________________________________ Visualize This Scenario: So, we are back to our Hiking 101 course and have already revisited the standard, Apply appropriate strategies and tools to complete a hike, ensuring safety, pacing, and environmental awareness. Now we need to shift from concise descriptors to detailed descriptions of performance levels. So I am going to go through each of the four levels as I shared them in episode 3 – concise and then how now in episode 4 they can be written with more detail and I’ll also explain the changes made so you can visualize it. Level 1 Concise (Episode 3): Is beginning to apply strategies and tools for safety, pacing, and environmental awareness. Detailed (Episode 4): Is in the beginning stages of identifying and attempting to apply strategies and tools for safety, pacing, and environmental awareness, and is working towards demonstrating understanding and consistency. Changes made: Additional qualifying language has been added. Beginning stages means “identifying and attempting to apply strategies and tools” and the outcome is they are “working towards demonstrating understanding.” Level 2 Concise (Episode 3): Applies strategies and tools for safety, pacing, and environmental awareness with limited effectiveness. Detailed (Episode 4): Applies some strategies and tools for safety, pacing, and environmental awareness with limited success, while continuing to work through challenges they are having in understanding and consistency. Changes made: The word “limited” is still there but it is clarified as “while continuing to work through challenges they are having in understanding and consistency.” Level 3 Concise (Episode 3): Applies strategies and tools for safety, pacing, and environmental awareness effectively. Detailed (Episode 4): Applies appropriate strategies and tools for safety, pacing, and environmental awareness effectively, demonstrating solid confidence and understanding. Changes made: The word “effectively” is there but the addition of “demonstrating solid confidence and understanding” Level 4 Concise (Episode 3): Demonstrates expert ...
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    16 mins
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