I am participating in the March Slice of Life Challenge: A slice a day for all of March.  You should do it too!  Thank you, Two Writing Teachers! Readers, check out their site, and start slicing! 

“Thanks for the feedback!” Bo told us, as he handed us his card and we walked out of the restaurant.

After our dinner, we had politely told Bo that we wanted to give him some feedback. We included how kind and helpful he and the rest of the staff were, and also the fact that the soup hadn’t been hot.

(DISCLAIMER: Food was excellent, service was great… soup was apparently just a bit cool. My table of friends would recommend this place in a heartbeat. In fact, if you are in Virginia for the UVABPI, go tomorrow! 🙂 

“We aren’t complaining. Just giving you some feedback that you can hopefully use,” one of us said.

He listened and apologized, and we all talked with him about how it was a timing issue. The restaurant opened under this management 3 weeks ago, and they are still getting their whole game together.

Our table of teachers explained to Bo that we had just spent the day learning about assessment. “We are sitting beside you,” we told him even though he probably thought that was a weird thing to say, considering we were seated at our table, and he was standing next to it. “We want you to use this feedback as learning. We can’t wait to come back and eat here again.”

Bo thanked us for our feedback and planned on using it to better his timing. Do your kids thank you for your feedback? 

Assessment. Today was about assessment. I love that the latin root of the word assessment means “to sit beside.” This isn’t what many people think of when they think of assessment, even formative assessment. Carol Ann Tomlinson says that “on-going assessment for planning and feedback, not for judgment and grades…helps us teach better, and helps students learn better.” This idea that assessment informs our teaching is one that we should know as teachers, but we often forget. I think I can get caught up in all that assessment can  mean, and lose sight of how often I am informally doing formative assessment, and giving feedback. Today helped me solidify some ways to do my formative assessments.

If you are like me, and need a reminder of which kind of assessment is which, this gem from today may help:

Now at the restaurant tonight, we had already tasted the soup, but others were going to taste it too. So, I think our feedback can still be considered  formative. We didn’t judge (or complain) and we gave our assessment as learning (and we hoped they would work to better their timing). It looks like assessment is everywhere, right where it should be.

And that folks, is just another slice of Virginia!