Grade 1 Formative Assessment Task in Movement Composition

Peer Feedback and Self-Assessment in Partner Balance Routines

We are well into our grade 1 movement composition unit here at the Nanjing International School in China. Over the past few weeks, I have been working hard to introduce the idea to my students that movement composition is not only about dance, but can also include other types of creative movement. 

As a formative assessment task, I had the students help me create a visual that asked them to identify everything that they knew about movement composition (see picture above). Lots of great ideas generated but it was clear that they had not yet grasped the importance of timing. I began to question whether or not I had effectively taught it and it became evident that I had not (OOOPPS :). I used this moment to help design an activity that could get my kids focused on the importance of basic timing in a routine. I blogged about the lesson here so check it out if you want some more background into how I have taught this unit so far.

Once the students had developed a good sense of what timing was, I then gave them a simple formative assessment task- to create a partner balance routine that has proper start and finish positions and 4 team balances in between. We used a 40-second piece of music from a You Tube video we had previously watched showing 2 young children performing an amazing partner balance routine. Their goal was to finish on time or as near the end of the 40 seconds as possible. They were free to copy partner balances that they had been working on or create their own. It was completely up to them. 

The task required them to perform their partner balance routine for others in the class and once done, self-assess how well they thought they had done based on 2 critical criteria in movement composition-- balance and timing. They also had to draw the 4 partner balances that they had performed in their routine. Because we had worked so hard on grasping a better understanding of basic timing in the previous couple of classes, the students did an amazing job on this task. Although they all didn’t finish their routines exactly on time, during their self-assessment and peer feedback portion of this activity, they were spot on in identifying their flaws in timing which demonstrates a key conceptual understanding to me--WhewHoo!

As we approach our summative assessment task, I feel as though the success to date has been a direct result of the visual creation earlier in the unit. Through the use of this visual we were able to initiate important discussions which ultimately led to me having to go back and re-teach timing, instead of ploughing forward in this unit. Assessment for learning plays such a critical role in how we direct the future learning of our students in PE. Have a look at some examples of student work below. As always, thanks for reading my blog. I always appreciate feedback, so let me know your thoughts and ideas. 

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