Walk Off 4

I've been interviewing students as a means of formative assessment.

The topic has been water: polar covalent bonds, unequal sharing of electrons, hydrogen bonds.....all good stuff. Maybe...

Yesterday, during the questions I was asking, a student (Mason) walked away with a 2.5. He was not at proficiency yet. That would have been a 3.

Today, he sat down and without my prompting or asking a question. He unloaded the bomb. He drove one over the fence on a line. He thoroughly and completely explained the polar covalent nature of water.

BOOM....walk off 4.

Joel had been waiting his turn. He scored a 3.5 in the interview from yesterday. I watched as he studied his notes, watched the screencast again and then approached the chair to talk about water. He sat down and I asked about explaining water's polar nature. Immediately, he knew that he didn't have the answer.

He got up and went back to the screencast (again). In a few students, Joel bounced up and nailed the explanation without trouble.

Joel didn't need to turn the 3.5 into a 4, but he did.

That was cool.

In both cases, students moved themselves and the class toward the two sigma result. That was very cool.