So Where Have You Been?

That’s what I think you, reader, might be thinking. Where have I been since my last post? Richfield, Utah. Okay, not the whole time. But I was there for one day, anyway. Occasionally I go out of town without the rest of my family. Yep, just by my lonesome. Sometimes I have a conversation with a friend and the subject of my absence comes up. The conversation goes something like this:

“I can’t do this-or-that tomorrow. I’ll be out of town.”

“Oh? Where are you going?” my friend asks with interest.

“Richfield.”

Pause. “Where’s Richfield?”

Rural Utah towns don’t get a lot of hype. I explain that Richfield is about 2 hours south of Provo, past Scipio and near Aurora. That usually doesn’t help much. The conversation is losing steam.

“Ohhhh. Why are you going to Richfield?”

“I’m teaching at a workshop.”

I gain a little ground and my friend now seems slightly impressed. I even get a little bit of an eyebrow raise, as if I had just announced that I was an architect.

“Oh! A workshop about what?”

I take a deep breath. How do I explain what I do? “About writing tests. Assessment.”

“Mmmm.”

Conversation killed.

Really, the workshop is about much more than writing tests. It’s a workshop that teaches science teachers different ways to find out what their students have learned, and then to adjust their teaching accordingly. To folks in the field, that’s called formative assessment. The title of the workshop is “Using Formative Assessment to Inform Instruction.” But to the lay-person, and even to many teachers, that just sounds like a bunch of mumbo-jumbo. So each time I do this workshop, I try and think of a way I can explain this to my friends in a simple way and make it sound interesting and fun. But the best I can come up with is, “It’s a workshop about testing,” which it really isn’t. Pretty much a guaranteed conversation killer.

I've been doing this type of stuff--either teaching workshops about assessment or working at workshops where we create assessments--for about 6 or 7 years now. And at the end of each workshop, I’m exhausted, worn out, and completely fulfilled. I’ve also experienced a change of scenery and a little get-away, which every mother needs. I find myself in a conversation with my friends and co-teachers Hugh, Janis and Kevin, and hear myself say, “Gosh, that was fun.” And then I step back and go, wha…? This is like major geek fun. Oh well. I’m pretty good at it, I like it, it’s fulfilling, and I get paid. Plus, the two workshops we’ll teach this summer will be in Heber and we’ll stay for 4 days (each workshop) at the Homestead. Not bad accommodations for someone teaching about tests.