Going through the nine strategies these last few weeks, has made me realize that I want to make a concerted effort this coming year to focus on two areas. They are providing feedback and recognizing effort. I think I have always known that it was important to give feedback on in class discussion, assignments, writings, and tests, but I think over the last couple of weeks I've discovered a new tool that I can use. I really want to have my students submitting their work online prior to final draft, so that they can get comments and feedback, make corrections, if necessary, then submit their final work. I think this can be huge for me and for them. I also want to create rubrics for all work, so that the objectives are clearly laid out and I can focus on them when I'm grading.
The second area is recognizing effort. I really feel like there is a problem at my school with students feeling that they can just go through the motions and do marginal work and feel like they deserve an A or a B. I think this year I'm going to try and incorporate some of the characteristics of effort into my calculations. I think that this will be a good way to encourage the top level students to push their capabilities and reward the average students who really do give their absolute best effort to succeed. I'm looking forward to the year and these changes.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Organizer Comparison
This weeks assignment was the great organizer comparison, specifically the functionality and ease of use of three web tools. The three tools that I chose to use and kick around for the last couple of days were Bubbl.us, Exploratree and the Education Oasis section on Graphic Organizers.
In terms of the three I choose Bubbl.us is slightly different because I viewed it as a place where students could go individually or as collaborative groups to help with organization of ideas. I think this tool would be great for students to work on a project together and divide up roles that could be color coded within Bubbl.us. Each could contribute the majority of their notes to their sections, but still help the others. They are then able to manipulate their concept map to make connections and bring all their information together. Bubble.us would be a great 1st step for a group that was wanting to create a project or write a paper together, making sure they were all on the same page and were writing with the same ideas and organizational structure.
The last two tools have the feel, to me, of teacher tools. The seem like a way to create and deliver a method for students to organize their knowledge. They would not be as adaptable for the students once they received them. I have already bookmarked these two sites for this year, because they had a lot of options and were well organized by goals. I liked how both sites offered suggestions on how each type of organizer might be used in the class. One of the sites, in my opinion, was significantly more valuable to me than the other. The key difference was adaptability. The Education Oasis organizers were given in PDF form and needed to be printed out. On the other hand Exploratree's organizers could be manipulated, shared, displayed and saved all online so that a teacher could create their own personal virtual binder of specific organizers that were geared towards their subjects and objectives. This overwhelmingly impressed me. The thought of being able to go back online and simply and easily edit my organizer making changes, even for a period later in the day is very impressive.
Overall, all three tools were easy to use from day one, but the best ones were those that allowed collaboration between students and teachers, as well as between students. Those were bubbl.us and Exploratree.
In terms of the three I choose Bubbl.us is slightly different because I viewed it as a place where students could go individually or as collaborative groups to help with organization of ideas. I think this tool would be great for students to work on a project together and divide up roles that could be color coded within Bubbl.us. Each could contribute the majority of their notes to their sections, but still help the others. They are then able to manipulate their concept map to make connections and bring all their information together. Bubble.us would be a great 1st step for a group that was wanting to create a project or write a paper together, making sure they were all on the same page and were writing with the same ideas and organizational structure.
The last two tools have the feel, to me, of teacher tools. The seem like a way to create and deliver a method for students to organize their knowledge. They would not be as adaptable for the students once they received them. I have already bookmarked these two sites for this year, because they had a lot of options and were well organized by goals. I liked how both sites offered suggestions on how each type of organizer might be used in the class. One of the sites, in my opinion, was significantly more valuable to me than the other. The key difference was adaptability. The Education Oasis organizers were given in PDF form and needed to be printed out. On the other hand Exploratree's organizers could be manipulated, shared, displayed and saved all online so that a teacher could create their own personal virtual binder of specific organizers that were geared towards their subjects and objectives. This overwhelmingly impressed me. The thought of being able to go back online and simply and easily edit my organizer making changes, even for a period later in the day is very impressive.
Overall, all three tools were easy to use from day one, but the best ones were those that allowed collaboration between students and teachers, as well as between students. Those were bubbl.us and Exploratree.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Electronic Student Response
A couple of items are available to me this coming year. The first is Moodle, which has been great. One of the features that I started with this past year is the journal feature. It is exactly what it sounds like a journal that the students will be keeping about my class. The really nice feature for me is that it is private, so the kids don't need to worry about what their peers will see or say about their posts, and it also allows me to post feedback to them and comment about what they write and to ask questions that work as great starters for the next post.
The second tool that I like is Google Docs. I started adding comments to their assignments before giving their grades, so they can make a round or more, if necessary, of improvements before final grading. They then send me an email when they have made their changes and they get their grade plus a second round of comments. I like this because it makes these assignments better in the end and helps the students to see what I'm looking for, where they are succeeding, and where they need to do a little more work. The only major change for me is that I really need to set two deadlines, and it is hard to track down my students who have trouble making one deadline.
The final tool, and also the newest is the Centio sp? system that my dept. is going to purchase this summer. We have them in the math dept for quizzes and such, but I envision using them as conversation starters and a way to check for understanding. I'm really interested by the option of polling my class and seeing where they stand on a certain issue initially, after discussion, after learning more on the topic.
I think all three of these tools will help me to do a better job of keeping my finger on the pulse of my class as a whole, and the pulse of individual students.
The second tool that I like is Google Docs. I started adding comments to their assignments before giving their grades, so they can make a round or more, if necessary, of improvements before final grading. They then send me an email when they have made their changes and they get their grade plus a second round of comments. I like this because it makes these assignments better in the end and helps the students to see what I'm looking for, where they are succeeding, and where they need to do a little more work. The only major change for me is that I really need to set two deadlines, and it is hard to track down my students who have trouble making one deadline.
The final tool, and also the newest is the Centio sp? system that my dept. is going to purchase this summer. We have them in the math dept for quizzes and such, but I envision using them as conversation starters and a way to check for understanding. I'm really interested by the option of polling my class and seeing where they stand on a certain issue initially, after discussion, after learning more on the topic.
I think all three of these tools will help me to do a better job of keeping my finger on the pulse of my class as a whole, and the pulse of individual students.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Feedback
I really liked this week's blog article and see it as a skill that I do need to work on. It is primarily to help with feedback that I am making an effort to create rubrics starting with all the major assignments during my year, and some generic rubrics that will work with some of my smaller daily type assignments.
My hope is that these rubrics will do exactly what the article suggests, which is to focus on the learning objectives. Having the rubric at the top of the assignment will allow me to have that reminder of what I asked of the students and where my primary focus should be when grading and giving comments.
The second benefit I'm hoping to receive from creating rubrics is to increase the speed with which grading and feedback is given. I know it probably isn't appropriate to do something simply to speed up the process, but I've found that the time commitment to grading is killing me. I'm sure many of you are in the same boat, but I have approximately 140 students on my team, and they all take Geography. That means whenever I give out a major assignment, I have a huge, imposing, heavy, cumbersome stack of big time assignments to grade. Sometimes I'm almost too embarrassed to hand them back because of how long it has taken. I need to find a way to pick up the pace, and I'm hoping that the rubrics will not only help my students focus on the objectives of the assignment, but also help me focus more on the specific stated objectives.
This article spoke to me much more clearly than last weeks and I also felt like it was offering me a way to make myself a better teacher not only for my students, but for myself, and I appreciate that.
My hope is that these rubrics will do exactly what the article suggests, which is to focus on the learning objectives. Having the rubric at the top of the assignment will allow me to have that reminder of what I asked of the students and where my primary focus should be when grading and giving comments.
The second benefit I'm hoping to receive from creating rubrics is to increase the speed with which grading and feedback is given. I know it probably isn't appropriate to do something simply to speed up the process, but I've found that the time commitment to grading is killing me. I'm sure many of you are in the same boat, but I have approximately 140 students on my team, and they all take Geography. That means whenever I give out a major assignment, I have a huge, imposing, heavy, cumbersome stack of big time assignments to grade. Sometimes I'm almost too embarrassed to hand them back because of how long it has taken. I need to find a way to pick up the pace, and I'm hoping that the rubrics will not only help my students focus on the objectives of the assignment, but also help me focus more on the specific stated objectives.
This article spoke to me much more clearly than last weeks and I also felt like it was offering me a way to make myself a better teacher not only for my students, but for myself, and I appreciate that.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)