In their chapter “Thinking Through Assessment,” Brenner, Pearson, and Reif offer many valuable suggestions for creating meaningful assessments- for students, teachers, parents, policy makers, taxpayers, everybody! The authors suggest that when students are being assessed, they are looking to answer the questions “How am I doing?” and “What shall I do next?”
One of their suggestions for making assessments useful for students is to include self-evaluations. When I read this, I was instantly reminded of my experience with self-evaluations in high school. My senior year, I took a philosophy class that assigned a short paper every week. Along with the paper, we were required to fill out self-evaluation forms. They were printed on bright yellow paper, and always contained the same list of questions, things like- “Rate your paper on a scale of 1 to 5 in terms of clarity, argument, etc.” There weren’t any short answers or free responses. I can’t really remember the specific questions too well, but I do remember that I HATED filling them out. At the end of the form we had to write what we thought our grade should be, and then when we got the paper back, our teacher wrote what he thought the grade should be, and also corrected our ratings from 1 to 5 in terms of clarity, etc.
I think I had a pretty negative association with self-evaluation, the way I experienced it was never fulfilling for me. So when I saw Linda Reif’s example of a self-evaluation form for a paper I was very excited! She calls the self-evaluation “Process Paper (Background History of the Writing) and Evaluation”(p.269). I loved the questions she included- they really encouraged reflection on the writing process. I especially liked the question, “What do you want me to know about the writing of this that I might now know just from reading it?” I think this question really opens up a door for student-teacher communication about writing. The question “How did you come up with the idea for this piece?” also invites students to share their thought process with the teacher.
I think this template is an awesome example of how to make self-evaluation meaningful and useful for students. I definitely want to use it with students in the future!
Since I work with the VAST program, I thought it might be helpful to also post some websites that middle schoolers might find useful for themselves (or for their teachers to let them try out). I notice a lot of students struggling with multiplication and division, but often the only way to practice those skills –particularly in a tutoring environment–is to do boring practice problems for homework. So, I found a few sites that have various games to try out. All of them have a selection of different ones to try, so the kids can pick the one they like best!
http://www.fun4thebrain.com/mult.html
http://www.multiplication.com/games
http://hoodamath.com/games/multiplication.php
(I’m pretty sure I remember playing the number eaters game on this last one!)
So many cool resources out there in cyberspace!
Zinn Education Project I have posted about this before, but it is awesome and worth a second mention! Great set of resources for “teaching a people’s history”-lesson plans and materials that can be searched by time period or by theme. Also has great lists of books, films, music, art, and more to use in history classrooms.
NOVA Mind Over Money NOVA has so much awesome information on their site, with topics ranging from ancient worlds to outerspace! One really cool collection of resources on NOVA is called “Mind Over Money.” It has documentaries, articles, and more that focus on behavioral economics (a response to the financial situation in the US). I think this site is really helpful in highlighting the human element of economics.
Media That Matters The Media That Matters Film Festival selects short films/documentaries that illuminate issues of social justice. The videos are all available to watch online, and relate to a wide range of teaching topics! One of my favorites is called “Immersion” (from the 9th annual MTM Film Festival). It is a really compelling look at the experience of an English-language-learner student in regards to standardized testing. Could be used as a great jumping off point for teachers in a professional development workshop, or even to start a discussion with students.
Also, I love two resources that were already mentioned: Facing History and the Smithsonian website!
I decided to focus on finding resources for US history teachers.
The first is a site called Digital History. It is very useful because it has an interactive timeline with important historical events, archives of primary source documents (speeches, letters, etc.), examples of lesson plans with suggested critical thinking questions to pose to the students, and a long list of historical Hollywood movies that could be used in the classroom.
Another good resource is a website called History Matters. I like this one because it has various forums where teachers talk to each other about tips and strategies they use in the classroom. There is also a forum for student work where many teachers have uploaded student projects and papers. It might be a good idea to have students evaluate these samples of work by other students to get them thinking about what makes a good project/paper. The website also has a “digital blackboard” with tons of sample lesson plans and class activities.
I really like that these websites exist to allow teachers to talk to each other about strategies and share resources. I think it is a very useful way to use technology.
Since I will be teaching English to students in China this summer, I decided to look for some useful ESL teaching resources.
The site below provides a great section for ESL teachers, which includes project ideas, games and jokes. These are all activities that will help create a more relaxed and enjoyable environment in the classroom.
http://iteslj.org/t/
The other resource I found is from a company called Footsteps Recruiting. It recruits ESL teachers to go to different countries around the world. The following link leads to blog posts from teachers that have been placed in schools in China. The teachers’ experiences will be similar to mine so this should be very useful for me once I start teaching. There are also pages on this site for lesson plans and tips for teaching, which will be great resources for me as I prepare material for the classroom.
http://www.footprintsrecruiting.com/for-teachers/teachers-playground/teacher-blogs/tags/366/
This summer, I worked in the Education Department in an art museum. While this was a relatively small art museum, it had an entire library full of lesson plans, teaching aids, and art objects that teachers could take out on loan and use in their classrooms. Most museums have some kinds of online teacher support center, so I’ve provided two of those examples. They offer resources, tips, and lesson plans, allowing teachers to implement professionally-developed and creative ideas in their classrooms.
Smithsonian Education Website
http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/index.html
Everson Museum of Art: Educator Resource Center (where I worked over the summer)
http://www.everson.org/education/educators.php
Chapter 12, “Thinking Through Assessment” presents an issue that I consider at length in my senior thesis. I am writing about using school-community partnerships to aid struggling schools. A large portion of my research revolves around the efforts of a high school in a nearby school district to restructure in order to increase their accountability rating under No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. Unlike many schools that have failed to meet annual yearly progress standards, this school has embraced innovative learning strategies. Rather than implementing test preparation courses and extra study courses for students who failed previous state exams, teachers, administrators and teaching artists from a local nonprofit have collaborated to open up two Smaller Learning Communities (SLCs). Each SLC follows a student-centered, project-based learning approach that allows students to conduct their own projects while still adhering to state standards.
One of the teachers’ big issues had been trying to balance students’ needs with school and state needs. For example, one teacher mentioned to me that her students had not done well on a recent global history test, despite the fact that she could see them growing individually. Her students displayed more creativity, maturity, and better social skills than they had in the past, which she attributed to the small class sizes, individualized projects, and group work. The low test scores, however, were a big problem. Author David Pearson alludes to this when he points out that different “clients” have different expectations of assessments. School and state administrators want to see academic progress, and are not as impressed by enhanced social and personal skills.
While there is no easy strategy to go about this weird balancing act, there are certain ways that teachers can remain mindful to the needs of different players in the system. In response to the drop in test scores, for example the teacher in my case study had collaborated with two other fellow teachers to address potential problems with their curricula. Throughout the entire year, it seems that this process of group reflection and teacher collaboration has helped the teachers maintain an innovative, project-based curricula while still preparing students for success on state exams.
http://www.onlinemet.com/
This website is an online edition of a quarterly journal. The articles are only available to subscribers, but based on the list of articles in the current addition, it is a periodical I would be interested in having access to. There are sections on technology, reading, writing, and language. There is also a section for reviews of books, something I think would be really helpful in finding new books for a curriculum.
http://www.cambridgeenglishteacher.org/
This is another service you can pay for which seems like it could be very helpful. It seems like the site places an emphasis on fostering discussion between its members as well as providing resources for the classroom. The news article on the service (http://www.cup.cam.ac.uk/home/news/article/item6869146/?site_locale=ar_TN) says that it is “an online environment that offers teachers the opportunity to become part of a community of peers across the world, undertaking flexible professional development courses and building an online presence that showcases their careers to date. The site also allows members to interact with fellow teachers, the authors who produce the materials they use in the classroom, and other leading names in the world of global English language teaching.”. You can buy the courses individually and get a discounted price for being a member. I think its a cool idea to make professional development accessible and organized. I wonder whether or not schools in the US would support their teachers taking these classes designed in the UK. Regardless, it is an interesting site to explore even if you can’t access everything without paying to be a member.
Social Widgets powered by AB-WebLog.com.