Sarah mentioned how I had everything very laid out, and I never used to feel that way about our research projects. After doing this research project for the 5 years, I just finally feel like I've gotten my thoughts laid around it. Just like Lindsay said, there's so much older kids can do with technology, but they are also so limited in research skills at this age level. Its been a struggle before knowing what kids know how to do and what they didn't. I've finally had the experience to know what most kids abilities are when they get to me, so I've really been able to refine my teaching and planning process to focus on those skills they are lacking.
A highlight from my implementation plan so far is that it has been extremely easy to change up in the event that I needed to switch from what I had originally planned for. That being said, there have been a lot of obstacles that I have had to overcome so far, which required me to change the plans. I realized that I was not going to be able to set aside time every Friday for students to take a google form survey. Luckily, I found that an easy check on students' reflection skills would be to use their Assessment Dialogue forms as data. Again, that posed another problem that needed solving. I can no longer take data from all classes, but only from one class to show how the reflections are changing students attitudes toward learning.
Since I've changed the plan on the data collection, it's been hard for me to analyze as of yet. There is a mass of Assessment Dialogue forms that I'll be reading through over our fall break. One thing I have been able to show is that students are showing progress from formative assessment to summative assessment. I will be able to compare the class's scores from formative and summative assignments when they did not reflect and show that with reflection their achievement in my class has increased. The biggest challenge I've found though, is there is never enough time in the day to do the work that is needed to be done. Synthesizing Questions #1
For incorporating technology, I focused on students being directly involved in acquiring resources a planning for the resource use. I worked with my team members to create cornell notes sheets that students would use during a research project. Students were to find resources, and plan ahead on how to organize the information from the resources to tell the story of their topic. Students were also taught to paraphrase their notes since copying is plagiarism. This is different than how we taught note taking in the past, we typically would have students take notes on anything they found important, and then organize all their notes at the end of the note taking practice time. This way forced students to recognize what was actually important ahead of time, and informed of them of what information they may have had a lot of, or were missing, from their topic. I also have allowed students this year to bring their own device to school, mainly for work time. Some students enjoy listening to their own music or being able to quick google something on their phone, than use a chromebook or iPad. So far, I have seen it work well. This year I am having students use an Assessment Dialogue Form to self assess so they may have self-directed learning experiences. You can see the form on the left of the page. This is different than how I've had students reflect in the pas. Typically I would have just asked students to give themselves a score on a summative assessment, and then explain why they deserve the score they gave themselves. This year, I am having students use this form for some formative and summative assessments.
I have been working with a few SPED students to use technology to be able to show their knowledge in the classroom. Some of these technologies are ones that I have had in the past, but haven't used. I have put DragonDiction on an iPad for students to speak their answers instead of write them out. I also have students using the textbook on our iPads, which will read aloud to students so they can focus on the content, instead of reading skills. I have always allowed students to choose their own research project topics, but this year I asked students to choose their topic after doing a little more digging into what their topic is about to make sure they had a good handle on what that topic is about before they truly dive in. I also found a useful peer editing sheet for students to use when typing out their research. This would allow students to help each other improve their written product through suggestions from their peers. Synthesizing Questions #2
Synthesizing Questions #3
Brookhart says “feedback that draws students’ attention to their self-regulation strategies or their abilities can be effective if students hear it in a way that makes them realize they will get the results they want if they expend effort and attention.” Guskey and McTighe say students can self-assess their current skill and performance levels against models given in order to set learning goals and monitor their progress along the way.
From the morning session, I really wanted to keep in mind that at home and at school I need to stay above the line. I tried out reminding my co-workers and reminding myself when we were below the line to change our choices to have a more positive outlook and attitude. It seemed to really make the days go by quickly and continue on a positive note.
There wasn't much that I could try out this week from the afternoon session that I haven't already been doing. We talked about using standards based grading. I guess I can say that I shared with my group that I haven't seen many students failing my classes now that I've been using standards based grading for the past 3 years. Just finishing grading today and I only see a handful who haven't passed for the quarter. This is something that I will continue to use in my classroom. |
AuthorMrs. Cameron Archives
February 2017
|