I encourage my students to reach out for help whenever they need it. I end F2F classes with this reminder, end emails with this reminder, and lately, end my Twitch streams with it. I absolutely love it when they come for help. I find that 9 times out of 10, just talking to students about an assignment is enough to clarify most questions. Lately though, it seems like I’ve been communicating quite a bit more than usual with my students about their assignments. Seems reasonable, given the switch to remote learning, but the interesting thing has been that the questions are not about assignments for my class, but other assignments students have for other classes, taught by my colleagues.
I don’t mind helping students with work from other classes, but I do worry about instructing them to do something that differs from what my colleague may have told them. I wish students were comfortable with going to the professor who assigned the work, but I’m aware that they aren’t always receiving feedback that they find helpful. I think that’s a topic for another day though, as it isn’t the reason I set out to write this post. Recently, I jotted down a set of instructions I’ve found myself repeating to students as I counsel them through someone else’s assignment. I thought I’d share.
Today we are going to stick with the formative assessment theme, although by the end of it all we are going to have some summative assessment vibes too.
In this specific instance, I want students to read about the COVID-19 crisis in Italy in order to gain a little insight into what they (we) may experience in the United States as the weeks progress. I started by locating a free article on Newsela.com to anchor my assignment with. I love Newsela because not only does it have a huge library of expository texts, it also provides these texts at different reading levels.
Well, it’s been awhile on this blog, but the COVID-19 health crisis has brought me back, as I think this is the most appropriate forum to share the following. An email my wonderful and talented colleague Dr. Jennifer Hollinger and I received from one of our clinical practice students who is in the field, trying to complete her clinical (student teaching but we have new words for things in 2020) experience, graduate and become an awesome classroom teacher.
Dear Dr. Brueck and Dr. Hollinger,
Good morning! I am working on creating lessons for this online instruction period. I am worried about missing the formative assessment piece in these lessons since I cannot talk to the students while I am teaching them to see if they have an understanding of the topic.
I have been brainstorming the best way to do this. Right now, I am creating my lessons on Google Slides. The only idea that I have right now is to create short Google Forms where students answer a question based on the minilesson that I taught. If they get it incorrect, they will be directed to another minilesson/video/practice tool to help them with the concept before they move on in the lesson. I am worried because I know there are students that will gloss over this and move on (I am in 5th grade language arts currently).
Do either of you have any other ideas for formative assessment that can be done without having the students all online at the same time? Thank you!
Both Jen and I did our best to provide timely feedback and I wanted to share our responses in case they may be helpful to you or your students. Read the rest of this entry…
This post was brought upon by the needs that the #UAEdTech learning community have expressed, is responsive and reflective in nature and a model of the type of transparent learning that the course instructors are asking you to engage in throughout the semester. It is also a model of the type of reflection, scaffolding and re-teaching that you will need to provide to your future students in your future classroom.
Over this past weekend, I received multiple emails regarding the Week 2 grading for Assignment 1.0 Networked Professional Learning. All of the emails contained some variation of a similar theme, “I just saw my Week 2 grade and I am just wondering where I lost points?” As I reflected on the questions being asked and thought about my response, I felt it would be best to address them in an open manner for the benefit of the entire #UAEdTech learning community.
I understand that the format of Assignment 1.0 may be a bit new and different from the other experiences that you have had in school to date. I also understand that it will take some time to get use to this style of learning. The points and feedback you have received to date reflect that you are learning and show room for growth. This is perfectly normal. If you’re a points person (I’m clearly not and firmly believe that we can assess learning with a variety of data beyond just statistics), the total points this week actually account for a mere 7% of the total points you can earn for just this assignment during the semester.
Do not look at the percentage you received on this 1/14th of Assignment 1.0 as a failure. It is certainly far from that. If you have to use the word FAIL, I hope you look at it as your First Attempt In Learning. With this lens, you will see that you have 13 more weeks to show your learning and growth as a Networked Professional Learner. The points for the Week 2 assignment simply establish a baseline of your understanding. While your baseline may be lower than where you would like it, a review of the rubric will probably tell you that the grade you received for Week 2 falls within the Satisfactory or higher range, so there is no need for alarm.
A few things to think about as we forge on through the semester. I think they’ll be helpful for you. Read the rest of this entry…
Aiden was recently asked to record some sample fluency passages for preservice teachers at The University of Akron to use for practicing 3-Minute Reading Assessments. We used the AudioBoo app to record the passages and post to the cloud. Below you’ll find the embedded audio clips. Teachers could easily use a similar method to post student clips for sharing with parents or other teachers on their team.
The source of the passages is located here. You can also find the teacher scoring sheets for each passage.
Mark Your Calendar – May 4, 2010!
That’s when a statewide summit will be held to engage and network local school leaders, teachers, government and policy makers, corporate and civic leaders in building a common language and vision for using 21st Century Skills as a change agent for education in Ohio. The event will recognize and celebrate Ohio’s position as a “21st Century Leadership State” and begin the process for developing a comprehensive 21st Century Skills educational implementation plan.
It is our goal to facilitate Ohio’s move to become a 21st Century …
Toby Fischer (@futureofedu) sent me the link to this website earlier today. Follow Ohio’s path as it begins to explore and define what 21st Century Skills mean from the perspective of: curriculum & instruction, learning environments, professional development, standards & assessment and systems planning.
For the past year, Dr. Kathleen Roskos from John Carroll University, Dr. Karen Burstein, Director of the Southwest Institute for Families and Children and I have been researching use of eBooks with early literacy learners. Most recently, our team has started a study that will look at instructional interactions with eBooks that promote early literacy development and vocabulary. After viewing the David Merrill TED video and blogging about it in this post, I began to consider how our research team might incorporate these devices as part of our work. I was so excited about this possibility that I decided to email the Sifteo team to see if they might be open to collaborating with us on research in the future.
