Archive for the 'reflect' Category

Break your class now!

Published February 14, 2009 Accountability , Achievement , Change , choice , Class , Classroom , Difference , Formative , Formative assessment , Forward , Improve , learning , Metacognition , reflect , Reflection , Student Leave a Comment
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For many years a favorite book of mine was If it is not broken, then break it by George Morrison. The author stresses that the time to improve something is when it is working, not when it is broken. If you fix something when it is broken, you usually only restore it to its original condition but not an improved one.

If you spend time in reflecting on the lesson or unit and breaking the present level, you improve it to a higher level. Your students learn better.

When do you stop and break your class? Do you consciously say “What can I improve the next time I do this?” Do you rewrite your lesson plans? Redo your PowerPoint? Find different websites? Think about wording things differently on your handouts? Do you ask your students what worked for them such as rating each part of the unit on a 4-very helpful for learning the goal 3- somewhat helpful 2- a little helpful 1- not helpful at all” scale and do you ask them “What would have helped me better learn this goal?” Do you honestly consider their suggestions?

Break your class to help your students better succeed!

One way to break your class is through formative assessment.

My book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Students, is available through Eye-on-Education.

Reponding to Your Students

Portfolio Orientation – Get Real!

Published June 4, 2008 Academic , Accountability , Achievement , Analysis , Assess , Assessment , assessment for learning , Portfolio , reflect , Reflection Leave a Comment
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I was talking to an instructor who was explaining the portfolio process at her college. She said that they had a portfolio day to introduce the portfolio  to all students.  They took the students through a series of exercises; however, never did the students actually see a real portfolio nor  did they look at their own material which might go in the portfolio. Instead they did a series of “cute” exercises.

My only thought was “Get real”.  If I had been in charge, I would start out with the purpose of the portfolio, show them the standards/proficiencies they have to demonstrate, show them a portfolio from the previous semester,  have them examine some possible material for a portfolio and decide which best demonstrates the standard, and have them examine a reflection on the standard to evaluate how well it explains what the student has learned and has yet to learn.  The more we replicate the real experience, the better our students understand the process and can be successful in it.

Wiki as Presentation Tool

Published November 6, 2007 Accountability , Achievement , Assess , Assessment , assessment for learning , collaboration , Growth , Learn , learning , Presentation , reflect , Reflection , Small group , Wiki Leave a Comment
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PBwiki site

If your students have worked collaboratively to create a learning product through a small group wiki, then why not have them present their product via the same wiki? They already have the information from all of its stages -from brainstorms through various drafts. They can copy the information to a clean wiki page and organize it. They can either link to other presentation pages or they can move all information to one long scrolling page (put in about 12 blank lines between each aspect so that each aspect shows up by itself on the screen). They do not have to go to PowerPoint to do their presentation.

This type of presentation is especially good to demonstrate changes in thinking, growth in the project, and increasing levels of complexity. Students can show parts of their early brainstorm and then show their final product. They can show the various decisions that the group went through. Group members can add their feedback to each other and any teacher feedback and show how that feedback was incorporated to create a better product.

Have your students used a wiki for presentation?

Eportfolio Panic and Technology Training

Published May 8, 2007 Accountability , Achievement , Assessment , Electronic portfolio , Eportfolio , reflect , technology , technology integration , Training Leave a Comment

Eportfolio process improvement

Our pre-service teachers are preparing their eportfolio public presentations. The graduate assistants (GAs) have worked hard all year in preparing written documentation and showing each class how to use the eportfolio system. However, as the students enter the final days before their eportfolio presentations and they are still putting the eportfolio together, numerous students have forgotten the basics of the system.

Do the pre-service teachers forget because

They were not trained well?
Their training early in the semester did not match their need at that time?
The students did not see the importance of learning the eportfolio system?
The training was not embedded throughout the semester?
The program is not intuitive?
The students are now exhausted in rushing to finishing off other finals, papers, etc.?

Without interviewing students and finding out the causes, next semester will be no better. There will no improvement in the eportfolio process. There will be panic and students will not do their best in demonstrating the progress in the university’s proficiencies.

How do you build in evaluation and improvement of your educational technology practices?

© Harry Grover Tuttle, 2007

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Formative Assessments For Students Growth: Four Techniques

Published February 3, 2007 Assessment , Formative , Grade , reflect , Rubric , Standard Leave a Comment

Formative Assessment Variety

There are several ways to give students feedback on their progress in specific crticial parts of a standard:

1. Grade all applicable assignments on the state rubric for that standard. For example, grade all ELA writing with the state writing rubric. When you record the score in your grade program using the ELA score, you can see the students progress.

2. When you return the assignment, write this standards-based score and the previous score on it. Students can see if they are growing in the standard and remaining stagnant.

3. Have students keep a record of their assignments and their grades. Ask them to write down one thing they can do to improve in that standard. Some teachers have a daily reflection time for learning and this would be an excellent way for students to crystalize their thoughts for improvements. They submit these cumulative learning logs so that they can see which of their strategies were effective for a specific critical apsect of the standard.

4. Convert all grading to be standards based and use the subcategories under each standard to represent the critical aspects of a standard. Do not enter anything as a test but enter it under the appropriate critical aspect. Therefore, a persuasive essay based on a graph, would not be entered not as an ELA test but as part of Standard 1. You can use your grading program to print out the students’ standard based progress.

How else do you give formative assessment to students? How do you use technology to facilitate the process?

© Harry Grover Tuttle, 2007

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