What kinds of technologies can I use to help students set objectives?
I teach 2nd-5th grade, so I hesitate to let my younger students set their own objectives. However, I do think that I could use a survey tool, such as Survey Monkey or Poll Anywhere, to have my older students let me know what they are interested in learning about. I could also have them set goals and decide how to reach those goals using a similar tool.
I can think of a time that I asked students to provide feedback on another students work and I was not pleased with the results. Why did it not go well?
This year is the first year I have taught fifth grade technology. One of the projects that all of the Tech teachers do is mini book that the kids write about any topic they want. It is a six page book, with a minimum of three sentences per page. After students were done writing their books, I asked students to switch computers with someone else who was finished and read their work, checking for complete thoughts, as well as spelling and grammatical errors. When I went to do the double check before printing EVERY SINGLE book had at least five errors or had parts that did not make sense.
Now that I've sat and thought about it, I can tell you why it didn't go well, I never modeled for them what it looks like to edit someone's work for completion and we never discussed spelling and grammatical errors. Next year, I WILL model good writing and editing for my students before asking them to complete this task!
I can think of a time that I asked students to use a rubric I had created to self-assess their project before I graded it and I was not pleased with the results. Why did it not go well?
I'm pretty sure I know why this did not go well either. First of all, no other teacher in this building uses rubrics (which completely blew my mind!). I had not taken the time to read through the entire rubric and explain the scoring in detail. A great way I could have improved this would have been to use an example and grade it together as a class using the rubric. This may have clarified why I was expecting and how to use the rubric at the same time.
Sarah, even with my 7th graders I'm a bit hesitant to allow them to set their own objectives--unchartered water for the students as well as me! But I am anxious to try out a tool like Survey Monkey to survey interests and readiness and monitor its affects on our learning!
ReplyDeleteI think it's relatively easy to assume that when we ask students to revise or edit for another student that the students know how. I need to constantly remind myself to be very methodic in my classes with what my expectations are and how to, step-by-step, revise and/or edit, even if we've previously done so.
I'm saddened to hear of the lack of rubric use. Rubrics help rule my world! ha ha! Even though my 7th graders have been exposed to 6 Triat rubrics since grade 2, we still spend lots of class time creating, making sense of, and using those tools.
Sarah (and Trish) I hesitate to let my 7th graders create their own objectives as well, but I do like your idea of using Survey Monkey or similar site to see what they'd like to learn. Maybe towards the end of a unit students could pick out something the teacher hasn't covered yet that they'd like to learn. I teach the Eastern Hemisphere, all aspects of it and don't touch on everything, it'd be nice to see what they would want to learn.
ReplyDeleteI assumed the kids know more than they do. I have to really explain what it looks and sounds like when taking a test, or working in groups. So again, when asking them to peer edit, giving them a sample and as a class work through what you're expecting may help you get better results.
It surprises me that no one else uses rubrics! Not only does it help when grading papers to be consistent, but it also helps tell the students what they excelled at and what they need to improve on.