Week 11:
Explore two tools for the second chapter you have chosen
The second chapter I chose was
chapter 10. This one deals with assessments. The first tool I have been
exploring is Rubistar. You can find this tool at http://rubistar.4teachers.org. My initial search was using Delicious and found out the
site has many followers. I added the link to my stack and signed up for
Rubistar. I reviewed some examples of rubrics that are already available and
they are editable. Looking at examples is a good way to begin brainstorming on
how to create one. Rubrics can be challenging to create and they have to assess
the learning target(s) that were taught. Rubrics can be applied to any educational
subject. I used to create rubrics with my subject team, but we would use a
table from Word. We often would lose the rubric or would forget to save it.
Saving rubrics within Rubistar will make our work a lot easier. The online
rubric maker will support the assessment part of learning.
Experts in the area of
assessments stress that teachers need to teach students how to compare their
performance with the learning target. And rubrics with clear performance level
descriptors are helpful in this process. Constructive criticism in this form
should be part of a “safe” environment for students. Students need instruction
and practice in how to compare their work with others using rubrics. The
scenario that I will demonstrate will be in 7th grade Language Arts.
Given that we have to begin developing our final project, this scenario would
be addressing the use of Figurative Language in poetry: metaphor, hyperbole,
idiom, personification and simile. Students will use the rubric created by the
teacher ahead of time in order to know how they will be assessed once they
complete an autobiographical poem using each of the examples of figurative
language. The sample illustration of the rubric tool follows:
The second tool I explored some was the online survey www.surveymonkey.com. When I searched
under Delicious, it showed over 9000 saves. It seems like a very useful tool
for creating web surveys. I also added this link to my stack in Delicious. I
reviewed the sample surveys the site has available and it gave me some ideas on
how I could utilize this tool with my 7th graders. One of those
ideas would be to have my students take a survey at the beginning of the school
year so that I may get to know them better.
Presently I have them answer questions on a large index card and
I can’t really fit a lot of information. Using the online survey would give me
a chance to ask more questions about them. Some of the questions I like to ask
have to deal with their reading habits and normally at the end of the school
year I would give them back their cards and revisit what they had shared with
me. What is always surprising to them is how their perspectives changed as far
as their reading habits etc. Another
idea I had was to have students creating a survey over the types of activities
done in class over the school year. Perhaps some of the questions in the survey
would be (1) which was your favorite novel? (2) which of the following
activities did you enjoy the most? (3) which activities did you enjoy the
least? The technology learning objectives would be addressed using this type of
tool. If students are involved in creating surveys and then analyze results, they
would be using the higher levels of Blooms Taxonomy. This is an example of one
of the already made sample surveys.
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