In this week's unit, many things were
discussed. For one, the concept of the 5 E's were introduced, along with
a discussion on the integration of Web 2.0 tools and assessment. I
teach in a Learning Focused school, therefore the whole idea of the 5
E's seemed familiar to me based on the fact that we are required to have
these areas in our daily plans. Engaging, exploring, explaining,
elaborating, and evaluating are all important keys to a successful
lesson.
The engagement piece involves a hook to
get the students interested in the task at hand, along with discussing the
Essential Question of the lesson. Background knowledge and interests are
activated and students are excited to learn. Within the exploring area, students have the
ability to become actively involved in their learning. They feel safe enough to
take risks and have a desire to learn more about the topic. Here they also begin to
connect to their learning and share personal experiences.
Next comes the area where the teacher explains the lesson and guides students. Here, students are able to
explain the answer to the Essential Question and they can describe and explain
what they are learning. After they are done explaining, students
have the ability to extend their knowledge of the topic and can apply it
to other situations or to the real world.
Finally, evaluation occurs. Evaluations include both formative and summative assessments throughout the entire lesson. Formative
assessments are check ins throughout the lesson, and summative assessments of
various skills will determine if the students mastered the overall topic.
I
have learned this week that scoring is more commonly associated with
formative
assessments, and grading goes hand in hand with summative assessments. I
do believe that formative assessments are
crucial to the teaching process so that you know where your students are
throughout their process of learning. I tend to do various check ins
with my students such as thumbs up/thumbs down, clear, a little buggy,
or totally buggy, or street light signs on their desks. These
assessments are not only
important for the teacher to gauge student understanding throughout the
progression of a unit, but they are important for the student so they
can gauge their own understanding of the material in preparation for the
summative assessment. I stress to the students that they must be
willing to take risks in order to learn, and that these check ins allow
them to see where they need to work a little harder.
This
week's unit also stressed the idea that technology is an
integral part of the formative assessment process. With
all of the available web 2.0 applications that are available
online, most of which are free, it would be silly to not include these
in our every day lessons. I have found a few that I love using such as
Wordle, Tagxedo, Kid Blog, Glogster, Edmodo, and Prezi. All of these
tools allows students to participate in their own learning, as well as
allowing me to perform a formative assessment throughout the lesson. I
do not always look at each of these assignments via Web 2.0 tools as a
grade, but rather as an evaluation of their application of the skills
being taught. I am always curious to find new ways to incorporate
technology into my classroom, especially for formative assessments.
Each
elementary school in our district, along with a few individual
teachers, have a set of clickers that allows students to respond
throughout a lesson. I am curious to try something like this so that I
could accurately judge their learning based on their intitial responses
throughout the entire lesson. I think the students would also enjoy
something like this, and they would be actively engaged the entire time.
I
don't have any burning questions at this time, but I am enjoying this
class and the fact that I have had some experience with the
technological tools being used. It gives me a bit more confidence when
taking these tools and applying them to my lessons, assessments, and
evaluations.
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