Approach??
I am constantly assessing my students in my classes: with every utterance from my students, I am assessing what they are saying, how they are saying it, their strengths, weaknesses, application of what we have focused on up to that point in the course, what they understand, what they don’t understand based on questions I may ask and questions they ask; with every activity based on what they completed, how they completed their assignments, how they are participating or not participating in activities in class and out of class. Is that an ‘approach’?
My strength is my awareness of and skill at targeting key individualized areas for students to focus on which is communicated through immediate feedback during an activity, individualized audio recorded & written following an activity, and F2f individual conferencing for which students receive ‘action plans’ and target areas.
Self-Monitoring
I teach students to monitor their own speech patterns to improve performance and understanding. They do this with self-analysis guided worksheets and self-correction.
For the Love Of Grades
Opportunities for improvement include more rubrics with which to communicate to the students the purpose/focus of each activity. Although I frequently do this orally, I am finding that students to respond positively to grades. Thus, I am creating more specific rubrics to communicate the focus, purpose, relevance, and benefit of the activity and my expectations in order to improve.
Connecting With Learners
I have one mid-semester self-evaluation in which students report on their improvements, their knowledge of how to improve, and comments on the effectiveness of activities and my feedback. After reading the articles for this module, I particularly liked the strategies of ‘muddiest point’ and ‘one minute paper’ from MERLOT “Online Assessment Strategies: A Primer” (March 2010).
Success!
I had the opportunity to do this with a 4-day workshop I taught this summer: each session ended with participants writing on an index card one key point they found important and/or relevant, and one question they had. It was enormously successful: I addressed the questions in the next session, and was able to gauge the participants’ engagement and understanding of the material.
For More Connection
More One-Minute papers, muddiest point, and more rubrics. This is what I would try to incorporate more often in my class.
4 comments
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Peggy, thanks for your excellent, well-organized post. Yes, you DO have an approach and it is magnificent, from how you write it.
You stated, “My strength is my awareness of and skill at targeting key individualized areas for students to focus on which is communicated through immediate feedback during an activity, individualized audio recorded & written following an activity, and F2f individual conferencing for which students receive ‘action plans’ and target areas.”
Wow – any department or school would love to have you on board! About how many learners do you work with during a given semester?
I am also thinking about ways that you can use audio/video technologies to support your instructional goals with your learners? I’ll be reading your syllabus this coming week so I’ll likely have a better idea. But, if there’s anything you’d like to touch on in the near future, just let me know. We can always meet via a Skype or Google Hangout session.
Best regards,
Leah
Author
Thanks, Leah! But I’m only good in my field — ESL:) I typically have 15-20 total in the graduate academic writing (2 sections) about the same in the oral communication skills courses: intermediate, advanced, & high-advanced/superior. So FUN!
Yes, I use audio/video technologies, but as I’m imagining a ‘blended’ class, I’m trying to think about which F2F sessions would be best substituted by online time. I’m feeling like I don’t want to give up ANY F2F sessions, and just ADD the online component, but that is not a real ‘blended’ course. So, I’m still struggling with this imagined class. If I had chosen a different level for this imagined blended course, it would have been easier. But this is a good exercise.
Thanks for your Comment!!
Peggy
Peggy,
I believe your post shows the level of acumen we would all like to achieve and even better articulate. I do love the one minute papers, one thing you learned today and muddiest point at the end of a face to face class, but how do we do this in an online class, unless it is synchronous?
Developing engaging assessments and not just “to do’s” activities are one of my struggles. I learned last year that students are very vocal in the concern about the value of a task unless it is used for a graded assessment. Gaining information for a subsequent case study for a weeks’ assigned activities doesn’t appear to be valid in most student’s opinions.
Even though learner objectives are stated, have each of us really read them–I confess with a harried approach on many days I go to the “to do’s” and work backward. Although I know everything is valuable, I must pick and choose simply to manage my day. Am I the only confessor in this, and how do I prevent my students from doing what I do, instead of what I say?
Fantastic piece – I was fascinated by the facts , Does anyone know where my assistant can get access to a blank a form document to complete ?