This week we talked about three different strategies. The first strategy we talk about was setting objectives. The purpose of setting objectives is to have the students plan and participate in their learning. In my classroom, I let the students decide what topics we will study sometimes. I know what math things we need to do by the end of the year. I share this with them and allow them to select what we do sometimes. This helps them to know that I value what they want to learn as well as be successful in math. One thing I do struggle with is how I can get my students more involved in their learning process. I would like to have them know what we need to do all year long and do a self assessment on themselves and if they have mastered it or not. However, I am not sure how I can incorporate technology into this idea.
The second strategy we talked about was providing feedback. In class we talked about different ways and types of feedback to give to students. I know that in my classroom, I use my online grade book to give feedback to the students. First on the grade book they can see how they did individually on an assignment or they can look at their overall grade. Something I would like to incorporate into my classroom would be to get a clicker response system. Another teacher in my grade level has these and we are going to learn them together in the next few weeks. If I really enjoy them, I will order my own set.
For this week, we read Feedback That Fits. In this reading it helps to tell you how to give informative assessment that grows the students personally and academically. I think there is some great advice in this reading because it is hard for me to give feed back. I teach 100 middle school kids. It is hard for me to find a way to reach out to each one of them. This reading showed me that I need to find a way to make things more specific for them as an individual. I really enjoyed this reading because sometimes it even gave math examples to help clarify what they are trying to say. However, i am not sure how to reach each one of my students in math without holding a private conference with each kid.
Finally the last thing we talked about was providing recognition. In my classroom, I do not do a lot of recognition. There is no reason why I don’t. This is something I would be willing to change and make better. I think giving kids certificates or in our school we have “front of the line pass” which means they are first in the lunch line. I can implement these more into my classroom. I think kids really thrive on positive recognition. I would like to incorporate this more into my classroom and plan to use the resources we talked about in class this week to help me do this.
Great post, Crystal! I could see how implementing a system of individualized feedback would be difficult when you see 100s of students. It would definitely be something to strive for, but in the end, I would think that you've got to get back to actually teaching (and by this I refer to the continued passing of new knowledge) sometime!
ReplyDeleteAs I said in my blog posting, I have it fairly easy when it comes to recognition in the USCG. The systems are already in place and everyone knows the hierarchy of the various forms of recognition that we have available. I don't quite know how I would go about instituting something brand new. Maybe such an opportunity will avail itself in one of my future duties. If not, I too will be aiming to include this important facet of teaching into my next career.