Since we're starting the second half of the course tomorrow, I'd like to do a brief recap. It's hard to express the amount of things learnt and shared in these first 5 weeks of the course. What I'm most enjoying is the wealth of experience we have in the group: we help each other all the time, we share tools and websites that may seem obvious but are not always known by all teachers... We try, we fail, we try again, we succeed... and we never stop learning!
I don't want to sound like a moaner, but it's been a tough week trying to keep up with the pace on Nicenet and the completion of different tasks. From the article on alternative assessment I agree that students should be familiar with the assessment criteria (or 'rubrics', as I've learnt to call them) used by teachers in the different language skills, so that they know the standards they should be aiming for. That's why I just don't understand why our "Education Department" (I'm talking about the government) won't let us share those with our students. OK, yes, I've briefly told them before about the kind of things we take into consideration, especially in the oral and writing exam because these are more subjectively assessed, but they won't let us give them the rubrics as such. They are like the best-kept secret!
As for PBL, I'd like to create my own Webquest, although I haven't had the time to do so this week. I'm hoping to get it done before the end of the course, for that extra point :) I wonder if it can really make such a big difference (as Susan Gaer says). I guess it can, but it may be more appropriate to secondary schools where students can meet outside the class to finish any project or collaborative work. I think adults (or at least my adults) are more independent and have more time constraints: they work in the morning and come to class in the afternoon-evening... so when could they get together and do some groupwork? But hey, maybe I'm missing something here and I could try to give them an individual task like an oral presentation on a topic. That could work! So I'll have to consider that option in my future planning.
Hi Patricia, I agree with you in many things, above all, in the part where you say we have shared a lot of things in this course. We have learnt so much to put in practice with our students, adults, teenagers, kids. We have the tools, it's time to use them :)
ReplyDeleteGood luck and Have a good week 6
Anahí
from México
Hi Patricia,
ReplyDeleteI really like your comment above where you said, "We try, we fail, we try again, we succeed... and we never stop learning!" How true that is! What I've realized, too, is that sometimes when I succeed, I think I've created the best lesson plan in the world. The next term when I do exactly the same thing, it just doesn't work at all. There are so many factors that are involved. Sometimes just different combinations of students, or maybe it's before lunch versus after lunch, but there are factors that we just can't imagine. So . . . we try again!
Jodi