Excellent Tool to Create Rubrics for Your Class November, 2014 Rubistar is a great free web tool that teachers can use to create educational rubrics to use in class. By definition, a rubric according to Geidi Andrade, is "a document that articulates the expectations for an assignment by listening the criteria, or what counts, and describing levels of quality from excellent to poor". As a teacher you can create rubrics and use them for a variety of purposes. These include: grading students assignments, providing focused feedback on works in progress, preparing lesson plans and many more. " Rubrics can teach as well as evaluate. When used as part of a formative, student centered approach to assessment, rubrics have the potential to help students develop understanding and skill, as well as make dependable judgments about the quality of their own work. Rubistar is very simple and easy to use.
21 Ways to Check for Student Understanding Focus on portfolios: 4 advantages of alternative assessment I’m happy to say that my school is currently dipping its toes into alternative assessment in the form of writing portfolios. Although I’m a big fan, it is the norm to view portfolios as a ‘non-traditional’ approach to judging performance. Nevertheless, portfolios, and alternative assessment methods in general, are frequently used in education to evaluate students based on objectives tailored to their learning needs. ‘Path by the river’ by @ALiCe__M from ELTPics 1. The portfolio process reviews a comparatively large body of a learner’s work, rather than a one off performance, to evaluate performance over a course of study. In ELT, research indicates that the portfolio process is beneficial when compared to traditional assessment, because its emphasis is on learners’ strengths as opposed to their weaknesses. 2. Unlike traditional testing methods, alternative assessment techniques are in general performance-based reviews that focus on real-world tasks to display ability. 3. 4. A few links
Preparing Teachers for Deeper Learning - Getting Smart by Getting Smart Staff - Assessment, CCSS, Competency-based learning, deeper learning, education, learning, teachers Today Digital Promise and Getting Smart released “Preparing Teachers for Deeper Learning: Competency-Based Teacher Preparation and Development.” This white paper outlines the attributes of next-generation teacher preparation and makes recommendations to support the development of teacher preparation and development systems. Co-authored by Getting Smart’s Tom Vander Ark and Dr. Carri Schneider with Karen Cator, President and CEO of Digital Promise, the paper outlines how the role of teachers is changing amid broader shifts to personalized, blended, and deeper learning. Some element of teacher control over time, place, path and/or pace;Balance between teacher-defined goals, goals as defined by administration through teacher evaluation efforts, and school and district educational goals;Job-embedded and meaningful integration into classroom practice; andCompetency-based progression. For more information, download the paper. The full press release is copied below.
14 Free Apps for Higher Order Thinking Apps for higher order thinking can be a great push for your students to explain their thinking and create their own digital portfolio items. Apps that focus on higher order thinking can help your students start using focused thought processes to address new questions, investigations, and basic HOTS skills. Each of these apps can be used to complement and execute Bloom’s Higher Order of Thinking framework, focusing on analyzing, evaluating, and creating. With these high order thinking apps, you can focus your students on: raising questions vital to discussiongathering and assessing information systematicallytesting conclusions against criteriathinking with an open mind about alternative theories and solutionscommunicating complex ideas effectively Please enable JavaScript to view the <a href=" Share this post with friends and colleagues:
10 Interactive Lessons By Google On Digital Citizenship YouTube has a firm place in the current classroom. From Khan Academy’s videos to YouTube EDU and beyond, there’s a reason all these videos are finding a home in schools. In an effort to help keep the ball rolling, Google just launched a set of 10 interactive lessons designed to support teachers in educating students on digital citizenship. Google (which owns YouTube) built the lessons to educate students about YouTube’s policies, how to flag content, how to be a safer online citizen, and protect their identities. Below is a list of lessons, and the recommended flow for delivery. Or you can download the Full Teacher’s Guide or the Full Set of Slides in PDF. The killer feature for this curriculum is the extra features that come with each video.
7 Pillars Of Digital Leadership In Education 7 Pillars Of Digital Leadership In Education by Eric Sheninger, Principal at New Milford High School in New Jersey As schools change leadership must as well. With society becoming more and more reliant on technology it is incumbent upon leaders to harness the power of digital technologies in order to create school cultures that are transparent, relevant, meaningful, engaging, and inspiring. In order to set the stage for increasing achievement and to establish a greater sense of community pride for the work being done in our schools, we must begin to change the way we lead. Once the fears and misconceptions are placed on the table, leaders can begin to establish a vision for the effective use of technology to improve numerous facets of leadership. The end result will be sustainable change in programs, instruction, behaviors, and leadership practices with technology as a pivotal element. From my work I have identified what I call the Pillars of Digital Leadership. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
Digital Citizenship Three Simple Strategies for Learning Anything Better It was eighth grade. I was sitting alone in the corner outside the dean’s office. In trouble. Again. It’s not that I was a wild child. “Mr. Of course I wasn’t paying attention. “That’s right,” I answered. Ms. “Mr. “I like to read,” I answered. Ms. I stared coolly. Ms. That was why I was in Ms. Science has shown that the brain has two fundamental modes of learning—focused and diffuse. That was that. Today, some forty years later, Ms. How did I do it? I enlisted in the Army straight out of high school, because it was one of the few jobs I could get that would actually pay me to learn another language. I decided to turn my attention to studying math and science. Learn when to stop. When I first began to study math and science seriously, I made the mistake of forcing myself to sit and work on a problem until I figured it out. By sidestepping the race to the finish line, I had the time to practice and repeat. Slow down, back up, repeat. Don’t procrastinate. I did it. Dr.
Learning how to learn Yes, that's the title of my new MOOC, or rather the latest MOOC I'm studying. 'Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects' started this week through Coursera and UC San Diego, and it's already a bit of a mind bender. For the most part, MOOCs teach you about a given subject, be it Dutch poetry, advanced Mandarin, beginner-level javascript etc, but this one teaches you about learning itself. If the techniques I learn on this short course (it's only four weeks) make a noticeable difference to my ability to learn new information - and recall it - then it's well worth my time. For more info on the course I'm studying click here