Secondary SBGR & Assessing and Evaluating Handout Response
The Secondary SBGR is a helpful tool for parents that want to stay on top of what their students are learning. From a teacher's standpoint, it also shows how deeply our grading effects report cards and overall student morale. I don't exactly agree or disagree with the remark about zeroes hurting students. In some ways, it can but it others zero can cause motivation for students to work harder. As a student, I saw zeroes to be partially emotional because I was afraid that I looked dumb and that my parents would be severely disappointed in me because of the result.
On the other hand, it also meant that I sought tutoring or studied harder to improve the grade to pass the course as it was clear that I was missing something in my understanding of the subject. From a teacher's prospective, a zero can be the make or break grade to be given to a student. Just like red marks, a zero's effect, in my opinion, is dependent on the student's prospective. Some students will see it and have more of an emotional response while others will see it and know that they have to work harder. Not placing a zero down for the sake of feelings seems rather arbitrary and the negative impact doesn't represent all students as a whole.
I did agree on the section involving homework, that it needs to be "short, frequent and accompanied by feedback". Stabilizing homework for students encourages a steady foundation for student learning. Keeping it short and frequent keeps the student engaged and feedback helps improve their understanding. Teachers set the standard in that way and it doesn't impede on the students' after school hours. Burn out is never a good thing despite the goals set for handing out longer, more intensive homework.
The dilemma displayed at the beginning of handout brings about the question - what should be taught and emphasized in courses. The example case, Heidi Murphy, watched as objective based testing was her teacher's solution and she had taught on the novel based approach involving essays. In my opinion, multiple choice tests do not work as well in an English environment as it would a social studies based one particular to avoid becoming a "knowledge dispenser" to expectant students. Which is why rhetorical reading and writing strategies based on the information from the Assignment Template article from my previous blog post, would work a lot better in my opinion, to help students learn literature and thoroughly understand what they're analyzing in their writing.
The next portion about evaluating also had some interesting points. Particularly in response to journal or blog writing. Journaling has been a tried and true practice in my case so I would stand by it as a teacher. I didn't know that evaluating journals in itself could effect students as a whole. Due to further thought, perhaps leaving the journals unevaluated to encourage students to nurture fluency and expression as well as using their journals in future assignments seems like a much better route to proficiency.
As for evaluating writing, I agree that rubrics and being specific in the prompts for essays and tests would likely yield better results. The strategies provided were new to me as well, particularly perspective-taking and explaining character's actions. As a believer in short essay quizzes and essays, having more for students to expand upon and think about is very important just as much as reflection in as the end of the unit.
I find evaluating class discussions to be a little harder. The definitions provided for different types of students filled in the blanks for typical students in a discussion. Though, I find it harder to evaluate those in a discussion because students, like the number one definition specified, may not be involved in the conversation but are interested in it but due to shyness or some other factor, are unable to participate. Speaking is an important part of learning that needs to be evaluated but forcing students to speak or making them uncomfortable with a speaking requirement doesn't seem like a plausible way to do that.
The feedback section was also very enlightening when it comes to strategies. Using different terms and informing students via reader-based seems to be a great route to take and I hadn't considered terminology before in relation to feedback. Generally, I tend to follow the short and concise approach like I do with essay writing but sometimes more information and more writing can go a long way according to the handout. I also agree that peer feedback since it has students learning from other students' writing as well as improving their own through their peers' feedback on their writing.
The template writing assignment was also something I liked, specifically because it itemized expectations and informed the students of exactly what the teacher was looking for as it was framed nicely and offered specific prompts. Allowing students to fill in the blanks with their own writing without being too guided by the teacher in whether the subject was this or that in order to input their own thoughts and understandings. into their assignment. Thus giving them the freedom to still make their own choices under a guided sort of umbrella for the assignment itself. This along with scoring rubrics seemed to be a very thorough method for this kind of assignment.
The final part of the handout, which focused on assessment and different strategies of assessing seemed to promote the portfolio method. I've turned in a few portfolios in previous college courses and I agree that they can be used as a way to assess progress over time, particularly the reflection as the last assignment to be placed in the portfolio. Hopefully standardized testing can be changed in the future to promote students' grasps of concepts and understanding rather than fact collecting but overall I found the handout to be a mixed bag. There were several new things for me to mull over and several other things that I've already experienced in the past - some that work and others that failed. Either way, I found both articles to be helpful despite disagreeing with a few points.
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