Why am I writing this personal entry? Well, it is not an attempt to gain any sympathy. It attempts to show what is possible if a clear intention and goal serve the learner's needs. In May of 2022 just near the end of another fantastic school year, I do not remember what happened. But, I was unable to finish the school year and was unable to teach the following year. Why? On May 21st, 2022, I fell down a flight of 16 stairs (luckily carpeted) from the 2nd to 1st story of our home. I was found at the bottom of the stairs. I was found foaming at the mouth. This would lead to a 2-month hospital stay which included an induced coma because my seizures would not stop, several rounds of lumbar punctures, and relearning basic physical movements like something as simple as being able to roll in the hospital bed. Simply put, when I was admitted to the hospital, I was diagnosed as being “critically ill.” Please take a moment and read those words: critically ill. They are not terms...
As teachers, we tend to be told to introduce the rubric on day one of an assignment. This allows students to know exactly how they will be graded. But today was the day that we shared the product rubric with the students. The rubric can be seen below:
I built this rubric using pieces from rubrics at bie.org.
In my opinion, it doesn't seem logical to hand something like this the first week of the term before students have decided what their area of focus will be. This seems like a specific document that will make more sense to students as they synthesize their data pieces to present.
This rubric is the group rubric and that how the final project is graded. Remember there have been individual summative pieces as the units have been completed to determine individual mastery of content. The data from these pieces will provide the evidence for the final product.
Today we had a bit of an issue during our class period. The access the to the internet got sketchy and it was down for a short while. It was impressive, though, to see the students respond. They have a realistic sense of the time frame and realize that time wasted today would result in not getting the work done. It was nice to see the students transition to writing out scripts on paper and then put together a list of shots they needed to collect.
Not all was fine and dandy, though. Some students were not self motivators and were still trying to figure out which topics they needed to cover. So again as a teacher, I need to bounce around and find a balance between answering questions while prodding those who don't seem to be making progress. But on days like this, I am much more likely to give my attention to students who ask for it rather than those who are not putting forth the effort. It's like Newton's 3rd Law; I'm going to react to those students who are taking action.
We are considering reorganizing this process next year. Perhaps students will actually work on building their text after each unit of instruction. I think this is perhaps what we initially envisioned so there would be more review and revision, but never having managed a project like this before the timing was difficult. I imagine this will be a part of the reflection process as a teacher to see what our vision was and how well we met it. I look forward to doing that next week.
Students in our class are using iMovie on iPads to put these videos together. Tomorrow, I'll focus a bit more on the tech aspect of the process.
I built this rubric using pieces from rubrics at bie.org.
In my opinion, it doesn't seem logical to hand something like this the first week of the term before students have decided what their area of focus will be. This seems like a specific document that will make more sense to students as they synthesize their data pieces to present.
This rubric is the group rubric and that how the final project is graded. Remember there have been individual summative pieces as the units have been completed to determine individual mastery of content. The data from these pieces will provide the evidence for the final product.
Today we had a bit of an issue during our class period. The access the to the internet got sketchy and it was down for a short while. It was impressive, though, to see the students respond. They have a realistic sense of the time frame and realize that time wasted today would result in not getting the work done. It was nice to see the students transition to writing out scripts on paper and then put together a list of shots they needed to collect.
Not all was fine and dandy, though. Some students were not self motivators and were still trying to figure out which topics they needed to cover. So again as a teacher, I need to bounce around and find a balance between answering questions while prodding those who don't seem to be making progress. But on days like this, I am much more likely to give my attention to students who ask for it rather than those who are not putting forth the effort. It's like Newton's 3rd Law; I'm going to react to those students who are taking action.
We are considering reorganizing this process next year. Perhaps students will actually work on building their text after each unit of instruction. I think this is perhaps what we initially envisioned so there would be more review and revision, but never having managed a project like this before the timing was difficult. I imagine this will be a part of the reflection process as a teacher to see what our vision was and how well we met it. I look forward to doing that next week.
Students in our class are using iMovie on iPads to put these videos together. Tomorrow, I'll focus a bit more on the tech aspect of the process.
Comments
Post a Comment