Chapter 11 Chapter Check
Engaging Teachers & Students in Learning & Self Reflection
Evaluating Teachers
- State teacher competency tests
- Tests and exams in colleges
- Papers and projects done in your teacher education classes
- Journals and reflection papers
- Lesson plans
- Field Observations
**all of these points are things future teachers have to do to become a licensed and competent teacher.
Students can also be evaluated throughout their schooling career. Here are some ways they can be evaluated based on their performance.
- Writing assignments
- Class Participation
- group or individual projects
- homework
- presentations
- quizzes
- student self-assessments
- Teacher observation of student
Digital Portfolios as a Learning Technology
For example: if a teacher has a binder for their portfolio, only a couple people can view this. Using a digital Portfolio, many people can view this teachers portfolio at once and can be duplicated easily.
3 digital or electronic portfolios currently can be used:
- Online assessment systems: students can pre select designed templates
- Print loaded portfolio can take your papers and display them electronically
- Web Sensible portfolio: can use text boxes, audio text etc. to convey materials
Advantages and Disadvantages of a Digital Portfolio
Advantages:
Accessibility, portability, creativity, self confidence with technology, community.
Disadvantages:
Professional support, Skill requirements, expensive equipment used, time and energy for work, presentation can distract from the content.
**Teachers can design and create their own portfolios in many different ways. but mostly includes academic, talents, accomplishments, etc.
Standards-based digital portfolios:
Electronic portfolios that explicitly link lesson plans and other educational activities done by teacher candidates to specific professional teaching standards.
Pictures
Electronic Portfolio
Resume
Praxis- assessment of becoming a teacher
Involving Your Students in Learning and Assessment
Democratic schools and classrooms are great plans to create more involvement in the decision-making educational wise in classrooms and in schools. Some people disapprove f this democratic based classroom structure. They feel like students can make ill informed or self centered choices. They can do little homework, more socializing, and other fun things children like to do rather than focus on the topics that should be focused on and discussed in classrooms.
Online Surveys for Preassessment
These occurs before introducing a new lesson, topic, or unit as a way for teachers to determine what students know or can already do it in order to inform subsequent plans for teaching.
Prior knowledge-based learning:
When teaching new concepts, teachers need to connect their lessons to what students already know or have been taught.
Effective way to activate prior knowledge and involve students in the pre assessment process. These show that teachers actually care about what students already know about a certain topic before they present a lesson. This is like a democratic classroom because it tells us that not only does the teacher make the decisions, but they make the decisions based on what the students are know so the learning process is easier for them and more enjoyable.
Online surveys are fun and enjoyable for the teacher and student. Students feel a part of the classroom and feel as if they have a voice in something. Teachers can document and save useful data from individual or group learning and projects.
Zoomerang is a great example of an Online survey tool. It contains broad themes such as business, community, educational, and social reasons. There is a free basic membership you can acquire. Once you finish your online survey, it is shown for 10 days. After that 10 days is up, you can buy a membership that puts out that survey you created for a longer period of time. You have the option of making your survey public and can acquire a URL link from that public survey to give out to others.
Using Student Participation Systems
Student Participation Systems:
Handheld and wireless tools that offer interactive learning options for teachers and students.
Clicker:
Remote control devices used to respond to questions posed by teachers using student participation systems. (In P250 with Prof. Issacson, we used clickers to answer questions he gave to us in the beginning of class that had to do with what we were learning at that period of time. We were scored on how accurate we were, and then shown what percent of the class picked which answer)
Advantages of using a Clicker
1. 1. Active Learning- Students are actively involved and must express their opinions electronically using the clicker tool. Students feel as if their opinions matter and can discuss them in the classrooms to why they chose what they chose.
2. 2. Student Involvement- It seems as a game like approach to the students. The selection they chose is anonymous so there is less pressure and embarrassment as to what answer they chose, right or wrong.
3. 3. Real time feedback- The feedback is immediate and in class.
4. 4. Question driven instruction- Students are given a question that could be challenging and then asked to enter their choice for a possible answer. This could be done individually or in small groups. Students then reply back to their reasoning to why they chose what they did.