Reading Reflection #9

1.      Description of a method of understanding prior-knowledge of students.

  As teachers, we are all aware that students are never all on the same knowledge level. A method that could be used in the classroom to test student’s prior knowledge would be to utilize a KWL. This lets the teacher see what the students already know, what the students want to know, and what the student learned during the lesson/time frame. You can always physically ask the students what they know, but this becomes very time consuming, therefore the KWL is less timely and more effective. It is so important to figure out where you need to start teaching a lesson at, and one main way to figure out where to start, is to figure out what the students have previously been taught.

2.      Discussion on the important of establishing anchors for a project.

A few things that are important anchors for establishing a project are active learning and assessing your student’s project work. .By establishing these “anchors,” you begin to see where your students stand and how far they have progressed. KWL are great because they provide what the students already know, what the students wants to know and what the student learned. This is great in so many ways, because it can be used as an opening activity and can also be used as a reflection. These KWL are so powerful in the classroom, both for the student and the teacher.

3.      Description of several way to assess what a students learned during a project?

Give your students grades that matter, ask the students what they learned, have them explain by reflection what they liked and what they didn’t. Ask them if they could change anything what would they change? Create new things, new ways to grade, and model real world assessments. You can also wait until the end of the project and assess the students by having them demonstrate or apply what they have learned, which makes it clear if they caught on or not. This can be done very easily. This is a better way than giving the students a multiple choice test. If the child doesn’t know the answer and they guess they could get it correct, which leads to false accuracy. You can have students do projects to display what they have learn, have them type papers and also have them verbally state what they have learned during their projects.

 I really enjoy the idea from David Fagg and his invention of iHistory Podcast Project, we can assess students in ways that they wouldn’t normally be assessed on/ by. Another example given in the text was by Anne Davis, she allowed her students to publish a book that tied everything together at the end of the unit for the children. Regardless of what you use, you are trying to see the progress of the students. When I was little and in elementary school, I remember writing poems and having them get submitted. That was a way to assess as well, some ways can be more fun for others, the more the assessment hooks the students, the less they will care of what type it is.

4.      Discussion on how concepts in this chapter relate to your topic/project.

This related to our chapter by asking the students to reflect, by having them have journals. We are constantly reflecting on our blog all the time and are expressing how we feel about the projects. Also it creates a blog where the students can discuss things. Reading the blog from the beginning to the end allows us to see how much the students has learned/ grew from doing the project. Our final project is really a test of the previous lesson plans but it is all put together to create a big final project. The assessment is having the students follow through and do the assignments which aid in the final.