In the Evaluate class I first learned about formative assessments and how you can create them in an online environment. I used GoFormative to create a formative assessment for my chosen area. I really liked GoFormative and will use this tool in the future. Formative assessments are assessments that are used to help guide the instruction for success of all students. I think that this was the most beneficial part of this class for me. I then learned more about effective feedback and I created a sample feedback to my formative assessment. The feedback needs to be positive but also needs to let the student know what they need to work on before the summative assessment. In Evaluate 1 I also learned about summative assessments and how important it is to study the student data from that type of assessment. We looked at reliability, validity and security with an assessment that I had created from USA Test Prep. I also created another summative assessment with USA Test Prep on my equations material. I started Evaluate 2 with learning about data driven instruction. A teacher can be more effective when they use the data from the formative and summative assessments and make adjustments in the class where it is needed. In Evaluate 2 I also learned about competencies and learning objects. I made a map of my equations unit and included the standard, the compentency and the learning objects. Students can move through the learning objects in any order expect with the summative assessment. Once showing mastery in the learning objects, students have shown mastery of that particular competency. One of the lessons in Evaluate 3 is on student data and personalized learning. Again analyizing student data and using that data is beneficial to the learning environment. A teacher can take the data that is collected from the formative assessments and use that to help each individual student. If a student is not mastering a particular concept, the teacher may suggest them come to the help session or the teacher can push a different tool or video to just that student. If a student needs enrichment, the teacher would know that from the data and could assign them some higher order thinking problems. Using student data can help the teacher identify areas of concern and then help the student before the summative assessment. The last part of the class I learned that teachers need to reflect on their own teaching abilities. Teachers need to constantly grow in a field that seems to be constantly changing. I reflected back on my own observations from this year and I know that I have some areas where I am still growing as an educator. I know that I am working on learning more about how students can show mastery in math in different ways besides just a pencil and paper test. This class has taught me a vast amount of information that I will use in my teaching no matter where I am teaching.
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I am always striving to grow as a teacher. I am constantly learning about new tools to use in the classroom and I collaborate with other teachers. I am trying new ideas in my classroom and adjust when what I have planned doesn't seem to be reaching students. My ultimate goal is for my students to be successful. I want to do everything I can to reach this goal and reflecting on what I am doing in the classroom is the first step. If I grow as a teacher, then I know my students will benefit from that growth. One of the areas where I have grown just by taking this class, is I feel like I can give my students more online tools to aid in the instruction of my traditional classroom. I can give them different types of assessments other than pencil and paper and they can use different tools to show mastery of the concepts.
This is actually data from a test that I gave a few years ago. I am going to use this example to complete this entry. The dot plot shows each student and how well they performed on each of the standards. The green means they understood the concept and the purple means they need more instruction. I would use this information in my online class to give the students who need more instruction some more tools or encourage them to come to the synchronous help sessions before the summative exam. I could push through some additional videos or materials to just those students who are not meeting the particular standard. I could also use this information to enrich the students who seem to be accelerated in my course. The bottom graph shows me which questions the class as a whole seems to be having some trouble with. I can address these questions with the class in the next synchronous session or give the class a different tool that can help them succeed with that type of question. I would also reflect on why the students may be missing these questions. Could I have taught this material in a different way or with different materials? If something needs to be changed, then I could go into the content and make the necessary changes.
My understanding of competencies is that the standard is the big picture of what the student is mastering and the competency is stating what the student should be able to do when the unit is completed. Then you have learning targets or objectives that help guide the students to accomplish that competency of that standard. So my standard for this part of the unit is on the top and one of the competencies of that standard is under it. Then I have put learning objectives under the competency and students can work through them other than the summative assessment in any order. When a student successfully completes the learning objectives, they should have shown mastery for the compentency.
Teachers who use data to drive their instruction adjust their teaching practices when they see students struggling on a concept. If an online instructor sees that the class used a particular tool but still struggled on a formative assessment, they may add another tool that would be more beneficial for the students. The teacher may also hold a synchronous session or discussion board to get feedback from the students on what is happening with the particular tool. If the tool is ineffective then the teacher may remove it from the class and try a different one. If a tool is working effeciently the teacher may use that tool in other concepts. Online teaching does not have the face to face communication that traditional teaching has. Online teachers have to look at the data to see where their students are in the curriculum and where they need help in. Synchronous sessions, discussion boards, emails and other forms of communication help with knowing the students but data can give us more detailed information on the knowledge of the students. Looking at student data is a part of the teacher's job no matter whether they are teaching online or in a traditional classroom. It is important to use student's data to help you make future decisions about the class so that the students will be more successful.
Student: Question 1: correct:10 points Question 2: partial correct: 5 Points Question 3: correct: 10 points Total: 25/30 correct: 83% Teacher feedback: Great Job on the free response question. Your answer was clear and showed that you know how to check your answers. You are solving the multi-step equations correctly, however you made a sign error on the second equation. Remember your integer rules when dividing negative numbers. A negative number divided by a negative number is a positive number. Overall, you are on the right track. Just refresh your memory on the integer rules before your summative test.
My formative assessment is on solving multi-step equations. I wanted to just get an idea on if the students were understanding the concept and would use this like an exit ticket for a lesson. I used the website GoFormative which was a fairly easy website to use and it was free for teachers and students. I think that this is a good tool for formative assessments and will use this in my classroom in the future. Giving students small assessments along the way in a unit gives the teacher and the student feedback to what the student needs or excels in. In any classroom, a teacher must use formative assessments to guide the instruction to ensure success for all students. When a teacher uses formative assessments effectively, the students usually are more successful on the summative assessment at the end of the unit.
The create class has given me an abundance of tools and tips to use in the online classroom. I first learned how important it was to manage my time and found some tools to help me become more efficient in my work. Cozi and Remember the Milk are two resources that I can use not only for work but for also for my family. I also learned how to create a content map with the program bubbl.us. This is just the beginning of learning to be more organized in the online learning environment. I learned that appearance of content is important for the engaged student. Making sure that the font size and colors are not distracting and that there is not too much content for 1 page is what makes a website more appealing to the learner. In create 2, I was introduced to different web tools. I linked 10 different web tools that I explored to the blog. I used PowToon to show how a teacher can use these tools for differentiation, This was a fun creation and I hope to use this in my classroom in the future. I also created a differentiated assessment using Piktochart. Students could create a poster, a presentation or a infographic on the content as an assessment. This gives the student some voice and choice and will engage them to think on a higher level. Create 3 was about Fair Use, the TEACH Act and Creative Commons License. This was very informative and encouraged me to use more online material for educational purposes. I also learned about Open Educational Resources and how to locate them using an advanced search on Google. Create 4 was all about using tools to create learning objects. Teachers can use tools like classtools.net to create quizzes, games and diagrams. I created 2 portable learning objects from Quizlet and ProProfs. These are small interactive quizzes that aid in the learning process. Students can interact with the objects and the object gives them immediate feedback. This is great for practicing a skill before an assessment. The last thing that I learned from this class is that a teacher must be organized and needs a tool to help them stay organized. There are several online content aggregators but I think I liked the educlipper the best. It was very user friendly and you can create presentations from the tool. You can also share items with other people. I think the lessons that will be most beneficial to me in the online learning community would be the web tools lessons. These lessons gave me a lot of different tools for me and my students to use in the classroom and I actually created some of them for the class.
These tools are helpful in the online educational realm because they can help the teacher organize material that they have collected. The teacher can collect the online material for a particular concept and organize it through one of these aggregating tools. The teacher needs to make sure that the aggregating tool works with their website or that they can import items into their website. Educlipper seemed a little more user friendly and you can even create portfolios and presentations from the tool. This would be a big help in getting the online teacher more organized.
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