I just used a Google Forms to inform (yes pun was intended!) my future Capstone. A simple form, just three questions, allowed me to get data on the excitement that certain incentives have on students. As a review of previous work in Quality Questions, I found that the incentives I offered before worked for some students. With this form, I also asked about future incentives in two ways. First, through a "checkbox," students chose from a prepared list of possible free or inexpensive incentives. Second, through a "short answer," students could share their ideas that I did not come up with.
The results... interesting. I will share these later. I also will use Google Forms to create a portion of a test. As I thought about an upcoming test, I knew a portion of it could be administered electronically. This test has many parts:
How, then, to bring in Google Forms? I chose to include all of my "short answer," "multiple choice," "maps,"and "choose all that apply" questions in my Google form. This part of the assessment took longer to create since I am new at this, but I can see over time that this may become faster- especially after I read, after the fact, Alice Keeler's keyboard shortcut list of Google Forms! Should have read it first. After reading ditchthattextbook, I was reminded that I can auto grade the multiple choice and checkboxes questions. This will gain back the time I spent initially; how exciting! Finally, I added an image from a SMART board drawing to the quiz so that students can answer final questions about maps. T
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Boys... Girls
12 year olds... 13 year olds Hispanic children... non-Hispanic children (my school is definitely bicultural not multicultural) After starting the Quality Question club, then ending it two weeks later at the easy break of Thanksgiving, I have continued to be fascinated by the possibilities. First the anecdotal evidence: I did not track my ethnicities and gender groupings. Certain groups seemed to be more involved in the QQ club than others. Specifically, the Hispanic boys seemed disinterested. Is a a boy thing? More girls than boys got involved but I doubt it was in a statistically significant way. Is it a ethnic thing? More non-Hispanics became involved than non-hispanics... but again, I think that it was not in a statistically significant way. But if we combine Hispanic and boy, I think we have a statistically significant variation. How do I address this? Are Hispanic boys one of my primary audiences? By focusing on their needs do I still meet the needs of the other students? Will a survey of what might entice their participation be enough to find out? On an interesting parallel, quite a few, I'd estimate 12-15 students, have asked about the QQ club. When will it begin again? Will it be open to all periods (apparently students in the control groups felt left out)? This week I will prepare to start again. Other free or almost free incentives? We'll find out. In a survey, I will ask for student names rather than anonymous answers to the question, "What free or almost free incentive may entice you to ask more questions?" I wonder? T Social media in the classroom? I am not convinced that I want to use it in my 7th grade classroom too often. I have run into too much flack from parents when I tried to use it on a field trip as a way to support student learning. Moreover, when used, my students did not show more advanced learning than using traditional methods; but I am open to the possibilities.
Social media for my use? I admit that I am intrigued. My friends find great ideas posted on Pinterest and invite me to join them. I will. I am now in the twitter universe. Although annoyed by the twitter emails and advertising, I have seen some ideas from others that I find intriguing. I think I can even use twitter to post a query specifically to help in my driving question. Since I am interested in helping students develop quality questions, I could seek counsel and input about how others define or identify quality questions. By broadening my input, I can better define these for my students and myself. On a different note, how would I respond to an inappropriate post by students made outside of school? The best answer I can give is, it depends. Considerations: severity of the post or actions described in the post, my relationship to the student, my knowledge of the student's background, the law, and an examination of my own moral code in relationship to the codes of other cultures, ethnicities, and groups. Finally, my reactions to other peoples' behavior almost always starts with my relationship to them. I use relationships and one-on-one discussions to better guide behavior than going to discipline. If it is necessary to call in outside resources such as parents, other teachers, administrators, or the police, I would, by default, start at the lowest level because I find most issues dealt with on lower levels can be resolved. When we go up the level of discipline too quickly, students and parents feel attacked and go into defensive mode which shuts down effective communication and lessons a learning opportunity. T So, I am finally learning, understanding, and starting to see the connections between these separate courses, our action research, and the capstone to which we are headed. What I was seeing as separate highways reaching a destination from separate routes, is indeed more of a 6 lane highway that is becoming more focused; the lanes are merging. The bridge, by necessity cannot stay as the eastern end of the Bay Bridge into San Francisco. Maybe the better analogy would be the Golden gate bridge with it's movable, reversible lanes. My learning through readings, interactions with my cohort and teachers, and my action research in school needs to accommodate the complex interaction of all of these. Learning must have it's movable lanes of input and output. Sticking with the analogy, the bridge I am building cannot be a covered bridge. These blogs as well as our shared documents and cohort discussions show our learning as we progress. We are not to reach the other end of the bridge without anyone seeing our progress. In this way, we can do better for our students, schools, districts, and the larger community as well.AVID; Bloom’s |
About MeAfter teaching for 20 years, I've decided to pursue a master's degree! Archives
July 2017
CategoriesThis is me working on my classwork... usually at night after the heater is off.... sitting long times makes me cold!
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