Saturday, December 18, 2010

December solutions

Formative assessments are good. Lots of feedback on who knows what when.

Issue: Students needing to take and re-take quizzes and assessments to show mastery as it happens-they get lots of feedback and want to DO something to improve!

Solution: Google docs form that lets students sign up for what they are ready to do and when. Can't take credit for the idea, it was K.C. who came up with it. We put a button on our blackboard page with "quiz/test scheduler" that takes them to the form. They fill it out, it notifies us in email and then we can get a list and get things done in an orderly fashion.
It has been pretty miraculous. When you have multiple preps and students at different checkpoints, this is the way to individualize and at the same time puts the student in the driver's seat. On the form, they must indicate what they've done to prepare for the evaluation and also the date and time that they will complete it. So I can have a file with the materials ready at the right place and time and then grade it while they are sitting right there so they get the immediate gratification. Also, they watch while I plug it in to the grade book and they see how the new score changes their grade (or not) and we can set new goals, too.

Sure beats the mayhem of before!