April 1st 2011

Assessment for engaged learning:
"Feedback is the most impactful elements of students learning"
The film that was shown that was produced by a grade 8 school was amazing. I only hope that I can help my students to create such amazing peices of work. These projects show what great work students can achieve and be engaged in. In a project that is so involved the amount of learning that took place was evident in the films. I also really thought that the documentry style of the film was very professional which seems to parallel the academics of school.

The students are encouraged to make their work public. They bring the work in progress to the group for feedback to help to make it better. By sharing the work with others and the group as a whole the other students learn about the information that each group is doing. This way the students learn about all areas of the unit of study from their classmates. They become experts in their chosen area, but still learn about the other areas as well.

The use of rubrics and creating them with the students was very helpful. The suggestion was to create one area of the rubric at a time and have the students work with that section of their project. They are not given the rubric at the end of the project after all the work had been done. They use the rubric to help with there learning as they work through each portion of the project.

The idea of teaching kids how to give useful feedback is very important. You have to show them that they are critiquing the work not the person. Also to teach them that they have to give comments that will allow the person or group to improve their work. Is the comment hurtful or helpful, these are what they need to think about while commenting on work. This preteaching students of how to give feedback reminds me of what Dr. Pam Bishop said in case class last year, "you have to loose time to gain time". She was saying that you have to front load your projects with teaching the students about how to do these things and build relationships with the students so they feel safe to participate in a community like this. I think that the word "loose" might not be the right word because teaching these skills is as important as is the curriculum.