Final ImagineIT Report
My biggest takeaway from reading What should I do? Confronting Dilemmas of Teaching in Urban Schools is that formative assessments are a great way to monitor student learning and to identify student misconceptions. Keeping this in mind, I had student groups respond to feedback on their ImagineIT Nutrient Cycle slide presentations and to make additions and corrections before submitting their final summative assessment. In this way, I was able to see and correct a major student misconception that new trees grow from nutrients in decomposing leaves.
Not only did I learn a lot from my focus group of students, but I also enjoyed talking with them and hearing their thoughtful comments and insights on what I thought was going to be a dry topic to them: assessment. They suggested using mini-exit slips for new words introduced during investigations. They also expressed that illustrations, diagrams and text excerpts should be included on tests to provide them access to key information.
After talking with my colleagues about assessment, I was inspired to revise my old unit test to include more NGSS skills and standards. The new assessment required students to apply their learning, rather than to remember isolated facts. Students who generally struggle with memorizing facts were able to shine by demonstrating their understanding of key concepts. I am also considering a colleague’s suggestion of eliminating some of my unit tests and instead using summative performances of understanding that include multiple modalities as a final unit assessment.
Since the last ImagineIT update, we had our face-to-face fall meeting at MSU! During one of the activities, we were asked to share our biggest aha moment while implementing our ImagineIT project. My insight was taken from the NIke slogan: “Just Do It”! Before trying a new activity or project in the classroom, I always worry about what could go wrong or whether the students will be able to handle the requirements. I find that if I just jump in and do it that the students will rise to the challenge and things work out. As an ever-evolving teacher, I am working on conquering my fears and more taking risks.
I am about to implement my ImagineIT Rock Cycle project. I got the Stop Motion Studio app downloaded to the iPads, made my own simple stop motion video and was amazed at the app’s ease of use. I purchased the Play-doh, created guidelines for use and am ready to put aside my apprehensions and just do it! One change to my implementation plan is that I had originally considered having my students create Weebly pages to post their work, but have not done so yet. While exploring the Stop Motion Studio app, I saw that the videos could be downloaded to Google Classroom. I created classes for each science period so that students will be able to share their videos using Google Classroom.
My biggest takeaway from reading What should I do? Confronting Dilemmas of Teaching in Urban Schools is that formative assessments are a great way to monitor student learning and to identify student misconceptions. Keeping this in mind, I had student groups respond to feedback on their ImagineIT Nutrient Cycle slide presentations and to make additions and corrections before submitting their final summative assessment. In this way, I was able to see and correct a major student misconception that new trees grow from nutrients in decomposing leaves.
Not only did I learn a lot from my focus group of students, but I also enjoyed talking with them and hearing their thoughtful comments and insights on what I thought was going to be a dry topic to them: assessment. They suggested using mini-exit slips for new words introduced during investigations. They also expressed that illustrations, diagrams and text excerpts should be included on tests to provide them access to key information.
After talking with my colleagues about assessment, I was inspired to revise my old unit test to include more NGSS skills and standards. The new assessment required students to apply their learning, rather than to remember isolated facts. Students who generally struggle with memorizing facts were able to shine by demonstrating their understanding of key concepts. I am also considering a colleague’s suggestion of eliminating some of my unit tests and instead using summative performances of understanding that include multiple modalities as a final unit assessment.
Since the last ImagineIT update, we had our face-to-face fall meeting at MSU! During one of the activities, we were asked to share our biggest aha moment while implementing our ImagineIT project. My insight was taken from the NIke slogan: “Just Do It”! Before trying a new activity or project in the classroom, I always worry about what could go wrong or whether the students will be able to handle the requirements. I find that if I just jump in and do it that the students will rise to the challenge and things work out. As an ever-evolving teacher, I am working on conquering my fears and more taking risks.
I am about to implement my ImagineIT Rock Cycle project. I got the Stop Motion Studio app downloaded to the iPads, made my own simple stop motion video and was amazed at the app’s ease of use. I purchased the Play-doh, created guidelines for use and am ready to put aside my apprehensions and just do it! One change to my implementation plan is that I had originally considered having my students create Weebly pages to post their work, but have not done so yet. While exploring the Stop Motion Studio app, I saw that the videos could be downloaded to Google Classroom. I created classes for each science period so that students will be able to share their videos using Google Classroom.