Using Clickers and Rubrics as Assessment Tools

Last week student prepared for a quick class on assessments by reading Read the short article "Clickers, Pedagogy and Edtechtainment" at this link: http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2008/06/20/groveman The article outlines some pros and cons of using clickers n the classroom, the author is decidely against the practice. They also read "The Do-it-Yourself Rubric": http://www2.nea.org/he/advo09/advo609/doit.html These two methods of assessment can be used for either formative or summative assessing and were helpful in getting the students to understand that there are other ways to check for learning than paper an pencil tests.
In class, I demonstrated how clickers could be used for review or formative assessment by showing the same graphic organizer PowerPoint I used the previous week but incorporating into it a variety of questions which could either be used along the way to check for learning or could be used as a review tool.

Each student had their own clicker and the PPT and questions were shown on the SmartBoard. We had a couple of guests from the Education department and students and guests all seemed to enjoy the demonstration and the fact that the class got instant feedback much like the audience vote that is used on the ...Millionaire" game show. One student said she was actually on the "against" side of using clickers in the classroom until she saw it in action.

At the end of class, we went over the rubric we will use to evaluate the reflection journals that students have contributed to all semester. I hope they understand that it is necessary to be specific about project requirements in a rubric or checklist format so that the method is objective as an assessment tool.

Organizing Some More

Last class student work together in teams of two to develop a graphic organizer or concept map of any topic they chose. This activity required them to assign roles, collarborate and chose an application they would use to create their teaching tool. This week students spent most of the class creating their organizers. One group chose to use Google Docs and the other chose to use Inspriation 8.

Inspiration 8 allows you to export your "g.o." as a Word doc, PPT, Web page or .gif file. Here are examples of how each would look (except Word):

First an image (left) Next we tried the PPT but that does not work very well for our purposes as it places the organizer in bulleted format. Now to get the URL ...later

Organizing Learning

Continuing with creativity, students learned a bit about how graphic organizers can be used to help students be creative and use their critical thinking skills. At first I had planned to use an excellent PPT which describes ever intricate detail of graphic organizers which was shared by an instructor from Niagara University with anyone who wanted to use it. http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dhc5bgdm_204hbpgc7d3&interval=30, but then I realized it was way too advanced. Several students in EDU102 are still determining if they want to be teachers and have not began to study education, so they are not yet familiar with such basics as Bloom's Taxonomy. So using the KISS principle, I created this simple version of the basics of graphic organizers and concept maps to get them started thinking about what they will create.

Creativity Applications Abound

Previously students studied types of lessons which would encourage Critical Thinking, another one of the four 21st Century Skills that they are learning about this semester. They were asked to think about why tagging in delicious could be used to encourage critical thinking. This week students study the last of the 21st Century Skills we will have time for this semester, student creativity. (We were not able to cover problem solving or production.

After reading a story about a teacher who deleted a students picture because it was colored in wrong, students were asked to reflect on how their reactions as teachers to their studentss work can deeply affect the students'future learning.

Student then reflected on how they could use various applications to encourage creativity in their classroom. Kidpix was chosen as a good application, as well as Flicker and Jing because they all allow students to get creative with images. A picture is worth 1000 words!


One student also suggested digital storytelling as a creative tool. Here are some resources to explore http://tech-head.com/dstory.htm target="_blank"