Word Process all Assignments For Easier Improvements

I ask all of my students to word process all of their assignments.  I have one simple reason- so they can revise their work more easily. In my class students receive a  plus (+)  for above proficient work, a check mark for proficient work, or comments for less than proficient work.  I tell them they can  redo any less than proficient or even proficient work  to improve it. I will take the higher “grade”.  In one  of my college class the students have six assignments per session; I rate each and give comments to explain how to improve the work.  Most students modify their already word processed work in just a few minutes. Almost everyone gets the higher grade.  If anyone does not show improve, then I have a one-on-one with that person. If they had handwritten their work, they would not willingly make changes.

Simple yet powerful technology

I believe that when a technology is simple to use, then teachers will use it.  Witness the Smartboard and the Document camera.  Simple technologies can be powerful technologies.  They do not require thousands of hours of professional development. They do not require long learning curves.  Teachers “get it” and can use them.   They can involve their students in that technology with minimal prep.  I think that often we over look simple technologies like word processing, digital camera, document  cameras, and smartboards. Let’s promote technologies that teachers can and will use instead of complex technologies that often require someone else to set things up like videoconferencing.  Let’s focus on what teachers have in their classrooms!

Templated Learning Through Word Processing For Student Success

I’ve decided that next semester I will provide my students with a template for their writing of business letters. The template will have the major parts of the specific letter format such as (get attention, increase interest, minimize resistance, action or AIRA) for a persuasion letter. This scaffolding will help the students to include each critical part of a persuasion letter. I’ve found this semester that students tend to skip over a part; I think the scaffolded template will guide them through using all four parts. I’m trying to decide whether they need more specific scaffolding such as a list of possible ways to do each part.

How do you use your word processor to scaffold the learning for your students so that they can be successful in their learning?

Written Feedback: Improving Student Learning

Written feedback can be a powerful tool for helping students to move forward in their learning. However, if we bombard the students with too much feedback, the students will shut down. Do you remember ever getting an English paper with more red marks than your original writing? Did you feel that it was hopeless to try to write?

Written feedback has the advantage that the student can refer to it over and over again. With oral feedback, the student may forget what was said.

Some techniques for effective written feedback:
– Sandwich your improvement feedback between what the student did well in terms of the standard.
– Focus on one to two critical aspects only. Do not comment on all five components of your Science lab report rubric.
– Word process your comments so that students can read them! If students hand in their work in digital format, you can add your comments in the appropriate places
– Word your feedback in student understandable talk.
– Instead of telling , asking questions
– Be positive or neutral, never negative!
– Be very concrete about what the student needs to do to improve. Avoid “Write better”, “Enlarge ideas,” and “Be specific.” Create a word processed list of concrete suggestions so that you can easily cut and paste.
-Review your written feedback notes for students to see if you need to do whole class, small group, pair or individual focused instruction.
– Allow an opportunity for the student to re-do the work. Student learning is the purpose, not a summative grade.

What other techniques do you use to give written formative feedback?

Supporting Standards-Based Learning and Assessment With Word Processing

How else do you use a word processor in your standards-based classroom?

Standards-Based Sponge Activities

We use sponge activities to fill in time between activities or at the end of the period. How different would the students’ learning be if we used standards-based sponge activities? In an English Language Arts (ELA) class, the teacher could have a list of standards-based activities (similar to the state exam or covering district specified parts of the standards that are not covered on the state exam). She might:

Have students listen to a digitally recorded brief debate, take a side, and list their reasons to support it (New York State ELA Standard 1 Information).

Have students list their ten most common activities during their vacation, one per line, and then add an adverb to each line to create a poem (New York State ELA Standard 2 Personal Expression).

Have students list all the literature that they have read so far that has a certain theme such as love, man’s inhumanity to man, being true to one’s self, etc. (New York State ELA Standard 3 Theme Critical Analysis of Literature ).

Have a student pick a topic and list different people in the family and community (young children, same age, parent, grandparent, and civic leader) and students tell something about the topic to each different person in a way in which he/she would understand it ( (New York State ELA Standard Four Social Interactions-Various Audiences).

We can have these activities in a word processed document of sponge activities that we call up and pick the one to fit the time. When we project these activities for the students to see, they have all the structure they need to do them successfully. Not only do we fill up time but more important, we advance their learning in the standards!

How do you support the standards through sponge activities with technology?

© Harry Grover Tuttle, 2007

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Student Accountability and Test Scores

While driving to my son’s, I saw a billboard that said something like, “You child is more than a test score.” I applaud the thought but wonder how true it is. How much do most teachers know about their students academically?

Imagine this conversation among two teachers. “How’s Billy in your class?” “He’s a poor student. He fails all the tests.” That conversation tells almost nothing about Billy. What standard area is he not doing well in? What specific part of the standard is his “downfall”? What can he do to improve? If we cannot give that information, then a student is only a test score to us.

Here are some suggestions:
Only give standards-based assessments
Make sure each assessment focuses on a particular component of the standard. You make take an old test and modify it with a word processor so that it focuses on a component of the standard.
Talk with students who did not do well to discover why they did not do well? Did they understand the question? Did they understand the standard component? Did they do something wrong in a procedure? Record their information in your word processed information about this standard so that the next time the students will not have these same problems.
Decide how what help and suggestions you can give those student who did not do well on the standards-based assessment. Record this information in your word processed information about this standard so that the next time you can give suggestions during the learning instead of after the unit assessment.

What else do you do to make a student more than a test score?

© Harry Grover Tuttle, 2007

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Making learners better learners with verified student profiles

I met someone who is a semi-professional photographer. She does not just see a flower, she sees the flower’s story. She looks beyond the outer surface flower to find out the inner real-story of the flower.

I thought about the students I have had. Yes, I knew whether they did their homework, their scores on tests and quizzes, what their handwriting looked like, and how quickly they finished an in class assignment. However, I knew little about them as learners. I did not know their academic strengthens: Were they better at writing poetry or narratives? Did they needed to take notes as they listened to information or could they just remember it? What strategies did they use when they had to write an essay? How did they organize information for a report? I wished I had developed a learner profile so that I could better help my students.

If students completed an online learner profile (even just a word processed document) and we could check their ideas about how they learn with how they actually learn in our classes, we could help each student to be a better learner. We could build on their actual strengthens and improve on those that do not seem to be working. We could add our responses to the students’ word processed document ( category- their response) and talk with them about how to be better learners. Without successful learning strategies our students can not improve in their subject area learning.

 

© Harry Grover Tuttle, 2007

 

State Assessments, Rubric Scoring, and Technology

The NY State English Regents (state assessment) has a six point rubric. If I co-graded with a low scoring teacher, a student could get a 3 when I gave the student a 4. If I co-graded with a high scoring teacher, the same student could get a 5 when I gave a 4. A two point variance on a six point scale negates the whole rubric.

Likewise, one year the department chair informed us that we were grading to tough so that we should go to the higher score for any student. Now students that would have gotten a score of 4 got a score of 5.

No matter how we help students to write better for the state assessment through technology, their scores on the state assessment are dependent on other conditions.

Likewise, if we have students word process their writing during class like they will do in the world outside of school, and then have them handwrite their essays, there is a very different process involved. Handwriting takes away the brainstorming, quick editing, spell checking, and moving around of text that word processing allows. Handwriting an essay is much harder and more academic than real world writing.

What examples do you have of how your state assessment prevents students from doing technology-infused real-life activities with your subject area ?

© Harry Grover Tuttle, 2007