Digital Badges: Individual or Categorized Learning Badges?

The idea of digital badges sounds appealing for the digital children in classes. As teachers start thinking about digital badges, they have to figure out what badges will be awarded. The teachers can award social or academic badges. If teachers decide to use academic badges, then the teachers may base their badges on the Common Core Standards or other international proficiencies. That decision leads to additional questions. How much learning will the students do during the course? How many badges will be awarded during the course? Will the badges represent each individual proficiency or categories of proficiency? For example, in the beginning college semester of Spanish, students will achieve about 80% of the forty eight proficiencies in the Novice Level of the NCSSFL-ACTFL Can-Do Proficiency Statements or the equivalent of thirty nine badges. The semester is fifteen weeks long. Will the teachers group these badges together so that the number of badges gets reduced down to fifteen or fewer categories or will the teachers award thirty nine badges? If the teachers use categories, do the categories represent the same type of learning at the same degree of difficulty? Are the categories chronologically based or can a beginning proficiency category not be achieved until other more advanced categories are learned? For example, the third category of “I can answer a few simple questions” includes the proficiency of “I can respond to who, what, when and where questions”. However, students usually demonstrate proficiency in at least three other supposedly more advanced proficiences before they show proficiency in this beginning proficiency.

How have you selected the the digital badges for the learning in your course?

Giving Students a Voice in App Selection

Traditionally, teachers research apps for their class. They assign apps to students.  The teachers assign a specific app or give students a choice of several pre-selected apps.  As a Modern Language teacher, I suggested apps to my students in the early part of the year.

However, in January, I let my students select which apps they wanted to use based on their own app searching and a minimal checklist.  I just gave them a topic to search as “food”. I asked them to look at  two or more apps that had the same topic.  My minimal checklist includes: has a comprehensive list  of words, phrases, or sentences for the topic;  gives the written Spanish word and its definition (or included a picture); pronounces the word; is  free; and is available on both Android and Ipad. The app gets extra points if it uses the words or phrases in sentences or questions.  The app also receives extra points if  the app provides practice on the words.

I found that when I let my students select which apps they wanted to use based on their own app searching and a minimal checklist, they actually used the app. In fact, they often commented to other students about their great app for the topic. They willingly showed me the app. They shared stories about where they were when they were using the app (supposedly helping Mom in the grocery store!).

More importantly, they learned the critical vocabulary for the topic from the app so they were ready to use the vocabulary in their communicating about the topic.

Who selects apps for your students?

My ebook, 90 Mobile Learning Modern Language Activities, is available at http://bit.ly/90mlact.

My three formative assessment books, Improving Foreign Language Speaking Through Formative Assessment, Formative Assessment: Responding to Your Students and Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment, are available at   http://is.gd/tbook

My modern language blogs are  now at  http://bit.ly/imprml.  I have developed 27  Spanish activities and 5 Modern Language Visual activities in which students  express themselves in the modern language and move toward spontaneous speaking Teacherspayteachers:  http://bit.ly/tpthtuttle

Considering Home Learning When Doing Mobile

Many schools are going mobile or one-to-one.  Schools sometimes make decisions without thinking about the full consequences such as mobile and home learning.

If schools supply mobile devices to the students, do the students take the mobile devices home?   If students do not take the mobile device home, then mobile is only considered an in-school learning tool.  Teachers cannot assign at home mobile work.  Students can not learn 24/7.

Schools may not supply a mobile device  for home because they assume that students have a mobile device at home. Do all students have the same mobile device as used in school? Do all students have an iPad? What about those with Android tablets? Chrome?  Do teachers assign at home mobile work for a specific machine for a specific app?  Or do teachers assign mobile tool assignments such as taking pictures, videorecording an event and  reading an ebook   that can be done on any mobile device?  Do teachers limit those students who can do the assignment at home or do they provide for the widest base possible so that all students can do the assignment?

Likewise, teachers will want to use free apps. No student should have to pay for an app for school.  An alternative is for the  district to obtain a license so students can use a specific app for multiple platforms ( Android, iPads and Chrome) at school and at home.

For BYOD schools, the same basic questions apply.  BYOD schools  accept multiple devices; they promote including all devices.  Teachers focus not on a specific app but on the learning purpose and use common tools or common apps that work on many devices.  All mobile devices can search the Internet or go to Internet sites so teachers ask students to do a Google image search for the different images for a specific scene in a play and compare/contrast those images.   A teacher may have students do a science experiment and use a free scientific calculator app to give them statistical results.

What has your school decided about at home learning with mobile?  Does your school want to extend learning or keep it within the school?

My ebook, 90 Mobile Learning Modern Language Activities, is available at http://bit.ly/90mlact.

My three formative assessment books, Improving Foreign Language Speaking Through Formative Assessment, Formative Assessment: Responding to Your Students and Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment, are available at   http://is.gd/tbook

My modern language blogs are  now at  http://bit.ly/imprml.  I have developed 27  Spanish activities and 4 Modern Language Visual activities in which students  express themselves in the modern language and move toward spontaneous speaking Teacherspayteachers:  http://bit.ly/tpthtuttle

Assessment and Mobile Learning Questions

Technology can play a critical role in the learning process.  Here are some questions about assessment and mobile learning to think about as you plan for your mobile learning.

Who/ What  will assess the students’ mobile learning?
A) the same mobile app that the student worked on
B) a  different mobile app
C)  the teacher corrects a paper and pencil quiz
D)  an online  program evaluates learning
E) the teacher assesses the students’ paper, presentation or project that incorporates learning from the mobile device
F) some one in the class, school,  or another school assesses the learning.
G) some one outside the school, from the community, an organization, etc. assesses the learning.
H) the students self-evaluate and reflect on how to improve

Will the assessment be?
A) summative ( a final grade)
B) formative with  specific feedback and an opportunity for improvement

My ebook, 90 Mobile Learning Modern Language Activities, is available at http://bit.ly/90mlact.

My three formative assessment books, Improving Foreign Language Speaking Through Formative Assessment, Formative Assessment: Responding to Your Students and Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment, are available at   http://is.gd/tbook

My modern language blogs are  now at  http://bit.ly/imprml.  I have developed 27  Spanish activities and 4 Modern Language Visual activities in which students begin to express themselves in the modern language and to  move toward spontaneous speaking Teacherspayteachers:  http://bit.ly/tpthtuttle

Compare Institutional MLearning to Your School’s Mlearning

Many institutions use QR codes. At the Cornell Plantations at Cornell University (Ithaca, NY),  they have put QR codes next to many wild flowers.  When a person uses his/her smartphone to scan  the wild flower QR code, the person hears a poem that mentions that wild flower.  Even though the person is outside in the “wild” area, he/she can appreciate both the flower and the poetry.   At the Etioje Museum in Indianapolis, they have a guitar exhibit; many of the musicians pictures or  actual guitars have a poster with a picture, words and a number next to them. The person borrows a smartphone from the museum and clicks on a specific  number to watch a video about a musician or hear a specific guitar being played.

Some things that happen during this institutional  mlearning:

– At both places, the visitor becomes involved in his/her personal mlearning.
– Each person decides what he/she wants to learn within the specific category. At the Plantations, the visitor selects which flowers he/she will scan.  The person may skip the QR code for any given flower.
– The visitor can listen/ watch any video as much as he/she wants.  A person may only view a few seconds of the video or the person may re-watch the video many times.
– Each person selects the order of his/her mlearning; at the guitar exhibit, a person may focus on the musicians in a specific time order or a person can randomly sample any musician.
– Each person does his/her own comparisons/contrasts with previous musicians or guitars; when couples or group of people travel together through the exhibit, they often share their comparisons/contrasts.
– Each new learning object broadens the learning or provides more in-depth details.  For example, the guitar exhibit covers many different types of guitar music while it also explains in-depth the development of the electric guitar.
– A visitor experiences variety and diversity such as the many different flowers at the Plantation Wildlife area while, at the same time, he/she encounters a  wholistic view of the category of wild flowers.
– Each place has a visual, print words and spoken words/videos  so the visitor employs different modalities of learning.
– Each person learns at his/ her own pace. A person may linger over a certain flower while his/ her partner goes ahead.
– Each person learns, not with a frown on his/her face, but with a smile.

How does this mlearning compare to mlearning in your school?

My ebook, 90 M0bile Learning Modern Language Activities, is available at http://bit.ly/90mlact.

My modern language blogs are  now at  http://bit.ly/imprml.  I have developed 27  Spanish activities and 4 Modern Language Visual activities in which students begin to express themselves in the modern language and to  move toward spontaneous speaking Teacherspayteachers:  http://bit.ly/tpthtuttle

My three formative assessment books, Improving Foreign Language Speaking Through Formative Assessment, Formative Assessment: Responding to Your Students and Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment, are available at   http://is.gd/tbook

Your Contribution to 200+ Academic Activities with Mobile Devices

Dear teacher,

I invite you to submit a short paragraph description of how you help your students to learn or to demonstrate their learning through mobile learning for an ebook tentatively entitled “200+ Academic Activities with Mobile Devices”. I am trying to show the wide variety of ways that students improve their learning through mobile learning.

I will email you that I have received your submission and I will make the final decisions about all submissions by the end of May^..

The following long form explains each of the categories. Then, a sample entry illustrates what your actual entry looks like. The emphasis is on students’ academic learning, not on explaining the technology.

Please email your submission to htuttlebs@gmail.com by April 30^{th. .} Please put 200+ in the subject line. If you have a question, please email me at htuttlebs@gmail.com. I appreciate your willingness to share your ideas.

Harry Tuttle, Ed.D.

Long Form Explaining the Categories:

Personal Identification such as first name, last name, school, district, city, state or first name, last name, subject area, city, state:

Level : elementary, middle, high school, university

Subject: Art, Business, Computer Science English/Language Arts, Health, Home Careers/Life Skills, Languages, Math, Music, Physical Education, Social Studies, Science, Technology

Specific Subject such as English/Language Arts -First grade, English/Language Arts-AP Literature, Languages: Spanish Level II:

Student Learning Outcome: (what will the student learn/do and how well)

Specific mobile application or tool such as Camera, StoryBird App

Learning Activity:Please focus your paragraph on what the students do to learn or to demonstrate their learning, do not focus on the mobile device. See the following example.

Example of an actual submission:

Name: Robert Tuttle, Roxboro Middle School, Lakein School District, Shortschester, NY

Level: Middle School

Subject: Modern Language Spanish I

Outcome: Students will narrate eight sentences about a picture or pictures in Spanish

Mobile: Camera

Learning Activity: Joellyn listens carefully as her teacher explains that for the topic of “food-restaurant”, each student will narrate eight sentences for a given picture or pictures. That afternoon, Joellyn uses her mobile device’s camera to take a series of eight picture showing restaurant actions. For example, she takes pictures of restaurant actions such as ¨to enter,” ¨to look at the menu,¨ and ¨to order,¨ etc. Then, the next day in class, she shows her pictures to her partner, John who narrates a story using those topical actions. John says at least one sentence for each photo. For example, as John looks at Joellyn’s first picture, he says, “Ron enters the Italian restaurant.” For the next picture, John says, “He sits down in a chair.” John continues until he has narrated all of Joellyn’s pictures. Joellyn counts each sentence to make sure that John says eight sentences. Next, Joellyn narrates John’s’ pictures while John counts her sentences.

Example from Tuttle, H. G. 90 Mobile Learning Modern Language Activities, publication date of May 2013.

Please share this with your colleagues and other mobile using educators

My three formative assessment books, Formative Assessment: Responding to Your Students,  Improving Foreign Language Speaking Through Formative Assessment, and Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment, are available at   http://is.gd/tbook

My modern language blogs are  now at  http://bit.ly/imprml

I have developed 25  Spanish activities  and 4 Modern Language Visual activities that allow students to begin to express themselves in the modern language and to begin to move toward spontaneous speaking Teacherspayteachers:  http://bit.ly/tpthtuttle

Show Administrators Good Learning, Not Mobile Learning, to Convince them of Mobile Learning

Some administrators still prohibit cell phones and other mobile devices  in the classroom.  They do not change their  minds when their teachers send them articles about the benefits of mobile learning; in fact, they may not even have time to read the articles.  Often when a teacher approaches the administrators with a statement like “Mobile learning is great”, they turn a deaf ear.  They are not interested in technology per se.

These administrators focus on student improvement.  However, when a teacher says, “I want to show you how much more students have gained in their learning since the beginning of the year”, the administrators become interested.   For example, Miss Thorp  shows her  administrator, Mr. Verona, how students have grown in their learning on a major subject area goal.  She demonstrates the low starting scores on math word problems and their now high scores. She does not talk about  or show mobile learning.  Once Mr. Verona acknowledges the students’ major learning   improvements, then she shows that students used  mobile learning to work on grocery store word math problems with students in other states and tells how important the mobile learning was to the learning.  Mr. Verona  now realizes that mobile learning  can be a valuable tool  in the math class.

How do you show your administrator improved student learning as a result of mobile learning?

My three formative assessment books, Formative Assessment: Responding to Your Students,  Improving Foreign Language Speaking Through Formative Assessment, and Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment, are available at   http://is.gd/tbook

My modern language blogs are  now at  http://bit.ly/imprml

I have developed 25  Spanish activities  and 4 Modern Language Visual activities that allow students to begin to express themselves and to begin to move toward spontaneous speaking as in a natural conversation at Teacherspayteachers:  http://bit.ly/tpthtuttle

Smartphones over Tablets

I have numerous reasons why I prefer a smartphone over tablets for students.
1) Students always have their smartphone with them regardless of where they are.  Students do not always carry their tablets with them.  For example,  Mary may not take  her tablet to swim practice but she will have her smartphone with her.  Just before practice, she  goes to her history class’s website to get the link to a video.  Chris will not take his tablet to work but he will have his smartphone with him so, during break, he can learn or practice his Spanish words.   Learning can only be 24/7 if the students have their mobile device with them.

2) Smartphones allow students to text.   Students spend much time texting in their daily life; they texted on an average of 60 texts a day in 2011  Teachers can have students text to find out information from others outside the classroom, to collaborate on projects, and  to write.  When students text others, they usually get immediate responses.

3)  .  The show, “Who wants to be a Millionaire?”,  gave us the expression “Phone a friend” and illustrated that people can learn from others.  When students use a smartphone, they can  call a person to ask questions, do a follow-up or clarify  information.  Students can talk to an expert / user of the learning concept such as  a contractor, a  business person,  or an artist.  When students talk to people outside the classroom, they see their in-class learning as something real.  Students can “shadow” professionals through weekly phone calls.

4)  Smartphones are cheaper than tablets.  A parent can purchase a high quality smartphone for their child for  less than a hundred dollars, a high quality tablet costs much more. Schools can purchase good smartphones at lower prices.

What device has your school selected as its mobile learning device?  Why? What does that device do beyond apps?

My three formative assessment books, Formative Assessment: Responding to Your Students,  Improving Foreign Language Speaking Through Formative Assessment, and Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment, are available at   http://is.gd/tbook

My modern language blogs are  now at  http://bit.ly/imprml

I have developed many  Spanish activities that allow students to begin to express themselves and to begin to move toward spontaneous speaking as in a natural conversation at Teacherspayteachers:  http://bit.ly/tpthtuttle

Mobile Learning, Not Mobile Students

Up until now we have not had 24/7 learning.  Students  had to go to their laptops/computers and, then, do their work.   Their computers might be in their bedroom, in the family room, in a school  computer library or in a library computer lab.  The students had to be mobile, not the technology.

Now students can use the mobile device that they always have with them such as their smartphone to truly have 24/7 learning. In the middle of the night, they can reach over to their night stand and use their smartphones to do any online work.  As they take a walk in the park, they can take their smartphones  out of their  pocket and  find out some information.  They can even use their smartphones to communicate/ collaborate with others in any location (As of March, 2011, over 50% of people text while in the bathroom).

Does your school let  students have a mobile device with them at all times?  Or is mobile learning confined to a specific class or to the school day?  Are your students mobile or is the technology mobile?

My three formative assessment books, Formative Assessment: Responding to Your Students,  Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment, and Improving Foreign Language Speaking Through Formative Assessment, are available at   http://is.gd/tbook

My modern language blogs are  now at  http://bit.ly/imprml

I have developed many  Spanish activities that allow students to begin to express themselves and to begin to move toward spontaneous speaking as in a natural conversation at Teacherspayteachers:  http://bit.ly/tpthtuttle

E-Texts: Innvovation or Status Quo

Many textbooks now have an e-text version.  Do these e-texts improve  student learning?

Some advantages:
– No heavy or bulky textbook to carry; portable
– Font size can be adjusted so students can more easily read or see information.
– Text can be searched
– Often has an online assessment; allows online quizzes  to be graded automatically online
– Often has an online homework management; allows  homework  activities to be graded automatically online
– Has organized the content into  chapters; chapters have various sections
– Text can be copied and pasted from the  e-text into a word processor
– Text can  usually be highlighted
– Usually includes multimedia (pictures, video, audio…)

Some disadvantages:
– Often is an exact  reproduction of the textbook. An E-text probably is   not linked,  therefore,  students cannot  click on words or images to get additional information.
-The e-text is still mainly print (word) based.
– Many images  may supplement  the text but they do not add new information;  images help explain the text instead of the image being the main source of information.
– Usually a student cannot write in the e-text such as writing  comments in the margin
– The user needs an e-reader, a computer or a mobile device to read the e-text.
– Additional exercises are  predominantly word based.
– Most e-text homework managers and on-line quizzes only tell the students if they are right or wrong. They do not provide new strategies for learning the material.
– Since homework and quizzes are done online, the teacher may never review what the students do not know. If the teachers do not review student progress, then the teachers cannot provide formative activities for student  improvement.
– Interactivity  may include activities such as  moving some words around or rearranging pictures but  the e-text interactivity  usually lacks high  interactivity such as simulations.
– Additional exercises are still  predominantly at a  low level of thinking.  They do not engage students in real-life use of the learning.
– Often multimedia is an add-on, rather than an integral part of the basic textbook.  Often multimedia comes after the main learning.
– An  e-text cannot be customized; teacher cannot rearrange parts such as  combining a part from chapter 1, a part from chapter 3, and a  a part from chapter 8 to create a new chapter.
– The digital textbook can be outdated very quickly if the  e-text does not contain links to current events.
– May not show the learners  the priority of the learning concepts within the chapter. What part of the chapter is the most critical? Is the most time and space spent on that critical learning or do minor  concepts get equal time and space?
-E-texts are boring since they are still traditional textbooks.

What are your reactions to using e-texts?

My modern language blogs are  now at  http://bit.ly/imprml

I have developed many  Spanish activities that allow students to begin to express themselves and to begin to move toward spontaneous speaking as in a natural conversation at Teacherspayteachers:  http://bit.ly/tpthtuttle

My three formative assessment books:   http://is.gd/tbook

What is the Role of Technology in the Teaching-Learning process?

A very creative elementary teacher will retire in June because she no longer feels she can teach due to her district’s technology push.  Her district purchased a math online program in which the computer program presents the math concept and  the program has students do stations for a designated amount of time each day. Her job is to make sure that the students rotate through the stations.

Another teacher no longer has time to relate his subject area to the real world because he has to push through his textbook so students can do the  designated  and scheduled online drill and practice for each unit. The district looks at the student data from the online activities as an assessment measure.

A science teacher has to have her students do a specified number of app activities for each unit.  Although this teacher used to do many student inquiry labs, she has had to eliminate those labs in order to provide students time to  complete all the apps.

Finally, students in Carpe Diem schools spend half to  two thirds  of their day doing computer work. These students score well on state tests. (http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2011/04/22/carpe-diem-charter-school-seizes-tomorrows-innovations-today)

What is your view of the role of technology in the  teaching learning process?  Do teachers or technology determine how students spend their learning time? Who/What  makes decisions about what learning gap  students have and supplies a new strategy to overcome the gap?

I have developed many  Spanish activities that allow students to begin to express themselves and to begin to move toward spontaneous speaking as in a natural conversation.  My Spanish spontaneous speaking activities (20+) includes Modified Speed Dating (Students ask  a question from a card-whole class), Structured Speaking (Students substitute in or select words to communicate in pairs),  Role Playing (Students talk as people in pictures or drawing from 2-4 people) and Speaking Mats (Can talk using a wide variety of nouns, verbs and adjectives to express their ideas- pairs or small group),  Spontaneous Speaking (based on visuals or topics in pairs),  and Grammar speaking games (pairs or small group). Available for a nominal fee at Teacherspayteachers:  http://bit.ly/tpthtuttle

My three formative assessment books:   http://is.gd/tbook

Learning App Analysis

Does the learning app:

Present problems, scenarios, etc in more than just words?  For example, does the app show a picture and base the questions on that picture? Do the students have to answer questions based on a short 30 second video?

Present a variety of different problems?  For example, can math students do the math in number format (2+2 = ),  word format (two and two equals), and visual format (two apples and two apples =)

Have a variety of ways that students can input the answer ?  Is the app an  A, B, C, D  click on the button choice  or does it allow students to move things around to show the answer? Can the students say the answer?

Identify when the students have a correct answer?

Identify when   students have an incorrect answer?  For example, the program says, “No, try again.”

Tell which part of the student’s answer is incorrect?  Or tell how the student was incorrect? For example, did the student  incorrectly  spell  the first part of the answer?  Did the students confuse two words?

Allow the students  to try again? For example, the program repeats the same question or a similar one.

Supply at least one strategy to understand the correct answer through explaining the concept?  Does the app provide a strategy to help the students overcome this learning gap?   Does the app supply  text clues, visual clues,  or sound clues   to help the student learn the concept so he/she can generalize to other questions of the same concept?

Tell the correct answer?

Keep track of the students’ progress?  Does it show the students what they have mastered before they  move on?  For example, the app can have a checklist of the various levels of the learning goal.

Make this data  available to the teacher?  Can the teacher  sort through the data by class, from high scoring students to low scoring  students,  and by specific learning goal?

Move the students on to a higher level once the student has shown proficiency?  How many questions reveal proficiency?  For example, does the app check student progress after ten questions or do students have to do thirty before it proclaims student success?

Move students up Bloom’s level of thinking?  Do  the students move up to do a real life example of using that learning?  Are they put in a real life scenario through a video?  Or do they go from abstract practice to more  abstract practice?

Have the student spend more time on learning than on playing reward games?

How is this mobile  app different from a website version of  the same material?  What  advantage does the mobile version have?

I have developed many  Spanish activities that allow students to begin to express themselves and to begin to move toward spontaneous speaking as in a natural conversation.  My Spanish spontaneous speaking activities (20+) includes Modified Speed Dating (Students ask  a question from a card-whole class), Structured Speaking (Students substitute in or select words to communicate in pairs),  Role Playing (Students talk as people in pictures or drawing from 2-4 people) and Speaking Mats (Can talk using a wide variety of nouns, verbs and adjectives to express their ideas- pairs or small group),  Spontaneous Speaking (based on visuals or topics in pairs),  and Grammar speaking games (pairs or small group). Available for a nominal fee at Teacherspayteachers:  http://bit.ly/tpthtuttle

My three formative assessment books:   http://is.gd/tbook

Guidelines for Technology-Based Learning Conference/ Workshop Presentations

During the past few months, I been to numerous conferences.  I have become very disappointed with the presentations. They have been “See the technology” presentations that did not focus on how the technology improves student learning.  I suggest the following guidelines for any technology-based learning presentations including professional development

1. (33.3 %) How does the technology help improve student learning?
Does the presenter identify the specific learning  topic and specific learning goals that this technology helps with?
Does the presenter show at least four real classroom examples from her/his school or district?
Does the presenter  use  examples from real classrooms and not the company’s website that  a professional artist may have spent hundreds of hours creating as a beautiful, but unrealistic, demo?
Does the presenter show  actual learning not just talk about  student learning?
Does the presenter focus on how this technology uniquely helps the students in their learning?  Why use this technology as opposed to some other technology for the same specific learning goal?
Does the presenter focus on the substance of the program, not its glitz?

2. (33.3 %)  Does the presenter show the critical steps that the students go through in using this learning tool from  start to  finish?
Does the presenter focuses on  the critical parts of the program,  not on the minor parts such as  showing every possible  background?
Does the presenter show the critical parts in the  logical order of  student use (from start to finish of the learning) instead of going through the program menu by menu?
Does the presenter only focus on what the  beginning / average  student user would do and not some advanced feature that students would not usually use?
Does the presenter show his/her final product that is the result of what he/she actually did during this workshop?

3. (33.3 %) Does the presenter go over implementation issues,  tricky or non logical things that could prevent the learning from being successful?
Does the presenter know the program well enough to tell critical details such as this  app only records for one minute or a student  cannot erase if she  uses this part?
Does  the presenter  give a realistic time frame  about how much time it takes the students  to do / use this program? Is that time appropriate to the learning level?  For example,  in one program students create an animated mini-movie  of a conversation that takes twenty minutes  to produce when they could do the same conversation with an app camcorder in three minutes.
Does the presenter  mention other programs /apps  that build on this learning to take students to even  higher levels of learning?
Does the presenter talk about how students  collaborate while using this program/ app?
Does the presenter go over how he/she assesses the learning from this program/ app?

Let’s move from the technology whiz  factor  to  the student learning factor!

I have developed many  Spanish activities that allow students to begin to express themselves and to begin to move toward spontaneous speaking as in a natural conversation.  My Spanish spontaneous speaking activities (20+) includes Modified Speed Dating (Students ask  a question from a card-whole class), Structured Speaking (Students substitute in or select words to communicate in pairs),  Role Playing (Students talk as people in pictures or drawing from 2-4 people) and Speaking Mats (Can talk using a wide variety of nouns, verbs and adjectives to express their ideas- pairs or small group),  Spontaneous Speaking (based on visuals or topics in pairs),  and Grammar speaking games (pairs or small group). Available for a nominal fee at Teacherspayteachers:  http://bit.ly/tpthtuttle

My three formative assessment books:   http://is.gd/tbook

Using Mobile Learning to Become World Citizens

How  mobile  are our students  in terms of their interactions with others through their mobile devices?

How much of  a student’s  learning involves
___ other students in the class?
___ other  classes within the school?
___ other schools within the district?
___ people in the community?
___ people in other parts of the state?
___ people in other states?
___ people in another country?
___ people from several countries?

If  we want our  students to be world citizens,  then we have to structure their mobile  learning to broaden their scope of interactions.  When they use mobile devices, they  can have access to others inside and outside the classroom.

One easy way to expand a mobile  learning activity is to think of the essential question for that learning.  Essential questions are universal.  Three quick examples:
– Do Grocery Store math in which students do real math based on actual prices in other places.  Each class “buys” certain items and post the name of the  item and its price and then make up problems.  María is planning a party but she only has $30. What  and how much of each can she buy for the party from this list of food and prices from our area.
– Have an international art gallery in which students from various countries exhibit  their art about family. Through QR codes, they either explain their art or show how it was made.  They can peer critic each other.
– Social Studies students from different states or countries  present the geography of their area and its impact on the history of the area. The students compare and contrast the geography and its impact from the places. Students can show the geography and its impact through taking pictures /movies and narrating the impacts that they show.

I have developed many  Spanish activities that allow students to begin to express themselves and to begin to move toward spontaneous speaking as in a natural conversation.  My Spanish spontaneous speaking activities (20+) includes Modified Speed Dating (Students ask  a question from a card-whole class), Structured Speaking (Students substitute in or select words to communicate in pairs),  Role Playing (Students talk as people in pictures or drawing from 2-4 people) and Speaking Mats (Can talk using a wide variety of nouns, verbs and adjectives to express their ideas- pairs or small group),  Spontaneous Speaking (based on visuals or topics in pairs),  and Grammar speaking games (pairs or small group). Available for a nominal fee at Teacherspayteachers:  http://bit.ly/tpthtuttle

My three formative assessment books:   http://is.gd/tbook

Criteria for selecting student mobile learning device (educational concerns)

As schools move toward mobile learning, they have to make decision about the type of mobile device that the students will use.  Regardless of whether the school supplies its own device or whether students supply their own,  there  are some basic minimal  requirements.

1) The device has to connect to the  internet so students can use qr codes, do internet searching,  bookmark commonly used sites,  watch educational videos and create online surveys.

2) The device should have enough memory for basic apps such as an  e-reader, a note-taker/ word processor,   spreadsheet,   media player, and a dictionary app.  The device will have other apps that help the students to climb the learning ladder from memorization to synthesis/evaluation  for their  specific learning goals.  There will be many more higher level learning apps (70%) than lower level ones (30%).  Those apps that simulate or duplicate real-world use of the subject area  learning will be the most useful apps.

3)  The device should have a camera and microphone so students can take pictures, record videos, and record audio. They will want to  capture and demonstrate their learning through images and sound (pictures, sound recordings, and movies).

4) Students need to be able to do texting  on the device so they can seek the perspectives of others and to learn from others outside the classroom.  As students learn to ask good  essential questions, they can seek the perspectives of others so they can go beyond the limited perspective of the textbook.  If we value diversity, let’s bring it into the classroom through seeing the opinions of others.

5) As students use their mobile device to explore concepts through productivity based learning, they will want to be able to call their experts such as their aunt or grandfather for things such as what is was like during the Depression,  how a farm business has been changed by technology, etc. so the mobile learning device needs to have phone capabilities.  Even better, if it can have videoconferencing.

6) Students need access to their social media sites on their mobile learning device so that they can distribute surveys.  When they want to receive many responses, they know they can distribute the surveys to their online friends.  The more people responding, the better the data to analyze and the more critical thinking involved.

If we want students to be prepared for their future in the real world, the world outside the classroom, then we need to start taking them virtually into that world and allowing them to bring that world into the classroom through their mobile learning device.

I have 20+ Spanish spontaneous speaking/fluency activities  available at Teacherspayteachers: 
http://bit.ly/tpthtuttle

My three formative assessment books:   http://is.gd/tbook

Smart Phones and Mobile Learning: Best Practices and Lessons Learned ISTE

We will Edmodo for our Mobile Learning workshop so you can respond to and share resources and  ideas.

We will do a survey on mobile learning

Why not?  and how to overcome the negatives

Why?

Learning goals met by Mobile learning

Other schools – each group will read about a different school and post info using  Plus, Minus, and Interesting/ Questions

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Reference

Google 466453

Chacha 242-242
Apps – Dictionary, Thesaurus, verb conjugator, periodic table

Internet search – facts, visuals, TED talks, vids

Change teaching since students can access facts via mobile device

5 Ways Smartphones

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Texting

Get help from others

Get opinions and views from others that give a bigger perspective

Bring  the outside world into the classroom

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Surveys

How many people can complete the survey in 24 hours?

Teach analysis skills in creating and analyzing survey results

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Media to demonstrate learning

Flickr slideshow http://www.flickr.com/

Yodio http://www.yodio.com/

Geo-tours Http://bit.ly/andN57

Audioboo http://www.audioboo.com

Voki http://www.voki.com

Facebook

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Global Interactions

Go beyond just going to sites in other countries or about other countries; have students interact with other students to solve problems such as environment

Skype in the classroom http://education.skype.com/

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Higher Level Thinking

Contrast/ Compare two things

Synthesize from various sources

Evaluate

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Assess Learning

Google Docs including forms and spreadsheet

Poll everywhere / http://www.polleverywhere.com

QR codes for formative feedback strategies

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QR Codes

Label Multiple Change See

QR code generator: http://createqrcode.appspot.com/

QR Posters

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Reactions/ Questions/  Suggestions

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My formative assessment books: Formative Assessment Responding to Your Students,   Student Writing Through Formative Assessment Improving Foreign Language Speaking Through Formative Assessment. http://bit.ly/Tutbks

My 20 Spanish spontaneous speaking activities are available for a nominal fee at Teacherspayteachers:  http://bit.ly/tpthtuttle

Scaffolding Modern Language Speaking For Fluency Through Questions

In the Modern Language / Foreign Language  class, speaking is the least developed skill .  Teachers may spend much time in teaching a new grammar concept but they usually do not spend that same amount of time in helping students to become better at speaking. One way to help students improve their oral communication involves scaffolding their speaking from very structured speaking to  spontaneous speaking.

Students can start off by  looking at a sheet  of questions and asking one of  the written basic target language question such as “How are you?” and   “Where do you live?”to their partner who answers. Then, the partner  asks them a different question from the sheet. They continue asking and answering for many questions.   A next baby step incorporates the students modifying these basic questions.  I have included  italicized words  for  Spanish students to change (http://bit.ly/squestc).  For example students might change ¿Cuántas clases tienes? to  ¿Cuántos libros tienes?

After students have reviewed question words, they can ask question words about   randomly given common topics such as school and home.  Their partner checks to see which question words they used and tells them which they did not use.  As students develop their ability to ask questions about a topic, their partners answer these questions (http://bit.ly/squestw).

Next,  the students move on to asking and answering questions about a  common topic as presented through a graphic such as clip art picture of a girl at a birthday party or  a family at a beach. The  students randomly select the topic to speak about and begin to have their conversation about the topic (http://bit.ly/scontop)

As students become proficient at asking a wide variety of questions and answering those questions, they increase in their ability to speak. They become more fluent; they begin to speak spontaneously.

I have 20 Spanish spontaneous speaking activities at Teacherspayteachers:  http://bit.ly/tpthtuttle

My formative assessment books:   http://is.gd/tbook  including Improving Foreign Language Speaking Through Formative Assessment

Final In the Course What is it really?

We are within a few weeks of  finals.  Some good questions to ask are   What is a final?  What learning do we want the students to  show on the final?

A history teacher  tells his students that the final is on  Chapters 1-15 and all they have to do is know that information. Obviously, the students become overwhelmed because they do not know what is really important in the chapters.  They do not know the format of the final – multiple guess or essay writing? They have no idea of how to study for the final.

Teachers give paper and pencil finals, scantron finals or online computer scored.

Let’s look at some possible types of  written final (not project based):

– Wikipedia  defines a final as a big unit test.  The final covers the same material that has been previously covered and in the same way but covers more of it in one exam.  An American History final is just  parts of previous tests;  instead of 50 questions, the students have 200 questions.

– Some teachers give a put-it-all-together test in which students have to integrate what they have learned during the course.  For example, an 8th grade  Science final involves students reading and critiquing an experiment on the health of a local stream.  They have covered everything previously in individual sections such as  the biological or physical aspects but they have not had to go to the big picture of the whole stream.

– Some teachers create a final that consists of  the final improvement on previous work.  For example, students have revised a Contrast essay previously in English class and they do a final revision as  their final.

– Some teaches create  a final that goes  far beyond what the students  have learned in class. The final  includes brand-new material such as many vocabulary words  the students have never seen and it may ask  them to do tasks that they have never done before in class. For example, in class students have only answered literal questions on  reading passages  but the final has mostly inference reading questions.   The final generally does not test the regular forms but focuses on all the irregular forms or exceptions.  Only the A+++ students might pass this final.

Some questions about a final:

Do the  students know what precise learning goals will be on the final? Do they know which learning goals are the most important for success in the final?
Do they know how these learning  goals  will be tested such as multiple guess or try to fill in the blank?
Does the final reflect the same level of learning as  done during the course?
Do the students have a sample final that mimics the final  both in content and format?  Do they have an online practice that explains the wrong answers?
Is the final an opportunity for the students to show how much they have learned?

What type final do you give?

I have 20 Spanish spontaneous speaking activities at Teacherspayteachers:  http://bit.ly/tpthtuttle

My formative assessment books:   http://is.gd/tbook

Online Grading For Communicating Students’ Learning Problems and Successes

Administrators want accountability for learning in schools.  One way to build greater accountability is for teachers to use online grading programs that give students and their parents access to the  grades.  For example, the teachers can use the free program of Engrade or a commercial program such as Blackboard.

As soon as the teachers enter  a grade for any assignment, the overall grade is updated. If students know their updated grades on a regular basis, they can decide how to improve.   Parents who have access to  their students’ online grades do not have to worry if their children are correctly relaying their grades; they can help direct their children in areas for improvement. For example, when students and parents see a grade of 40/100 for homework, the students and their parents become aware of a critical area for improvement.  When students and parents know grades on a daily/weekly basis, they feel on top of things; they do not complain that they did not know the grade until the five week period.  Administrators and guidance counselors get less complaint phone calls about grades when students and parents receive constant updates on class grading.  When students and parents see on-line grades as they are entered, they can nip any problem in the bud.  Students can do much better in school.

Likewise, administrator have greater accountability since the teachers become constantly aware of the overall progress of the students.  As the teachers enter the most recent quiz grade, they see the previous quiz grades  as well as the overall quiz grade. The teachers see the class average on each quiz so they can decide if they have to re-teach  the concept in a different manner.  Administrators realize that when teachers use online grading programs, these  teachers  have up-to-the-moment feedback on how well or poorly the students are doing.

How does your school communicate grades to students and parents so the students can be more successful?

I have 15+ Spanish spontaneous speaking activities at Teacherspayteachers:  http://bit.ly/tpthtuttle

My formative assessment books:   http://is.gd/tbook

Students’ Web 2 school projects: Redoing to be Web 2.0

Much of  students’ Web 2.0 use is for   “drop and run” projects.  Where is read-write? Building on Others?  Collaboration?  Global?  Higher Level Thinking?

Many 2.0 tools

Some example of how to transform some to be more 2.0 and less 1.0.

Podcast/Voki/Audacity:   George Washington Example

Glogster / QR poster:  English writing

Images (Flickr, …):  Whale example

Videoconferencing/Skype:   Books

Video:   Shakespeare

Facebook/Twitter:  Paper Use

Others?

Tuttle’s formative assessment books:   http://is.gd/tbook

Healing Learning injuries: The Immediacy of Formative Feedback

If a student has hurt herself and is bleeding, we do not say, “Wait a few days and we will take care of your bleeding.” We help stop the bleeding immediately.  However, when a student bleeds academically by showing a serious learning gap, we often delay the necessary treatment.

When a student displays a learning gap such as  not being able to write a topic sentence in a composition, we  immediately apply the treatment of providing the student with different new strategies.  We do not simply re-give the student the  original strategy that was unsuccessful for the student.  We have a list of different strategies on the class website, blog, wiki, a handout, or a QR code.  We write these strategies in student-talk and provide examples.  For example, a topic sentence has a topic, like “the school baseball team”, and a strong position or viewpoint  about the team such as “will win this Friday”.  The complete topic sentence becomes “The school baseball team will win this Friday.”
We provide a  variety of differentiated ways for the students to learn the missing concept of a topic sentence such as  a written explanation.   We can ask students to put a box around the topic and put an arrow ( → ) over the position. Also, we can offer the student  a variety of other ways of learning this concept such as    Youtubemovie, a podcast, and  a visual.  The student selects which formative feedback she feels will help her the most. Then, she practices that new strategy so that she improves.

Through the  immediacy of formative assessment, we heal the student  in their learning.  The student does not become injured for the rest of her learning.

Tuttle’s formative assessment books:   http://is.gd/tbook

Healing the Wounded Student Through Formative Assessment

If a student has hurt herself and is bleeding, we do not say, “Wait a few days and we will take care of your bleeding.” We help stop the bleeding immediately.  However, when a student bleeds academically by showing a serious learning gap, we often delay the necessary treatment. When a student displays a learning gap such as  not being able to write a topic sentence in a composition, we  will want to immediately apply the treatment of providing the student with different new strategies.  We  have a list of different strategies on the class website, blog, wiki, a handout, or a QR code.  We write these strategies in student-talk and provide examples.  We provide a  variety of differentiated ways of learning the missing concept of a topic sentence such as  a written explanation, a  Youtubemovie, a podcast, and  a visual.  Through our using the immediacy of formative assessment, the student quickly heals.

Tuttle’s Formative Assessment books

Harry Grover Tuttle’s Three Formative Assessment Books

5 Formative Assessment and Technology Myths

Myth 1: The big computer assessment every three to five weeks is formative assessment. By three to five weeks, the students have learned and practiced the wrong way of thinking so that learning has become cement. When he assess on a daily or weekly basis, we catch learning gaps in the process and correct them.

Myth 2: The teacher uses technology to collect student work.  Yes, the teachers can use many web 2.0 tools such as wiki, voki, Google Forms, Glogster etc but the teacher has to move from collecting the evidence to recording  the  student data. If a teacher does not collect and make decisions based on the recorded data, then the teacher does not do formative assessment. Without recorded data, the teacher cannot measure progress over time.

Myth 3: The teacher can use technology such as voki, audacity, Word to talk to the students after seeing the students’ work. The teacher needs to do more than talk, he/she needs to give the student a new strategy to improve. If the student is stuck, he /she needs a precise way to get unstuck.

Myth 4: More practice on Quia, Google Forms, Blackboard, etc. will improve the students’ learning.  Only when the students learn why they got the answer wrong and learn how to think differently will they get the right answer (way  of thinking). A “you are right/you are wrong” quiz program  does not help students to grow.

Myth 5: Once the teachers see the students’ work through technology, the learning is done.  Formative assessment requires re-assessing and giving different strategies until the student shows improvement to the desired level. Often the students’ technology project is a draft and not the final version of his/her learning.  The student takes many assessments until he/she shows the desired mastery.

Link to Tuttle’s Formative Assessment books

Harry Grover Tuttle's Three Formative Assessment Books

Formative Assessment and Technology Tech Forum NY 2011 Presentation

Dr. Harry Grover Tuttle
htuttlebs@gmail.com

Formative Assessment:The process of helping students move immediately forward from their presented diagnosed learning to the desired learning goal.

Formative Assessment Process:
Student responds → Monitor → Diagnose → Feedback → Improvement Time → Success

Clearly state the learning goal and desired level of success

Use Exemplars to raise the bar of learning

Pre-test (“I can” forms for self assessment; content quizzes). Use digital forms such as Google Formsand Quia.

Formative Assessment and Technology
Student Responds	Monitor	Diagnose	Feedback	Time	Success
-Digital form is best – Write on wiki or blog- Sound or video recording – Take pictures of	– Record data using spreadsheet, Google Form, digital checklist, online program such as Quia.	– Compare against digital exemplar with specifics- Compare against digital checklist or formative rubric-Identify new strategy from digital library	-Orally give through avatar (Voki), audacity or screen cast; face to face – Refer to website that shows new strategy (QR code) – Suggest explanatory PowerPoint made by student or teacher – Read word processed info, text, or tweet – Go through digital exemplar	In-class time  or screen cast	– Eportfolio – Wall of Fame – See changes in spreadsheet graph -Celebrate!

His Books on Formative Assessment (Eye on Education)
Formative Assessment: Responding to Students
Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment
Improving Foreign Language Speaking Through Formative Assessment

Why do students’ final grades not reflect their highest achievements?

Many teachers calculate the students’ final  grade by having a grading program or spreadsheet average the four quarters and the final.

However, this averaged grade does not represent the students’ highest learning.

For example, if a student had a 70, 75, 80, 85 for each of the four quarters and 90 on the final,  that average (with equal weighting) is 80. This grade does not represent the students’ achievement which was a 90.

Why do we not award students’ their highest grade as their final grade as in formative assessment?

A future lawyer can take the bar exam as many times as possible.  When the future lawyer  passes, the law association accepts that passing; it does not average in previous failures.

Think of the number of young people who take their drivers’ test several times.  When they pass, they pass. The Department of Motor Vehicles does not average in the past failures. If they did, many young people would never pass the drivers’ test.

A writer  submits a manuscript to a publishing house and  the publishing house rejects it (gives it an F).  Does the next publishing house refuse it since the manuscript had  already been rejected somewhere else?

When will educators not penalize students for previous efforts?   When will educators reward student achievement instead of minimizing the achievement?

How do you grade students for their final grade?

My book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Your Students, is available through Eye on Education.

Also, my  book,  Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment, is available through Eye on Education.

Revision as key to the Writing Process

This graphic indicates an interesting aspect of the writing process.  Many students do a revision or possible two of their writing but they do not go through the constant revision that professional writers do.  However, the classroom teacher can build in many more revisions on the students’ work with little effort.

The students can peer review and revise their work as they do it.  For example, students write a thesis statement and then have  a peer assess it and give feedback based on the teacher’s guiding questions.  As the students develop their graphic organizer, other students can look it over for different categories, evidence and details and then the students can revise it.  As the students write their first body paragraph, another student can peer review it using a teacher-provided rubric and then the students can revise it.  The teacher can have writing strategies for that particular part of the writing process  to help the students who need additional assistance  in areas of the writing process or they can find other areas for peer review  as shown in my book Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment

Constant assessment and revision improves student writing.

How often do you students receive feedback on their writing during the writing process and then make revisions?

My book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Your Students, is available through Eye on Education.

Also, my  book,  Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment, is available through Eye on Education.

Web 2.0, Audience and Draft or Best? (Glogster example)

Educators state that Glogster is a great Web 2.0 tool since it makes the students’ work visible to the world.  I assume that the educators mean that the audience will be other students, teachers, and parents. Do students publish their drafts or   final products?  Usually the idea of audience implies that what a student offers to his/her audience is a final product just as musicians practice in private and then perform their best in a concert.   However, in looking at several random Glogster projects in Spanish, I discovered many basic  student errors.  Are educators having their students put their best work up on the web or just putting up rough drafts? Do we want the audience to see the many errors or do we want the audience to see the students’ best work?

The other reason to publish something is for the reaction of others to improve the work.  However, it seems that most Glogster posters are “final” posters. They do not get reviewed by others and then modified. The students simply do the e-poster.

If we believe in the power of audience as an essential element of Web 2.0, then we need to help our students give their best performances and not just their practice. Let’s improve the quality of our students’ work on the Web and therefore, help others to learn from our students.

My book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Your Students, is available through Eye on Education.

Also, my  book,  Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment, is available through Eye on Education.

10 Reasons to Use Online Practice Quizzes (Formative Assessment)

Students benefit greatly from being able to take online practice quizzes. These quizzes focus on the critical lower-level thinking learning for the students. The students can practice these activities on online quizzes, therefore, freeing up class time for higher-level thinking activities. Here are some reasons based on my use of Quia.

1) Students do not have to wonder if their answer is correct or not as they answer a question, the quiz programs tells the student.  Students get immediate reaction to their answer; they do not have to wait until the next class which may be 24 hours, 48 hours or more away.

2)  The online quiz program focuses on parts of the learning goal details that students might have overlooked.  Spanish students soon realize that they need an accent on a the preterite tense  such as hablé.  English students see that difference between “metaphor” and  “analogy”.

3) Students can read the teacher-provided strategy for improvement for each wrong answer.  The students do not just know that they are incorrect but they see an explanation of how to improve. They learn how to do it right;  they improve through formative assessment.

4)  Students can begin to use their new strategy  as they encounter a problem using the same concept that they just missed. They can verify if they are applying the strategy correctly.

5)  Students can answer without  feeling badly about having a wrong answer as can happen in a class. No other student knows.

6)  Students can retake a practice  quiz as often as they want to improve their score. The program can be set to keep the highest score.  If the practice quizzes are truly formative, then no grade will be taken.  Students will demonstrate their learning in classd and on  summative tests.

7)  Teachers can quickly analyze in what areas students are successful and in what areas they have demonstrated  learning gaps. They can select an appropriate learning strategy for each student for class.  The teachers can use the online quiz’s graphing analysis to see if any learning gaps are class wide. Such real time data improves the formative assessment process.

8)  Teachers do not lose time in going around the  classroom physically checking in homework. I figure that I save 10 minutes for my college class. 10 x 30 classes = 300 minutes, 5 additional hours of class time, or 3.7 additional class periods. Therefore, teachers have more time in class to help students improve and to work on higher level skills.

9)  Likewise, if teachers do go around the room checking in homework, they do not have the time to check each individual answer of each student. If students do twenty five questions, the teachers can only glance over the homework. The teachers probably do not have time to explain individually to each student which answers are incorrect and what strategy will work for each incorrect answer.

10)  Both  students and teachers can see the students’  progress over time as they see the online quiz scores.  In addition, teachers may notice patterns such as Tom does well on vocabulary quizzes but has trouble on grammar quizzes; teachers can then determine how to help Tom with his general learning problem of grammar.

How do you use online quizzes as part of your formative assessment?

My book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Your Students, is available through Eye on Education.

Also, my  book,  Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment, is available through Eye on Education.

Backward/inverted Teaching and Formative Assessment

The Journal Recently ran an article on backward or inverted teaching where the instructor has the students watch a teaching video as homework and then in class they go over problems and the teacher does more one-on-one work with students.

As the students watch the 30 minute  instructional video, who is checking to see if they are comprehending  the video? Are there self-checks built into the video? What happens if a student gets lost at the beginning?  What happens if a student does not understand a major concept?  The students  have to wait until the class for which they will have to do homework.

Such backward teaching seems to go against the current formative assessment approach of constantly monitoring students and helping them to overcome the learning gaps that appear as the lesson develops.  According to formative assessment, students should be helped with their  learning gap as soon as it appears; the students are immediately diagnosed and given appropriate feedback to overcome the gap. The longer the time between the gap and the feedback, the less effective the feedback.

I think that backward teaching can be done well  if appropriate formative assessments are built in just after new concepts or ways of thinking are introduced in the video. Probably a video teacher does not want to go more than ten minutes without doing a check-in on the students.  The teacher might want to go over commonly made mistakes as he/she presents the lesson.  When students know they are “right”, they feel more confident about their learning. When they begin to have doubts, they learn less.

How do you use teaching videos/clips in your class?

My book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Your Students, is available through Eye on Education.

Also, my  book,  Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment, is available through Eye on Education.

Check Lower Level Learning Immediately (Formative Assessment)

We all want our students to be learning at the higher levels of thinking.  However, they first have to learn  lower level information.  For example, Spanish students want to converse in the language but until they learn basic vocabulary and grammar such as the present tense; they cannot converse.  We can change the format of class so that after we have introduced the lower level learning and have them practice it enough to know whether they understand the concept, then we can have them practice the lower level learning at home.

If we have them use an online program that “drills” them, shows them the right answer, and shows them  how to get the right answer,  they can immediately know how well they are doing and be given the opportunity to improve.  They do not have to wait until the next day (or in terms of a college course five days or week) to find out if they can do this lower level thinking.  Since the teacher has put in the program   a full explanation of how to get the right answer, the students can overcome their learning gap (formative feedback aspect of formative assessment).  They can redo the program to verify that they can do this lower level activity well.  They feel successful.  They have practiced this learning in the safety of their homes.

Then, in class, the teacher  can move the students to higher levels from the lower level.  For example, the Spanish students can tell what activities they do that day, can describe the various activities of their family members, and ask others what they things they do during a day.

So how do you practice lower level learning so that students know immediately if they are right or wrong and if they wrong,  do they learn how to change their thinking to get right answers? How do you  use formative assessment to move your students forward in their learning?

My book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Your Students, is available through Eye on Education.

Also, my  book,  Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment, is available through Eye on Education.