Talk About Assessment,
In all honesty, I found myself quite lost in both these chapters, unable to personally identify or connect with the assessment methods presented by Cooper. In chapter 5, a vast majority of the content was dedicated to Nadine, and her assessment methods, and while I cannot personally speak for my past teachers and professors, I do not recall ever being subjected to assessment methods such as reciprocal teacher, surveys and interviews or the cloze procedures. While I have not been subjected to these methods, I do acknowledge the benefits of implementing them in the classroom. In fact, after reading chapter 5, I’ve realized how the practice of reciprocal teaching can have a profound effect on students’ ability to achieve success within the classroom. As per claimed by Cooper, students who are experiencing difficulty grasping new material can meet with their peers to discuss the content in a non threatening way. In University, and High School, in particular, I always felt intimidated speaking to my teachers and professors. In fact, I felt intimidated when others read my work. I always felt that my work was not satisfactory or lacking. For the reason mentioned above, I would often rely on my classmates to help me with my work. In my experience, classmates are often ready and willing to help, and they can also teach you alternative ways of completing work. In chapter 6, Cooper identifies the three problems with questioning techniques. In problem 1, titled: Lack of Participation, Cooper identifies four types of students:
While it can be argued that this part of the chapter does not contain the bulk of the information, these four types of students can easily be identified within the classroom. As of my first day at Pinecrest Public School, I was able to recognize these four types of students. As per claimed by Cooper, “the problem with this situation is that very few students are thinking about what they learned” (Cooper 107). In this situation, students are, in most cases, thinking of something else, which in most cases does not pertain to the question or topic at hand. If I had to categorize myself according to these four types of students, I would label myself as a “I hope she doesn't pick me.” In my experience, if a teacher or professor posed a question, I was always afraid of saying the wrong answer, although in some cases I did know the answer, I always felt a little insecure about my abilities. So, in that case, what Cooper says is quite true. When a teacher or professor poses a question to the class, often the students are not focusing on answering the question, but rather focusing on blending in the back ground in hopes of not being called upon. While some student do want to answer the question, a vast majority want to simply slide by hoping that the teacher distributes the day’s assignment. Instructional Strategies. While this text is quite strenuous, it does provide a great deal of information, and useful insight into instructional strategies, as per claimed by the title. Firstly, the importance of morning activities such as bell ringers seemed curious. Every morning in Ms. Bergquist's grade 3 and 4 class, she does an activity called “eye-openers.” The activity is simple, take your composition book, and answer the question written on the board. The eye-opener of the day: In three sentences, write three things about our class that everyone should know. This short 15 minute activity allows for students to settle down in their seats, and prepare themselves for the day. It also allows the students to calm down after being outside for a short while. From what I could tell, the students really enjoyed sharing their ideas ideas with the class. Although the answer were simple such as, “listen to the teach,” and “we are room 49,” the student actively engaged and participated to the greatest of their abilities. The “eye-opener” activity was also a great segue into the the lesson of the day, which was literacy. Furthermore, anchor and sponge activities are also an important part of Ms. Bergquist's lesson plan. At Pinecrest, anchor and sponge activities are used when students finish their work before the rest of the class. These activities are performed individually, and students are permitted to use Chromebooks to do math games online. The students really seemed to enjoy using and working with the computers because it allowed them to access a variety of learning tool, but also helped them acquire digital literacy skills that are quite pertinent nowadays. Moreover, the recall and rehearsal theory as coined by Doyle and Strauss explains that “we give people to much gum to chew (content) and not enough time to chew it (process)” (130) Although Doyle and Strauss explain this theory is simple terms, it is quite true. In my opinion, students are given a lot of material, and are given a short amount of time to process this new content. In high school, students are taught a subject, and subsequently tested on their knowledge a few weeks or even days later. In order to recall the most information during the examination, as a study method, I would sit at my desk and try to memorize the most information possible. The day of the test, I would blurt out everything I remembered on a piece of paper. Was this effective? I would argue that this method is not effective because days and even moment after the test, I would only remember a little of what I had actually studied. So, perhaps it is more beneficial if students are made to rehearse the material covered until it becomes clear. When I study for a test, I could easily memorize ten pages of notes, another ten pages of reading notes, and anything I remembered from the class, but this is my opinion, is not a proper way to process new content because I did not necessarily understand the information, I was just memorizing it. In University, I have had numerous courses, in which the students were evaluated according to three multiple choice examination. Of course, the weight attributed to each test was different. But, as claimed in Growing Success, teachers are not assessing their students properly because they are not obtaining information through a variety of means, and more importantly, this method does not promote learning. Briefly, while the text did provide far more information than what I touched upon, the ideas mentioned above, stood out to me because they particularly pertained to my CLS experience, but also my academic experience, as a whole.
1 Comment
linda radford
10/6/2015 07:17:21 pm
Hi Brooke, What a highly engaging response here thanks to your work of weaving in your own experiences as a student and what you have observed during CSL so far. I also appreciate the reference you have made to Growing Success here, as it reminds us that what Cooper is writing about isn't just a good idea. It is actually part of Ontario's assessment policy :)
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