Week 6 (b): Weekly Reflection: Begin to Implement the Change

Dear Sir/Madam,

This training would not be worth if it could not bring changes in our classrooms activities!

As for me, in week 4, I described many problems that I face in my class, and in week 5, it was an occasion to be more specific and focus on one which is ASSESSMENT. In fact, I used to set myself marking criteria, but I was happy to know that using http://rubistar.4teachers.org, I can have assessment criteria. Expectations will be known and clear.

Assuredly, before assessing, I must teach! Though I am not teaching this term (we are on holidays and the new academic year will start late September 2013 or early October 2013), I usually teach Reading and Writing; Listening and Speaking Skills.

There are many resources that will help us:

http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2008/03/17/the-best-sites-to-practice-speaking-english/

http://www.esl-lab.com/

http://www.esl-lab.com/schedule/schedrd1.htm

http://elllo.org/

https://www.ted.com/

http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/short-stories

etc… (Most of other references are mentioned in my delicious page)

My students and I will use MOODLE and/or schoology will open/create accounts at https://moodle.org/ and/or https://www.schoology.com/home.php  where we will use learning management system to enhance collaboration, engage students, and allow them to share instructional resources, best practices, and more on a local and global scale. Particularly, Schoology streamlines the systematic processes of content creation and management, grade recording, attendance, and more so you can spend less time on redundant tasks.

Briefly,

1. I will assign students tasks;

2. I will give them links to explore (links related to the task to be accomplished) or other kind of work: essays, letters, stories,…;

3. I will use http://rubistar.4teachers.org to set assessment criteria;

4. I will ask them to create accounts in https://moodle.org/ and/or in https://www.schoology.com/home.php to facilitate and quicken the grading process and avoid spending much time. Using these tools, I will create forms of assessment and they will automatically score for me. I hope this will be a great addition to solve some (if not all) problems related to the assessment process.

Your contribution to the enrichment of the implementation of these solutions to the assessment problem is welcome!

Thank you very much!

Sosthene