Thursday, October 4, 2012

Marks? What marks?!


Students in Ukraine receive scores out of 12. In this rubric, I have allowed those 12 points to include their neatness, performance and creativity. It is helpful to make a potentially subjective score become more concrete and objective.



Method Name: Rubrics

Number of Participants:
Any, the entire class
Benefits:
Rubrics are a form of assessment; it is formatted as a chart and each column represents the number of points a student may earn based on his/her performance in that category. Each row represents a requirement that the student must fulfill in order to earn the points for an overall score.
 
Click here for more information on how to create rubrics.
 
Click here to make your own rubric now!
 
 
There are many benefits to rubrics. Students will know exactly how they are being assessed, and will be able to assess themselves even prior to submitting work.
 
Different Uses:
Can be used on individual assignments, or as a daily score for overall performance (as seen in the example below)
Materials Needed:
 Poster paper and Markers
(or you can use photocopies of the rubrics, too!)
Rubric Example above courtesy of
 its.guilford.k12.nc.us  


Rubric Example above courtesy of
http://www.google.com.ua/imgres?hl=en&sa=G&biw=1024&bih=652&tbm=isch

They don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care


Activity Name: Student Journals

Number of Participants:
Any (although smaller numbers are often more manageable)
 Optimal number: 3 to 10 really dedicated students
 
How-to:
Student journaling is very simple and effective, but you must be committed to it. Students must receive prompt, in-depth feedback for the interest in journaling to last.
In my TEFL classroom (or ESL, as well) I use student journaling to hold informal, written “conversations” that will help students to learn a more functional, communicative English. Through trying to communicate their ideas, students more easily identify where there are holes in their language learning, and will begin rectify those holes.
Click here for more information or ideas!
 
Benefits:
Practice English in a ‘real-life’ context rather than simply academic English.
 
Students receive feedback in a written form that they can refer to in the future.
 
Students identify words/concepts they are unable to communicate and will ‘teach’ themselves in order to be able to communicate. (In this way, the journal can act as a sort of dictionary, too!)
 
Students are motivated by a teacher who cares about them and is interested in their lives.
 
Different Uses:
Practice formal compositions and their construction
Increase vocabulary by assigning new words to use
Give writing prompts that they must respond to
Materials Needed:
Journals
Paper, glue, stickers and markers to personalize and decorate
 
Examples of (personalized) Student Journals