Wednesday, May 30, 2007

AIM PROGRAM: "Blogging Rubrics"

Teacher 2.0: The Evidence

It is nearing the end of the school year here in Shanghai. As teachers and students both make the final push to the end, I have been busy looking for evidence of what teaching 2.0 looks like in our school, and I think I found some.

Scott Hossack, a 5th grade teacher, had his students create rubrics for grading blog posts:

My grade 5 class has been Blogging for 6 months. Some of them have developed into really good bloggers and are leaving me far behind with the amount of time and energy they are investing into their Blogs.

We were talking the other day after looking at what makes a good blogger and the question came up about how to assess our blogs. So after much thought, discussion and some arguments we made three assessment rubrics. The students are now looking at other blogs as well as their own and will try to evaluate where they need some work. I thought I would post these rubrics out there so other bloggers, teachers or students may comment on areas that we have forgotten or left out. They also could comment on whether you think the Blogging Rubric was easy to use to assess blogs. I hope these are useful to others and I would love to hear from people out there if they think they are good or bad.

Blogging Rubric #1

Blogging rubric # 2

Blogging Rubric #3

Talk about putting students at the center of learning. Some of Scott’s students have been posting on their blogs questions for me to answer about blogging. Here is just a sample of some of the questions the fifth graders are asking:

1) If you get spam comments on and on by only one person how do you stop that person from making more spam comments?

2) How do you know when a comment is a spam comment if Askimet doesn’t recognize it?

3) If you have uploaded something and then how do you upload something else?

I have talked to Scott about his experience with having the students read, evaluate, and create scoring rubrics for blogs. He plans to do this same lesson at the beginning of next year. He will start the students off by having them create the rubric that will be used to assess them the rest of the school year. As Scott said,

“I’m going to make digital writing just part of what we do from the beginning.”

I encourage you to look at the student created rubrics, and drop Scott and his class a comment on what you think. The next step is to have a class discussion on the three rubrics and have the class decide/vote on what the final rubric will be. I cannot think of a better way to start the school year than to have students take part in creating a rubric.

Students at the center of learning…that is Teaching 2.0

Then there is Jason Welker, a high school social studies teacher who posted this the other day on our utechtips.com blog:

This is amazing, not only is the Wiki a place where kids can come to review content from an entire semester of Economics, but they can also chat with their classmates and their teacher, discuss and ask for clarification on concepts they’re struggling with, go over practice questions and review together from their own homes! This has me thinking I’ll never need to hold another weekend review session in my classroom again. In fact, in a way the Wiki has become not only a complement to, but a substitute for the traditional classroom! Hey, maybe next year I’ll set up a review session in Second Life… then again, maybe not. Here’s what AP Economics sounds like in “chat speak”:

NIckZ: if a dude goes to a bank that’s newly opened and deposited 10,000. RR is 10%. so then 1000 would be required reserve, 9000 is loaned out correct?
vivar: k hold on
Ash: yeah
Mr. W: sure
vivar: if the reserve ratio is 10% and the bank voluntarily holds back another 10%, would the money multiplie be 1/20% or 1/10%?
Ash: i think 1/10%
NIckZ: money multiplier is the same. but u jst minus the loans by how many extra u have as reserves now
Ash: because money multiplier is 1/RR right?
NIckZ: yeah

gabber795 has joined. gabber795 is now Jacky vivar has left.

NIckZ: so lets say a guy saves 10,000. so 10% is required, 9000 can be loaned out. but he wants to save another 1000, so then loans is only 8000
Jacky: Mr Welker, do we need to know aggregate expenditure?
NIckZ: i dont think so. we didn’t really do that
Jacky: aite
roger: thanks nick. I’m leaving. bye all
roger has left.
Mr. W: Goodnight, and good luck
NIckZ: i was gona watch that movie, but i lost it
Students in control of their own learning…that is Teaching 2.0

Of course, you have to mention the Horizon Project that Vicki Davis and Julie Lindsay organized. This project included five classes from around the globe. One of the classes at our high school was involved in the project. This week a group of judges of which I am honored to be a part of, are grading the projects using rubrics created by Vicki, Julie, and a cohort of other volunteers. I encourage you to spend some time on the wiki. The level of learning, of writing, of creation is beyond anything I could have done in high school.

Students creating and contributing to the global body of information…that is teaching 2.0.

Teacher 2.0 puts students at the center of the learning experience; they allow students to control the learning environment and create content that contributes to the global body of information. Teacher 2.0 creates an environment that allows learning to happen. They guide students by engaging in conversations either virtual or face-to-face. Teacher 2.0 understands that learning occurs when every member of the class is both a student and a teacher. That teaching and learning goes beyond the walls of the physical classroom. Teacher 2.0 understands that content is ever changing; therefore focusing on skills that help us understand the changing nature of content is more critical than the content itself. Teacher 2.0 is caring, compassionate, and is willing to take risks.

What is your Teacher 2.0 evidence?

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