Rubrics, Clickers, and Inspiration/Kidspiration

      Personally, I think rubrics are a great way for teachers to evaluate their students. Not only does it help remind the teacher what he/she is looking for, but it also helps guide the students in what needs to go into the assignment. Technology-based rubrics are an even better way to assess meaningful learning. While they are time consuming, they offer great amounts of detail and clearly state the expected outcomes. There are lots of banks of existing rubrics that teachers can access when they are short on time, however, as the authors of our textbook state, teachers must be cautious when using these banks. Teachers need to make sure the rubrics are appropriate for the anticipated learning outcomes. If a teacher does have the time to create a rubric, there are a number of tools that can assist in that area. Some of these are Rubricator (www.rubrics.com), Rubric Builder (http://landmark-project.com/classweb/tools/rubric_builder.php), and others. These are great sites to make your own rubric the way you want it. Rubrics, in my opinion, are one of the best ways to assess meaningful learning in students.

     Clicker technology consists of small, wireless keypads with alphanumeric keypads that are linked to a computer and used to support assessment and engage students. The best part about clicker assessment tools is that they allow students to respond to questions without raising their hands or talking over one another. They simply key in their response and the results can appear in front of the entire class. The reasons clicker technology is a great way to assess meaningful learning is because they can be used as a quick pre-test, to make sure your students understand the material, and to make sure students understand the conceptual knowledge. This technology is also a way to “even the playing field” as the book states. More often than not, students who are able to respond quicker will answer before other students can and students who get it wrong do not participate for fear of being incorrect. This often results in students refusing to answer because they know someone else will beat them to it or because they know they will be wrong. This way, all students can answer without fear of being wrong or too slow to respond. I think clicker technology is a great way to assess meaningful learning because it does allow for participation from all students. If used correctly, clicker technology can help students be more confident in answering questions, even if their answer is wrong or they respond after someone else. I would definitely like to make use of this technology because students have a hard time in math as it is. Most students would rather not answer than give a wrong answer. Using this technology can help solve that problem because it gives anonymity. Students don’t have to blurt out their answers and that would definitely help.

     After looking at the Inspiration and Kidspiration websites, I think they would make really great tools for a classroom. They allow the students to organize their thinking in a way that helps them understand the material. Because I am going to be teaching high school math, it was a little disappointing to see that Inspiration did not really cover any type of math-related topics. Although I could definitely use the graphic organizers to help my students organize the concepts, they would not be able to apply them. They would have to apply the concepts separately from the Inspiration website. Kidspiration, however, did have a section for math. Looking at some of the examples, I think it could definitely be a big help because it allows the students to not only organize the concepts, but it also allows them to apply their knowledge. Being able to apply that knowledge allows for much more meaningful learning in my opinion.

     I believe all three of these tools could be of use in my classroom. Rubrics can definitely be used for certain types of projects, such as writing a research paper over a famous mathematician or a particular theory. As the teacher, I could ask them all to give a response to a problem using the clicker technology. I also think that the Inspiration website could be of help for understanding some of the concepts they may be having trouble with. I am sure there are many different ways that these tools can be incorporated into classrooms; however, because I am a math major, these are the ways they could fit into my classroom. Technology is a great way to facilitate meaningful learning, but it is an even better way to assess it. We just have to make sure we are going about it the right way.

Jonassen, D., Howland, J., Marra, R., & Crismond, D. (2008). Meaningful learning With Technology (3rd Edition). Columbus, OH: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

Inspiration is an excellent tool for grades 6 – 12 (http://www.inspiration.com/)

Kidspiration is an excellent tool for grade K – 5 (http://www.inspiration.com/Kidspiration)

Chapter 9: Visualizing with Technologies

       Digital storytelling is a great way to really get students involved. They have to tap into their creative skills to create a storyboard, a camera to shoot the video, and some type of software on a computer to edit their video. In order to create a digital story, students have to really use their critical thinking skills in many different ways. I think this is a really great idea for students. Not only does it help them learn necessary skills, but it allows them to be creative and have fun while still learning. To be completely honest, I am not quite sure how I could use this type of activity in my classroom. There is not a lot of room for creativity in math unfortunately. I would definitely love to sit down and really try to come up with a way to make this work for a mathematics class. It could be used to help other students learn concepts that they might be having trouble with. I think students sometimes feel pressure to try to understand immediately if they ask the teacher to explain something again whereas if they ask a fellow student, they don’t feel that pressure. An activity like digital storytelling may very well be a very good tool for those struggling students. As I said, I would really have to think about a way that digital storytelling could be used for mathematics.

       Personally, when it comes to math, I am a very visual learner. I have to see how it is done before I can understand. I am the kind of person that you can’t just simply tell how to do it. You have to show me. Math is a very visual subject. Theorems and formulas are explained and then examples of how to use them are shown. That is how math works. You can’t just tell someone a theorem or formula and expect them to know how to use it. In the chapter, they talked about four different methods that would help make math more real for students. The first method suggested was graphing calculators. Graphing calculators are a great way for students to see representations of ideas. As was said, “Students often have difficulty distinguishing important features of functional relationships.” (p. 198) I, as a student, still have a hard time sometimes when I try to visualize those types of things in my head. When that happens, it is nice to have that calculator to give me the visual that I need. Being able to see that visual greatly enhances the understanding of the material. Students are able to understand the many representations of the relationship. The second method suggested was data sets. Allowing students to “tinker”, as the book says, with data helps them to analyze and interpret it in a way that they understand. They are able to develop understanding of the attributes, logical relationships, place value, and more.

Like data sets, Fathom Dynamic Statistics Software allows students to analyze and interpret on a much larger level. Not only does this help further their understanding of the material, but it also helps students develop those key abilities. The last method that was suggested was visual geometry. I think this is very important. A lot of the time, students are intimidated by geometry because there are so many formulas and rules that have to be used and followed. Most of the time, they have no idea why they need to use or follow them in the first place. They just do it because the teacher told them to. I think if students were able to visualize these rules and formulas, they would better understand the reasoning behind them and be better able to use them when necessary. As I said before, being able to have visuals when it comes to mathematics is never a bad thing. It only furthers the students’ understanding of the material they have to learn.

 

       In a way, I do think it is possible to learn from watching TV instruction, but I also think that there has to be some kind of interaction to really understand what you are learning. For example, you can watch a TV program on how to do certain exercises, but you don’t fully understand how to do those exercises until you do them yourself. The same could be said for math. You can watch an instructional video on how to solve a problem, but you are not going to understand that problem until you go through the steps yourself. So no, I don’t think it is possible to learn from TV alone. I think you can get a good idea on what you need to do by watching it, but you can’t fully understand until you have done it yourself.

Jonassen, D., Howland, J., Marra, R., & Crismond, D. (2008). Meaningful learning With Technology (3rd Edition). Columbus, OH: Pearson/Prentice Hall.