This weeks topics that caught my attention:
- Performance based assessments.
- Thinking as a Historians.
We spent majority of the class discussing performance based assessments. When I was in school all we had was tests, quiz, and every now and then we had a huge project to do. I think that performance based assessments puts a spin on assessment and allows children to think outside the box. But I will say it scares me to have to think about all the extra work it requires to come up with these type of assessments in lesson plans. When we were talking about the rubrics I was thinking about how much more I would have to include in my lesson plans. Don’t get me wrong I want to do anything to make sure my children are learning in a way that is fun for me but I do not want to over work myself focusing so much on making rubrics and how I would grade these type of assessments.
Toward the end of class we looked at the first Thanksgiving again. In the question it used the word “historians” this word has been brought to my attention several times in this class but I still don’t feel like I am thinking like a historian. Reflecting off the question, I feel like that we were supposed to put ourselves in a historian shoes. I had a lot of trouble doing that. I think for children who have trouble doing this there can be different ways of thinking like this. Im going to work on mine in the mean time.
Hi Haley, thank you for your honest reflection. I can understand that you might feel a little overwhelmed right now thinking about implementing performance assessments with rubrics! With practice it will all come together for you and will not take as long as you think! Thinking like an historian means that you are using critical thinking skills to analyze primary sources to learn about history. When you participated in the Rosa Parks lesson you read primary source documents to learn that a boycott was in the works up to a year before Rosa Parks stayed in her seat! The letter written by JoAnne Robinson to the mayor led us to know that Rosa not getting up was no random act! For many years the story of Rosa Parks was about a tired lady who did not feel like getting up from her seat! This story was so wrong! Because you analyzed these documents to find out what was going on before the Montgomery Bus Boycott you were thinking like a historian!