With the last literature group meeting with the book Out of the Dust, it was finally nice to have good conversations. With the majority of the book being very negative, it was nice to see a happy ending. I have always wondered how other people read, view, and interpret the same material I read and this activity is a good way to see that. It is good to see how others get some of the same things as me from the readings but even better so learn how others see things differently.
Being in the reading class and learning the importance of word sorts has been a bog learning tool. Seeing how using a word sort in other content areas was very interesting. I enjoyed completing this activity and getting a hands on experience in how to use it across contents. I think the strategy of using it at the beginning of the lesson and the revisiting the sort at the end is a good way for a student to see how their ideas can change once going through the lesson.
After going through all of the different types of assessments, I feel a bit overwhelmed. There is a lot that goes into making a good assessment. I feel like for the beginning teacher, it will be beneficial to reach out to those around me for examples used before and then just tweek them for the purposes I will be using them for. The rubric from the VDOE is very generic. I think that might be a useful starting point but I might be better off revisiting any of the rubrics I can pull up from my previous courses to use as a guide. I like the rubric from the Math course that only had the 3 columns where you write what needs to be improved on the left and what parts exceed expectations on the right. It is short and sweet and allows a teacher to provide feedback write on the rubric.
I enjoyed the video on the Theater boxes. This seems like a great activity to get kids working together doing a fun project. I wonder how long this activity takes. I think this is another activity that could be used across content areas. The students seem to be excited about doing it so using it across contents would keep them engaged and excited.
Mike, I want to address your question about “how long would this take?” when you refer to the theater box. Please consider this when you try and work out your time element – if this lesson will have cross-curricular impacts you borrow the time you need for this lesson from those curricular areas. However, you must be very strategic at the outset to align your standards and skills from each of the content areas carefully into the assessment. Seeing concrete evidence of standards and skills alignment will validate the need for the time involved to complete an assessment such as this. I like the way you are thinking. I also like that you are hooked on word sorts!