Student Control

In my last post, I wrote about blended learning and how I had to give up some control of my students' learning in order to truly allow blended learning to happen in my classroom.  

I wanted to provide another thing I did at the end of last year with my 6th grade students that I will definitely be repeating this upcoming year...and more than once! 

Every year I have my 6th-grade science students create an online book about plants.  Instead of me just handing out a rubric for the book project this time, I allowed the students to help me create the rubric.  Asking them what they think a good informational book should contain proved to be an excellent task for them to complete as a class.  I got this idea after reading A teacher’s guide to classroom assessment: Understanding and using assessment to improve student learning by the Butler and McMunn. They provide an example of a teacher allowing students to create a rubric for a presentation.  I have to say that I witnessed the same reaction from my students when I first told them they were going to help me create a rubric for the books.

“The students responded to this session with a good attitude but at the same time showed some hesitancy because they had never been asked to do this” (Butler & McMumm, 2006, p.xxvii).  

I saw an excitement in some students that I had not seen before when they heard they were going to be able to help me grade their plant book projects.  I also saw students more engaged in the research of their book because they had the freedom to design the book how they saw fit. Something I need to consider is making sure all students are getting a saw in what the rubric contains.  When I first asked the question “What should a good informational book contain?” many of my advanced students were the only ones contributing to the conversation. After some prodding, eventually everyone had said something, and all seem excited.

I won't be allowing my students to create a rubric for all the project we do in class, but I saw them take more ownership in their grade with this method.

Tona

HE>I

Reference Butler, S.M. & McMunn, N.D. (2006). A teacher’s guide to classroom assessment: Understanding and using assessment to improve student learning. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.