Chapter 11: Engaging Teachers and Students in Learning and Self-Reflection

Focus Question: How can teachers use student participation systems as effective assessment methods?

Photo Credit to Luluk on Flickr

Student can use participation systems, such as remote control devices known as clickers, to allow members of a class to respond collectively to questions posed by teachers. Participation systems are ways to actively engage students with academic material and to conduct quick assessments of what students know or still need to learn about a topic. Designing interesting open-ended questions is key to using student participation systems successfully with your students.



Tech Tool: Survey Monkey
Survey Monkey is a very innovative tool to gather results of a poll that the user created. It can be used to gather information, opinions, feedback, or results on certain personalized questions. It can also be used as a great tool to get students involved in lesson plans and determine what students may already know prior to a lesson plan. Survey Monkey is easy to use and apply to various websites, blogs, or Facebook. Although I am using the free version and assume there are limitations that I have yet to run into, I would be more than happy to pay for the upgrade once I have a larger need for the online tool.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

 

Summary and Connection:
Chapter 10 of the text book had great information on how teachers will be evaluated and how closely that evaluation is to how students are evaluated. The most important and interesting section of the chapter however was on "Democratic Schools and Classrooms". The text offered information on how to adapt to a more democratic system in the classroom and that I plan to use in my classroom to some extent.

• Shared decision-making among the students and the staff
• A learner-centered approach in which students choose their daily activities.
• Equality among staff and students
• Using the community as an extension of the classroom

I will definitely attempt to institute these methods while maintaining my own identity and strong opinions for what I feel is important for the education of my students. Another topic in the chapter that I felt was interesting was how to use technology to assist students to participate more in the classroom. The use of a clicker, more specifically the CSPulse, will help students become active and enthusiastic when questions are asked and a "game" format is used to get the competitive juices flowing and results are shown immediately. Finally, the information on preassessments was also useful because it reiterated what I believe to be important; to build on knowledge that students already possess about the lesson that is being taught. To get to the core of what the students already know the text book recommends to use surveys, which can be taken from online tools, pre-tests, and basic questions and discussions.

Photo Credit To Howard Hall on Flickr