Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Spring Semester Thus Far

In my visits to classes this semester, I have seen some great things happening!  I am going to share some of those in my blog over the next few weeks as I am able to reflect and write about each experience. 

First, I went to an English class last week and witnessed some great collaboration, critical thinking, and some creativity going on between students! 

Let me lay out the ground work.  I was in Jared Colley's English class, and this was a sophomore English class.  Jared gave the students a Google Doc with a set of instructions and questions based upon what the students were expected to read the previous nights.  Each student then placed their initials next to each question, with either a (+) or (-) sign next to their initials, a (+) indicating they were confident with their answer to the question or a (-) indicating they were unsure or not confident about the their answer to the question.  Jared then grouped the students according to which questions they were confident in their answers, and had them discuss them.  In this Google Doc, the students then had to put their answers to the questions underneath each question.  The students were encouraged to critically think about each others answers, and then come up with a group answer to the question. 

What is really interesting about this, is that these are students, who in a large group, would not otherwise freely give their answers.  They are a little shy.  However, the Google Doc, and the small group work, helped give them the confidence to answer the questions, and collaborate in small groups.  Jared told me that there was more great discussion going on in the groups than he anticipated from this batch of students.

In addition, the + and - system that he used, allowed him to see where there was understanding and where he did not reach understanding with the students. In fact, there was one question in particular that the whole class had put (-) signs by their names.  This gave him immediate feedback about that particular concept, and he knew that this was something that he must discuss further with the class to get them to understand it. 

I thought that this was a pretty ingenious example of using technology to help gauge understanding and actually get students to collaborate and talk with each other, when if they were left to the larger group, they would not! 

Thank you, Jared for letting me visit and sharing this awesome lesson!

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