Week 5 - Reflections

Now was this week interesting or what!? I sure did find it to be such, because I learned lots of new things and more importantly the knowledge we acquired is really applicable, it is not just some theory, but something we can really use and bring into our classrooms.

First to be mentioned are Rubrics, PBL and WebQuests.
I don't know where to start. Each of these methods has left such a huge impact on me and they will definitely find their way into my classroom. I found out what a great assessment tool rubrics are and that they should be introduced slowly, perhaps with checklists at the beginning as their predecessors. I am particularly fond of rubrics when it comes to class debate grading since I believe it can make the teacher's job much easier and the students also know what is the value scale and how they rank on it. This rate of introduction goes for PBL too and projects we might hand out to our students should be on a small scale at first before moving onto a more complex ones, but nevertheless they are such a great method. WebQuests are also the story of their own and I find them to be a great way for self improvement and a great way to hand out interesting homework and stimulate self education.

Next we got to create a rubric of our own and I we did this using a perfect website for the job, http://rubistar.4teachers.org/
I have created my rubric with ease for the class debate on the topic "Abortion; Pro Vs. Con" and you can check it out at http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php?screen=ShowRubric&rubric_id=2154788&

Finally we had to describe a technology-related change that we will implement to help with one or more of the issues we have mentioned in Week 4 and I thought of a little competition which would raise the vocabulary level and motivation in the class and you can check it out in the corresponding topic in our nicenet classroom.


All in all, I really liked this week and its tasks which were put before us because I sure learned a lot, and perhaps I was delighted most with knowledge gained from this week in particular, but who knows what is hiding behind the corner in the upcoming Week 6.


Let's find out!