Grades, success and clarification.

 http://www.jinxiboo.com/blog/tag/risks


I am writing to you after reading your exit cards, talking to a lot of you personally and talking to your last professor Dr. Savage. As well, I like to share my metacognition for what I am doing and why. The image here suggests what I would like for you to experience (A bit!). Here I will address several key issues that have arisen.

Culture of Learning.  The new story of classroom assessment is about creating a classroom for learning. That is students learn because they want to learn and not because they will be graded for their work.  The strategies for this approach are AfL (assessment for learning) and AaL (assessment as Learning). AfL provides feedback for students to know how to improve their work and what the next step is.  This means that the student must receive feedback in some form. As well the teacher receives feedback that informs her/him how to shift the teaching to reach more students. This feedback is gathered by strategies such as observation, tests, conversations and exit cards. Your exit cards provided me with a lot of information for my next steps.

In this classroom it is difficult to establish a culture of learning, as it is clear that you are all used to a culture for grading. The problem with a culture of grading is that you are learning for an external reward – usually pleasing the teacher or a grade on a paper. But this is short term learning and usually forgotten quickly.

In a CULTURE FOR LEARNING  we want students to engage in deep learning. They learn about a topic in depth exploring it from many points of view. One of the features of a culture for learning is that there are no grades. Students do not constantly need to worry about how they might lose a mark or gain one. Instead they can pay attention to the feedback that they get for their work and improve based on this feedback.

Jigsaw.  The jigsaw activity was more or less successful in different groups. If you were in a successful expert group you learned a lot about one literacy and if you were in a successful sharing group you learned some things about the different literacies – enough to know how to explore more deeply if you wish to and to think about what these literacies may mean in your practice. As well you were involved enough in the group discussions that you could write an informed paper for the midterm.    Jigsaw is a strategy used in schools and is generally enjoyed by students. It means that each student will know a lot about one aspect of a topic and enough about other sides of the issue to have general sense of whole.How might you sue it in PJ classes?

A successful jigsaw requires collaboration to be successful. Collaboration is a 21^st Century skill.  It depends on each person participating fully while in his or her expert group. It requires that each person fully shares the learning from the expert groups. To do less means that the others in the group who are learning from you are at a disadvantage when it comes to knowing about literacies. Do you think PJ students are too young to learn this? Or might it be easier to learn the responsibilities involved in collaboration by learning the skill early?

Culture of learning and the jigsaw/curriculum

When we asked why some groups were done so quickly with their sharing activity, we were told by several people that because the presentation wasn’t being marked, it wasn’t being taken seriously. We were a bit surprised and disappointed that not all groups took this activity seriously (For those that did, bravo!).  There is not much we can do about that now but we hope that for the rest of the course you will be aware of how your decision on your level of participation affects the others you are working with and ask that each of you pulls your own weight.  This will be particularly important in the curriculum building groups.

Meanwhile I wonder how you will build a culture of learning in your PJ classroom. How will you deal with grades? How will you encourage intrinsic motivation for your young learners?

On course organization

I understand your confusion around course expectations. This is my opportunity to clarify and adjust course expectations according to comments on the exit cards.  I totally understand your desire for a good grade and the importance of this. How can I deal with the anxiety around grades and my hope that you will embrace the challenge of trying new things and being creative? How can I create a relaxing environment where you are willing to be innovative and let go of the need to know exactly how to get the grade?  In class I would like to “negotiate” with you so that we can balance your needs with my hope for you. 

Blogging: Your 4 blogs are worth 20%.  This means that your blogs should be substantive with lots of links, images, even YouTubes.  Some of yours this week DID fit these criteria.  But some blogs missed the mark.  A paragraph is not enough. We want DEPTH and that takes more than a paragraph. One way to rectify this is to use your blog in a more ongoing way as a learning log. Here you could record thoughts and ahas! as you go along. Some of you are already doing that as the syllabus says you can continue writing and add thoughts and reflections in addition to the required 4 blog posts. 

Connecting to your online teacher blogs is a good thing to think about. Are they teaching 21^st Century skills? New literacies? Integrated curriculum? You can also collect relevant pieces from the Internet and use your blog to demonstrate the 21^st Century skill of curation. Think of an art curator or museum curator.  You are a curator of 21^St Century skills on the Internet using your blog.

The blog checkbrick is here and in the Syllabus:

Criteria	Comments
Uses “I” rather than third person
Integrates personal experiences with other resources and course material.
Demonstrates critical thinking
Reflects upon connections to uncover new insights
Deals with significant issues or concerns
Demonstrates insights, and understands the appreciation of issue complexity. Considers various perspectives and viewpoints
Uses language conventions properly. Blog is well organized, coherent and is reader-friendly
Shows evidence of awareness of branding. Professionally appealing. Addition of relevant images, hyperlinks and YouTubes.
Reference list if necessary

RPAT

After some thought and seeing your confusion, I realize that the best way to do this is to give you a choice of using a 5^th blog for the RPAT. You may also use any other technology you wish. Conventional choices would be powerpoint or prezi.   If you wish to use something like Glogster or Pinterest etc. for the task of curation, you can link this to the blog.  Here is an example of curation at Prof Susan Drake's paper. Note this is an automatic curation - I did not do the work to choose relevant pieces. You will also need a way to narrate your curation as your task is to: 

As a budding educator/researcher in the 21^st century one of the most important questions you need to ask yourself is: How will I incorporate the 21^st century literacies into my own practice? In order to help you answer this key question you will be engaging in a number of activities throughout the term. You will also be required to find and follow online a minimum of three interesting educators who regularly contribute online through a blog throughout the entire term. At least TWO of the educators must teach in the primary/junior panel. You are free to follow as many educators as you like. There is no maximum number. Everyone should follow Aviva Dunsiger. Her blog is Avivaloca at http://adunsiger.com/. Her twitter handle is @avivaloca. Other suggestions are Cathy Cassidy at http://mscassidysclass.edublogs.org/. Her Twitter handle is @misscathyclass. Ms Wideen’s classroom blog is at http://mrswideensclass.blogspot.ca. Her personal  blog is http://mrswideen.blogspot.ca. 

At the end of the term you will create a public online product that answers the key question: How will I incorporate the 21^st century literacies into my own practice? You may create this using anything you like (e.g. powerpoint, prezi, blog, Glogster, twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, a custom webpage, etc.) In your final product you MUST answer the key question AND you MUST provide evidence that you followed at least 3 interesting educators online throughout the entire term and learned from their practice. You may include evidence that you followed MORE than three interesting educators if you wish. You will be peer assessing one of your peer’s rich performance assessment tasks in addition to completing your own. Your rich performance assessment task is due by the beginning of class March 31^th, 2015. More detail will be provided in class.

This RPAT is worth 20%

Rich Performance Assessment Task Rubric

Criteria	Level 1	Level 2	Level 3	Level 4
Overall Understanding	Provides a limited answer to the question: How will I incorporate the 21st century Literacies into my own practice?	Provides some answer to the question: How will I incorporate the 21st century Literacies into my own practice?	Provides a comprehensive answer to the question: How will I incorporate the 21st century Literacies into my own practice?	Provides a thorough answer to the question: How will I incorporate the 21st century Literacies into my own practice?
Significant Issues	In a limited way addresses significant issues related to the 21st Century Literacies. Provides a limited answer to the “So what?” question (i.e. why do we care about this)	Somewhat addresses significant issues related to the 21st Century Literacies. Somewhat answers the “So what?” question (i.e. why do we care about this)	Comprehensively addresses significant issues related to the 21st Century Literacies. Comprehensively answers the “So what?” question (i.e. why do we care about this)	Thoroughly addresses significant issues related to the 21st Century Literacies. Thoroughly answers the “So what?” question (i.e. why do we care about this)
Depth/Critical Thinking	Provides a limited analysis of the issues. Questions are limited.	Provides some analysis of the issues. Questions some things – Why is this so?	Provides a comprehensive analysis of the issues. Questions everything – Why is this so?	Provides a thorough analysis of the issues. Questions everything – Why is this so? - keeps questioning.
Clarity and Logic	Reflections/Analysis are limited, organized in a limited fashion, and make limited conceptual sense	Reflections/Analysis are somewhat clear, somewhat organized, and make some conceptual sense	Reflections/Analysis are clear, well organized, and make conceptual sense	Reflections/Analysis are very clear, extremely organized, and make a lot of conceptual sense
Personal Experience	Interweaves personal experiences and reflections connected to course concepts into the final product in a limited way	Somewhat interweaves personal experiences and reflections connected to course concepts into the final product	Comprehensively interweaves personal experiences and reflections connected to course concepts into the final product	Thoroughly interweaves personal experiences and reflections connected to course concepts into the final product
Other Educators Experiences	Demonstrates they have followed 21st Century educators throughout the term in a limited way.	Somewhat demonstrates they have followed 21st Century educators throughout the term.	Comprehensively demonstrates they have followed 21st Century educators throughout the term.	Thoroughly demonstrates they have followed 21st Century educators throughout the term.

Horizontal scan and cluster

You will learn about the horizontal scan and cluster next week. This is similar to the vertical scan and cluster except that you look ACROSS the curriculum for what is similar.

Final thoughts

We are trying to engage you in a culture of learning.  We are not trying to make things difficult for you. If your spirit is in the right place, we know. So if things go wrong such as forgetting to hand in an exit card, just tell us. We are only trying to keep good participation records so we can justify the participation grade – but we are looking for patterns to do this – e.g. continual buzzing/chatting during lecture, never handing in an exit card, always leaving early or arriving late, etc.  We are on your side and want you to learn something worthwhile. What you learn may not be directly on the Syllabus. Be open. Be patient with us too.  We are all learners here.