Lesson Learnded Week 5

Student achievement takes commitment from both the teacher and student. Yes, most of effort must come from the student, but we as teachers also need to give the students the tools to achieve success. Sometimes we as teachers do not fully prepare which in turn does not give the student base to build on the lesson and then we wonder why we get the poor quality work is turned in. This week’s readings gave several suggestions in regards on how teachers can prepare so that we can help students become more conscious of their efforts and monitor these efforts for the purpose of becoming more involved and responsible for their learning goals. Introducing students’ tools, such as Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, and Moviemaker to name a few that can assist them in creating projects that incorporate different types of technology that visibly demonstrate the relationship between students’ efforts and their achievement levels. As facilitators we are now able to find online resources that help in the creation of rubrics based specifically on student effort. The rubrics on effort could include categories like participation, attention, note taking, homework, and studying. Such rubrics could be a useful tool in helping students understand exactly what is expected of them and how they will be graded. If students understand the expectations of the project the rubrics themselves become a good tool for students becoming aware of their level participation, in a very concrete, objective manner. These suggestions and strategies could be very helpful in creating student awareness and accountability.

Assessing students’ retention in given lessons is something that teachers use to measure understanding the material students were introduced to, Web 2.0 gave examples of several different types’ technology tools that assess and that increase students' awareness of individual effort and achievement. Among the Web 2.0 tools listed, blogs, wikis, podcasts, video conferences, social bookmarks, and electronic portfolios were discussed in depth. In addition to these tools, the readings provided insight on the importance of formative assessments used to monitor student progress. Several examples of formative assessment were included in the videos, as well. One of this week’s videos touched on how gaming can be used as an effective technique when assessing students' abilities. The immediate feedback from this forum of assessment seems to be very beneficial to students, rather than the traditional delayed response time from the teacher. It is clear that the direction of education must change as far as tools used for instruction and assessment methods.