Are Tests the Only Way to Analyze Learning?

I say NO! 

*I do think they are still a good indicator of learning, but technology can play a key role in thinking outside the box.*

Traditionally, teachers teach the material, the students take notes, do practice problems and then after so long, they show what they know with the dreaded test.  I don't know about you, but it never failed, every test I took I would make stupid mistakes like add a number when I should have subtracted or skip over the "NOT" in the multiple choice questions.  While I did show that I had learned the material, my grade never truly reflected the extent of my knowledge.  As a teacher, I know whether my students have learned the material by looking at their test even if make a silly error.  I do always give them a little leeway and try to make their test grade actually reflect the extent of their knowledge.  I tried something new this year and feel that it is almost a better way to gauge their understanding.

This year I implemented unit projects.  I don't give my class a lot of homework, but I have been giving them an at home project.  As a teacher, when I gave them this project for the first time, I was very afraid of what I was going to get turned in.  I had no examples to show them and I didn't want to really put any restrictions on it because I wanted them to be as creative as they wanted to.  I wanted them to integrate their own hobbies and likes into their project to hopefully make it more fun for them.  While my first rubric was a little different, this is tweaked rubric that I plan on sticking with.  Unit Project Rubric Here is one example of one from our last unit.  While their may be spelling or grammar errors, my focus is the math. :)  Every time we do their presentations, I am blown away with their creativity.  I have been trying to expand these projects to other subjects and units.  For their reading project, we were studying text structure between narratives, poems, and reader's theater.  So their project for that unit was to take a short story and make it into a play. To me, this completely demonstrates that they understand the difference in text structure.  They have to turn their script into me and perform their play for the class.  Really this is even taking what we learned in class one step further.  Pulling in a higher level on Bloom's, than even the test would show.  

I am also getting 5 iPads in January.  I plan on making short lessons in SMART Notebook for the students to solve.  They can use the page recording feature to show how they solved the problem and explain it to the class.

All of the above are great ways to see whether students have mastered the concepts taught.  While I still give them a unit test, it is always worth an equal amount of points as their projects.  I have been receiving great feedback from the parents and the students.  One student even said that she learned the material better because she had to present it.

If you try these or have something similar that you would like to share I would love to see it!!!

Visual Literacy and the Internet

The internet has opened up a huge can of worms for teaching using visual literacy.  Students see and experience so much now through the internet and interactions they have online.  While there are some drawbacks to the internet, there is an increasing amount of positives.
The amount of visual information on the internet has an amazing impact on our students.  We are able to show them abstract concepts that they would not have understood previously from reading about it.  They can experience so much more and get a deeper understanding by watching something happen or seeing a picture of it.  When I taught a class a English Language Learners, we were reading a story that mentioned the White House and a student raised their hand and said that they didn't know what it looked like.  It took me about 10 seconds to Google the image and put it on my projector.  In turn, the class was able to understand the story more now that they knew what the story was describing.

There are so many strategies that visual literacy entails that you can use in your classroom.  You could find a very detailed picture and have the students write paragraphs to describe it.  That could easily be turned into a very indepth adjective lesson. You could also use visuals the other way.  Students could have a writing assignment or an assignment for other subjects that they need to find a picture to help describe what they are thinking. 
I want to continue to incorporate more and more uses of the internet in my teaching.  I want to give the students webquests, let them explore, and learn about things that interest them.  I want to give them more outlets to express themselves and desmonstrate their learning.

A Technology Infused Classroom

With technology comes endless possibilities.  Everyday more and more programs, apps, and ideas are released into the World Wide Web and accessible to use with a click of the mouse or a tap of our finger.  Our digital age students are traveling in that same boat with us.  We would be doing them an injustice to not tap into technology in our classrooms.  A technology infused classroom can look however you want it to look.  You could focus on a one to one learning environment, group projects, or use it as a resource.  As of right now, my classroom technology resources are 8 iPod touches and the ability to go to the computer lab once every 6 days.  My focus is going to be what I am doing in technology fused classroom and then what I hope my technology infused classroom will eventually look like after I can receive some grants for my classroom. :)

Last year, we were able to take our class to the computer lab almost every day.  I spent a lot of time finding websites and resources that my students could do in the computer lab (apart from our boring learning to type program) that meshed well with our curriculum.  This year, for some reason, we are not able to have all of this time so I have but thinking and working outside of the box to help my students get the technology support that they need in today's everyday life.

I am infusing more and more technology everyday into my classroom.  I started my infusion by giving the students short tutorials into really cool programs, websites, etc that they could use for projects to turn into me.  I gave them a short tutorial in using powtoons, Windows Movie Maker, My Story Maker, and because they were fascinated in my lessons, SMART Notebook.  My infusion started with at home projects where they had to demonstrate to me that they learned a math standard.  They demonstrated this by "teaching" it to the class.  I was (and still am) blown away by some of the stuff they came up with.  Here are a couple (remember 4th graders!):

 Powtoons Video
Prezi
This got me thinking and wondering how much of this stuff could I give them time to do in class?  How much of this could we accomplish with the iPods and the computer lab once every 6 days?  My student that did the Prezi researched songs for rounding, my other student drew pictures and scanned them into her Powtoons video, and well I don't think I need to talk about the awesome lego video. 
While I am constantly adding more into my technology infused classroom, this is what it looks like now.  We still type for about half the time when we are in the computer (it is a very important skill), but we spend the other half doing curriculum based stuff or letting them research/play with programs to find a use for it.  We did a simple, fun synonyms/antonyms activity where I gave them a word and and say synonym or antonym, they would then give me a corresponding word. To make this more fun and interactive, we did it in the computer lab using awwapp.com, an interactive whiteboard site.  They would "write" their answer with their mouse, turn their monitor off until I saw everyone was done and I would say "show me."  We have just started to play around with stop motion in class.  I have gathered all kinds of supplies for them to use to make some educational videos using Lego's free movie maker app.  We also practice our math facts using Math Drills Lite.  I am constantly trying to find more ways to infuse technology into my classroom but feel that at this juncture that I do have a technology infused classroom!
I did complete a grant to get 4 iPads for my classroom and am waiting to here if I was selected.  Where I am hoping to go is away from worksheet of any kind.  I am hoping to make short SMART Notebook files that have review problems, word problems, reading passages etc in them.  I want to make them interactive, manipulating the text, math manipulatives etc to practice the material.  Lastly, I want to put in answer slides so they can check their work.  I also asked for an adapter to plug them into the projector so they can explain how they came up with their answer or how they found it (working on those speaking and listening skills).  I also hope to continue furthering our project based learning and taking it to a whole other level.  Hopefully, something that I have shared will help inspire you and know that even 4th graders can rise to any occasion and blow you away with their creativity!

 Teaching Our Digital Age Students

As educators in the 21st century, we have brand new challenges and successes with out digital age students.  It has become increasingly important to utilize a variety of different teaching strategies to help meet the needs of every student and to teach our new Common Core standards (or maybe our new Arizona College and Career Ready Standards).Common Core flak may spur changes Our new standards call for more constructivist strategies. They require inquiry and learning to be done by the students, no more are the days where we feed information to our students.  But we do need to take the time to teach them how to determine whether the information they find is accurate or not.  This is where some of the other strategies could make more of an appearance. We also have challenges reaching our students.


Our digital age students learn how to use technology younger and younger.  Most students have iPods/iPads or similar devices.  They are proficient with their computer skills since they play many games on them.  While you are shopping at stores you are constantly seeing kids with electronics in their face.  This has made teaching easier yet also more challenging.  Students have gotten used to the behaviorist idea of instant feedback through their electronic usage.  So while this can make it more difficult to engage students without electronics, it makes it so much easier to reach them with their own methods.  Taking a old method that the students dread, journaling, and giving them the opportunity to do it on an iPod or the computer, instantly makes the task fun.