Nisha's Reflection 2 - Writing to learn strategies

You know how it feels when you come across an article that clearly expresses what you have been thinking about or what you believe? Well I had that experience with Kathy J. Knipper and Timothy J.Duggan’s article on Writing to learn across the currlculum: Tools for comprehension in content area classes. The article clearly outlines the difference between learning to write which focuses on the processes/stages involved in writing which “undergo multiple changes resulting in a published document” with writing to learn which provides students with an opportunity “to recall, clarify, and question what they know about a subject and what they still wonder about with regard to that subject matter” (Knipper & Duggan, 2006). For this blog entry and for my individual assignment I will be focusing on how student’s content knowledge can be assessed via writing for the alternative assessment. I will also provide reasons as to why writing to learn instead of learning to write is more effective in assessing student’s content knowledge.

I believe that writing to learn is essential as it helps students to think critically about a topic. Like the article says “being able to express thinking in writing is a skill students take with them beyond” the classrooms (Knipper & Duggan, 2006). We hear these word “critcal thinking” countless times and how teachers need to develop this essential skill in our students. However as teachers I believe that we cannot expect our studens to think critically about a topic in our traditional assessments in the form of projects or tests/exams when our students have not been exposed to low- stakes writing assignments consistently throughout the year, that lead to deeper critical thinking required in high-stake traditional assessments. Thus I am focusing on writing to learn as a strategy to use for the alternative assessment as it will not only result in good and well structured exam/test scripts for the traditional assessments but more importantly because it is an essential skill that students need to learn, as translating their thinking into writing is one major form of communication that will help them in their work life.

One issue teachers have with writing to learn as mentioned in the article is that teachers are discouraged by the pile of marking that needs to be done when writing tasks are given to students. The solution to this issue which I also feel is brilliant and useful especially when assessing the student’s content knowledge would be to use” rubrics and checklists to give feedback” (Knipper & Duggan, 2006). Also through the use of such guiding tools students will inevitably be learning how to write well together with writing to learn. Thus good writing can be directed through the use of checklists. Also checklists are extremely useful in encouraging students to be “more self-directed in their mastery of content knowledge”. When rubrics are clear and measurable they not only aid the teacher in marking but also and more importantly gives the students an opportunity for “self monitoring and assessment” of their own work and explains to them the critera that will be used to evalute their work. Apart from using tools to aid in assessment, writing to learn is also more effective when scaffolds in the form of subquestions are given to the students in the intial writing processes so as to guide students to answer the main question.

One thing to note is that writing to learn is not just limitted to writing essay questions but can be used in “creative and critical writing strategies” whereby the information is presented in a form of a poem, word maps, journal writing and so on (Knipper & Duggan, 2006). Another thing that is good in using writing to learn strategies is that it requires students to be “active learners” by “putting their thinking and knowledge onto paper instead of passive consumers of information. More importantly using the writing to learn strategies “demands participation by every student, not just those who volunteer (Knipper & Duggan, 2006).

Elizabeth's Reflection 2

Tharp (2010) describes the use of wiki as the “hook that would motivate and engage students” in collaborative writing. This medium of working together allows students to work on a platform that they are more familiar and comfortable with, and also allows them to move away from the “formal assessment” mentality. There is an added sense of ownership to their work since students would have had to create and design their homepage, ensuring it is presentable and reader-friendly. This avenue of learning and working together would work well with students who prefer an environment that is less structured, which gives them the flexibility to work at their own pace and timing. 

Tharp’s “Wiki, Wiki, Wiki –WHAT?” gives an insight into how group dynamics has effects on how the group operates in working collaboratively. The two main ways in which groups will operate are dialogically (where all group members work together in all aspects) and hierarchically (where the work is distributed into parts and each works on their own parts). While the latter may result in greater efficiency, the main intent of working collaboratively would not be achieved. The use of wiki (a more elaborate version of GoogleDocs) allows students to edit each others’ work and giving feedback to one other. This way, there is an exchange of ideas both offline (in class) and online (as they work on the wiki page). 

While there may be “loopholes” when it comes to assessing students’ work that are done collaboratively online, careful scaffolding of the rubrics as well as implementing guidelines for the students will ensure that the work done will fulfil the objectives of working collaboratively. The advantage of using wiki spaces is that the teacher is able to monitor the progress of the group by checking the “history log”, which shows how much each person has contributed at every stage. Although the activity takes place in cyberspace, the role of the teacher continues to remains vital in ensuring that there are no “slackers” in the groups.

Paul Sze, in his article “Online Collaborative Writing Using Wikis” mentions that students enjoyed this form of writing activity as it “led to a visible product on the Web: the completed Wiki”. I believe the use of an online platform, such as wiki, in collaborative writing not only encourages students of different skills and personalities to learn from one other, but it also takes them away from the monotony of a classroom and into an environment where they are able to discuss freely. 

Kheng May's ACR422 Reflection II

When I was a student, I was always intrigued when my teacher used ICT in the classroom. It was entertaining to see images and words move past the screen (regardless of the subject) and I always paid attention whenever ICT was involved. This was true for my homework as well, and I definitely put in more effort when there was a chance for me to use the computer. In our present day, a time that is a lot more tech-savvy than before, ICT in classrooms is no longer just teaching from PowerPoint Slides or a way to entertain students; it is a way of life and an important part of our curriculum. We are teaching in “their world” now, as Melissa Comer puts it and we need to get with their time. Comer’s article talks about the importance of an alternative form of assessment and how the use of technology in classrooms can fulfill this need. 

What struck me most about the article was how Comer accessed students’ interests before choosing an appropriate text for the class. We normally forget about students’ interests and focus on the class profile and ability, the difficulty level of the text and the length and appropriateness of the text to that particular level. However, Comer points out the benefits of considering students’ interests and I think it is something that we should consider as teachers. I understand that it is difficult to do this in a Singapore context and a “interest survey” might not be applicable to the text chosen but I think we can do this for poetry? Perhaps getting the students interested in reading poetry about their favourite topic can enhance learning and help them to retain what they have learnt. The questions in the survey are well crafted to finding out ore about the students and it also allows for teacher-student bonding since students can recommend books to the teachers to read.

Students’ interests is crucial in their learning which brings me to my main point of using technology in the classroom. The use of social media platforms such as Twitter or Facebook can be very exciting and interesting for students. It conextualizes their learning and it is no longer so remote from the world they live in. While I feel the cyber-hunts are too easy for students in our current day and age (they google almost everything anyway), the use of social media platforms can be used as a tool for education and not just for fun or entertainment. Comer suggests that “students today are accustomed to translating their every thought and feeling into words”, which makes Twitter an ideal form of assessment. The 140-character limit forces them to be creative when tweeting since the focus is on the content of the tweet and not the writing; they can use short forms or abbreviations or even “internet lingo”. To build up on Comer’s idea of using Twitter, I feel that it is a good way to check on students’ understanding on a weekly basis. The tweets are short and easy to assess and the teacher can also showcase the best tweets of the week to the class, giving the students ownership and a sense of pride over their work. This ties in with what Comer was suggesting about assessing for learning and not of learning. The tweets are assessed weekly on a certain set of rubrics that is relevant to that assignment. Each week, students can build upon what they’ve learnt instead of cramming everything into their brains and regurgitating them in an exam. The Singapore Literature curriculum needs to start moving away from summative assessment and have more meaningful “authentic assessments” to improve not only students’ learning but to help the teacher gain insight into their students. The use of ICT and technology in a classroom can help to do just that. I strongly believe that it is an area that more teachers should look into and incorporate into their lessons.

Ada's Reflections II - Twitteracy: Tweeting as a New Literacy Practice by Christine Greenhow & Benjamin Gleason

In the educational context, the term ‘assessment’ seems to have the uncanny ability of evoking terrors among students as one thing would often surface in their minds and that would be – grades. Will it be graded or will it not? If it is graded, extra effort will be invested by the students and if it is not, then perhaps the students will just do the minimum. This would then distort the necessity and potentially neutral position of assessments in school, especially when teachers depend on it to possibly gauge and monitor their students’ comprehension of a certain topic or issue and see what needs to be addressed in their classroom. It is perhaps in this context that teachers could think of several alternative forms of assessment which could enhance their students’ learning while at the same time, help them meet the demands of the school syllabus as well as the challenges of a testing system. 

The introduction of social media into schools today seems to create yet another engaging and creative venue for students and teachers to have a discussion that allows room for great exchange of ideas to take place but more importantly, for teacher to assess their students’ understanding and learning. This could largely be the reason behind the increasing use of social media recently, especially if we are to consider the pedagogical benefits that it brings. Twitter for one, has been increasingly popular among teachers these days as it is considered to be a good communication tool that could enhance class participation and response within a short frame of time. "Twitteracy: Tweeting as new literacy practice" reinforces that belief as it examines how Twitter helps to foster a more active learning environment that encourages students to be more engaged in the classroom. The article also mentions how using Twitter helps to “document students’ learning process and facilitate peer interaction” which would leave more room for teachers to invite students’ critical and collaborative participation in the classroom into a dynamic online community. More importantly, this article also explores how Twitter helps to foster a rich discussion of literature themes through reflection and peer questioning. All these could certainly serve as a form of assessment for teachers to see what needs to be addressed in class while presenting a venue for students to connect with their classmates.

However, while some may argue that Twitter has several shortcomings such as the extent of message that student are able to tweet, I feel that it is perhaps more important to acknowledge the positive results that it could have on students, particularly the quieter ones who could use this platform to share their ideas or opinions with the rest of their classmates. The role of teachers in this case should not be underestimated even with the presence of such interactive tools in class as they could join in the Twitter discussion and be the clarifier of students’ doubts. Hence, the teacher will still be present in the discussion to clarify and support – in this case, to potentially provide scaffold for students to move on from one understanding to another.

Personally, I am a Twitter fan ever since I learnt about it during the ICT module and have been using it for my micro-teaching in the Teaching Poetry/Prose modules. I also tried to use Twitter once for one of my history lesson during last year’s Teaching Practice. However, although the students are engaged during the lesson, I feel that there are certainly a lot of room for improvements to be made to further engage the students in class so that they would not consider the activity just a fun one and not take away anything once the lesson is over. In this respect, it is perhaps important for me to explore some possible methods available so that the students can take the discussion that they already had on Twitter to another higher platform in order to deepen their understanding about the particular topic or issue.

Zarifah's 2nd written reflection

Reflection 2

The article “Young Adult Literature and Alternative Assessment Measures” by Melissa Comer, introduces a number of possible ICT (Information Communication Technology) strategies that can be use in the different disciplines. The different disciplines include middle school, high school, and university. According to Comer, she suggests that the purpose of assessment is not solely to grade and stratifies students rather; it is to inform the teacher as to what needs to be addressed in the classroom.

Personally, I found two of the strategies she suggests to be useful and applicable. The first being, “assessing students’ interests via an interest survey”, and the second being, the use of twitter. Through the use of a survey, teachers can get a general idea of the genre and titles of book that would interest students and from there include some of the books in their reading lists. Being able to contribute and getting their opinions considered in the selection of texts for the course would likely get students more involved. In a Secondary School context, I would introduce the idea of an online survey. Often, there is already a prescribe text lists hence; I would use the survey idea to introduce passages that are likely to be interesting to students’ for lessons on the Unseen.

As mentioned earlier, the idea of incorporating the use of twitter in students’ learning is an interesting idea and likely feasible. Comer suggested that students use twitter to tweet a summary that involves asking students to “share and discover what’s happening [in the novel or text]”. While this idea is applicable and beneficial in the sense that it forces students to look for main and important points due to twitter’s 140 character word limit, I would use Twitter differently should I conduct a lesson involving the use of ICT.  As will be explored in my essay assignment on the use of ICT in a literature class, and likely to be used in a Secondary School context, I would introduce the use of twitter in class as a form of reflection. Within a day of the lesson, students are to tweet at least one thing they have learnt and what they would want to know more of or about for the next lesson. Students are also encouraged to tweet questions about aspects of the lesson or novel that they do not understand. Fellow classmates would be encouraged to reply them. Hopefully, this would create a learning environment that engages everyone.

In conclusion, Comer’s suggestion of incorporating the use of ICT into the classroom is sound because technology has unarguably become part of our life, especially so for a 21^st century student. Tapping into ICT would likely benefit students’ learning as it is more relevant and as suggested by Comer, “It is their (adolescents’) world”.

Joel's Written Reflection 2 - Purposeful and not Purpose-laden

“The primary purpose of assessment, regardless of teaching level, is to guide instruction. Unlike evaluation, the goal of assessment is not to arrive at a grade for students.  Rather, it is to inform the teacher as to what needs to be addressed in the classroom, from novel selections to literary skills to instructional practices” (Comer, 2011, p. 239).

In her article relating to young adult literature (YAL) curriculum, Comer outlines quite clearly from the start her teaching beliefs and practices. For her, assessments are a means for the teacher to understand the students better in the hopes of aligning the curriculum to match students’ needs. This would be contrary to the focus on grades especially in a setting of summative assessment. In a sense, the onus now belongs to the teachers who have to make sense of the answers as opposed to students making sense of their grades.

Comer’s teaching practices are in line with her beliefs of “assessment for learning” (Comer, 2011, p. 240) where she mentions assessing students through a survey, knowledge rating charts, cyber-hunts and twitter summaries. The survey and knowledge rating charts acts as a primary diagnostic in determining the background knowledge of students, hearing about students’ literary interests and also allowing students to gain a better understanding of themselves by tracking their learning. Based off the newly acquired knowledge of students, the teacher can then design the curriculum to cater to the aspect of comprehension. In this article, Comer mentions using cyber-hunts and twitter summaries. Both the affordances are ICT tools and this would be in line “with current trends in technology” (Comer, 2011, p. 243).

While I agree strongly with a curriculum based on formative assessments and how Comer’s article reads like a breath of fresh air, I do find that challenges present itself quite readily as well. For starters, the notion of “authentic assessment” (Comer, 2011, p. 240) would be hard-pressed to define what constitutes as “educational merit” in setting tasks for students. Under the umbrella of formative assessment presents a measurement of holistic learning. With that in mind, summative assessments might present a “better measure” with its testing for answers style in determining educational merit. The predominant mindset of grades being what counts further justifies this.

If we were to consider the context of the article that caters to YAL, I cannot help but question how we (as secondary school teachers) could both design the curriculum and have a system of accountability taking into account the local context and having formative assessments. Not only are certain factors beyond our control but there exists also the prevailing mindset in society that for the most part, grades are what matters. We do not have the same luxury that Comer possesses in designing her own curriculum and an education system that already practices formative assessments.

The use of technology (cyber-hunts, twitter summaries) to support individual learning is indeed laudable in light of current trends both in terms of technological and educational. Having said that, the fact that these forms of assessments are labelled “alternative” immediately suggests a difference from the conventional. One could see how more traditional forms of assessments (tests, examinations) would still be regarded as the mainstay especially within the local context where assessment of learning is religiously employed in the form of high-stakes examinations.

Nonetheless, Comer’s article (written recently) presents a way forward towards the future of education and the purposes of assessments. Assessments should be purposeful and not purpose-laden wherein students mindlessly regurgitate answers from rote.     

Alfie's Reflection II - Comer’s “YAL and Alternative Assessment Measures”

Comer’s “YAL and Alternative Assessment Measures” offers three specific alternative assessments that measures learning. Comer first posits that the principle purpose of assessment should be to “aid the teacher in determining what should be taught.” Assessment should inform the teacher of students’ learning needs so that the teacher can “adjust the teaching work to meet the learning needs.” Instead of only using traditional assessment, which can sometimes be misleading, to assess those needs and thus, instruction, formative authentic assessments can “inform instruction in a more holistic manner.” Using alternative assessments also encourages multimodal literacy where students are able to critically express themselves through different modes of expression which is an essential skill in today's ever evolving globalized world.

Comer suggests three authentic assessment practices such as Interest inventory/survey that assesses students’ interest, knowledge rating charts and the use of technology such as twitter and cyber hunts that assesses students’ comprehension. I will only be discussing the use of cyber hunts to assess students’ comprehension in this entry. This is because the use of ICT in classrooms is strongly encouraged in today’s technologically advanced world, especially in Singapore where so many are constantly plugged in and connected to the internet. As such, technology can be used as an instrument for learning as well as assessing. Comer uses cyber hunts where “students are presented with questions and asked to search specific websites in order to answer the probes posed on the cyber hunt.” Students essentially use the internet as a platform for research. In the example that she gives, the website is already chosen for students so they merely have to click, read and sieve out for answers. While the term “cyber hunt” sounds really appealing, the nature of the activity is rather basic and can be uninteresting for students. Providing students with a website seems to limit their research. Perhaps, a topic can be given to students and they are to find their own articles that would answer a question on the topic. This would push students to find articles that would truly fit the topic at hand, allowing them to acquire a deeper understanding of the topic as now, they have to critically and discerningly sieve through different websites, perspectives and choose one which fits the research topic/question. That research can then be translated into a graphic organizer or an online blog entry that allows students to consolidate, synthesize and share the information collected. With the prevalence of technology, it is also perhaps possible to allow students a degree of autonomy in their research as the use of Google has become a habit almost for many who are connected to the internet 24/7 on their phone, ipads etc. The internet realm is not unfamiliar to our plugged in students. In using technology as a means of alternative assessment, students might be more inclined to participate and it is also much easier for the teacher to share her feedback (like our very own lit assessment blog). It becomes possible for teachers to harness the advantages of the internet to assessing our students learning needs and so, catering our lessons to those needs and understandings.