In my quest to be finding more and more ways to use google with my students, I tried something this week that I think has a ton of potential.
I have been working with my students on LOTS of what I call “academic behaviors”…from using time well to cooperating with others to asking good questions to working precisely. There are MILLIONS of these behaviors we hope to help our students develop.
We’ve been having some . . . ummmmmm…..
ISSUES
in this department, so I thought I’d try to get my students to be a little more reflective and to assess themselves in some of these areas. I will often have them give me a thumbs up/thumbs down after a work time or to write a 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 on a post it, but I thought this might be kind of fun.
I created a google form with a 5 point scale with about a dozen questions I wanted students to think about.
I reviewed with the students what each one meant…gave examples…and then asked them to self-assess. At the end of the form was an open ended question–“Is there anything else you would like me to know about you as a student right now?” I thought I’d throw it out there and see what students said. My results were fascinating!
First of all, I printed all the results and highlighted and areas where students gave themselves 1’s and 2’s. I then checked out some of my “struggling” students to see how they ranked themselves and learned a few things.
1. Some of my students are overestimating their performance.
2. Most of my students really were spot-on with their assessment.
3. I may not be being clear enough with my expectations in some areas as students’ perceptions are very different than my own.
Something to work with, right? I can certainly work to help clarify some of these things. It’s no wonder students are struggling if they aren’t clear on what I expect!
Where I got the most bang for my buck, however, is that last open ended question…look at some of the comments I got.
Wow. Talk about VALUABLE information to have…information that I’m pretty sure wouldn’t come out if I didn’t give them this forum. It literally took 10 minutes start to finish…and when I do it again, I know it will go even faster.
I’d love to get a discussion going about other ways to use Google in the classroom…from editing papers with students to using forms for exit slips, let’s hear what YOU are doing with Google!