C4T #4

For my final C4T, I was assigned to comment on Becky Goerend's blog. You can find it HERE!

The first post I commented on was titled "All They Wanted". Mrs. Goerend said that she attended a conference during the summer that touched on the subject of assessment. This particular post she said that students always asked her "how long does a paper need to be?" and she would reply "how short can it be to get by, Mrs. G?" She realized that most students were not wanting to know how short the paper had to be; they were wanting to know how long it needed to be so they could do their best. One thing that she learned while at the summer conference was that students need examples of writings that meet, does not meet, and exceeds her standards. She said she was giving them a rubric, but students were not able to transfer that info into their own writing. Mrs. Goerend said that she hopes to improve on her "teaching writing techniques" this school year.

This is the comment I left Mrs. Goerend,
Mrs. Goerend,
I am Cheyanne Wilson, a student at the University of South Alabama. I have been assigned to comment on your blog for Dr. Strange's EDM 310 class.
I never realized that whenever students ask how long a paper needs to be they are really wanting to do a fantastic job on it. I always thought they meant how long does it need for them to get by also. That is a very interesting point to me. I also like how you provided text for the students to read before they proceeded with their papers. I hope this change helped you in your teaching career!
Cheyanne Wilson

The next post I commented on was titled "The Checklist". This is an informative post about how she is assessing her students and how the students are assessing themselves while writing. She found a resource with mini-lessons for each day, which helped students finish their paper piece by piece. She said after several mini-lessons they created a checklist that included the components of a excellent paper. Instead of using a rubric she used this checklist. Before the students turned the paper in they were to look at the checklist and make sure they included what was needed before Mrs. Goerend graded it. She also mentioned that some students still did not see the need in the checklist, but she hopes to stress to them the importance of this little guide. She also included a copy of the check list, if you would like to view it click HERE!

This is the comment I left Mrs. Goerend,
Mrs. Goerend,
I am Cheyanne Wilson, a student at South Alabama. I really enjoyed this post. I think having student assess their own work not only helps them catch careless mistakes, but also allows them to learn from those mistakes. Whenever I become a teacher, I will most definitely take a check-list into consideration. I hope to incorporate this idea into other subjects instead of just writing.

Thanks for sharing!
Cheyanne Wilson