For my assignment, I am designing a course in Google Classrooms that can be used with Grade 4 students to teach expository writing.\u00a0 This is my reflection on the process so far.<\/p>\n
Alberta Grade 4 Language Arts Curriculum shifts the attention of student writing from narrative writing to expository writing.\u00a0 General Outcome 3 states that \u201cStudents will listen, speak, read, write, view and represent to manage ideas and information.\u201d\u00a0 These are the most relevant curriculum outcomes:<\/p>\n
3.1:\u00a0 Focus Attention<\/p>\n
3.2: Use a variety of sources<\/p>\n
3.3:\u00a0 Organize information<\/p>\n
Record information<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Google Classrooms is a district-wide initiative this year that all teachers are being encouraged to utilize.\u00a0 For me, it was important to take some of the material I was already covering at the Grade 4 level, and leverage Google Classrooms to make the material a little more student-centred.\u00a0 As I start with this introductory module, I can see that formative assessment especially should be easier to accomplish using Google Classroom as opposed to what I was doing in a traditional delivery.\u00a0 For example, I have included a simple online Google Form as a quiz to see what they already know about expository writing and how well-able they are to write an expository paragraph.\u00a0 This is probably not something I would have \u201cslammed\u201d them with so early on without the capabilities of Google Classroom.<\/p>\n
Assessment in general will be a little different using Google Classrooms, and I think this is a good thing.\u00a0 Gibbs and Simpson (2005) quoted a 1985 paper that found \u201cA review of 150 studies of the relationship between exam results and a wide range of adult achievement found the relationship to be, at best, slight\u201d (Baird, 1985).\u00a0 Gibbs and Simpson also go on to discuss the importance of course work as opposed to summative tests for long term learning.\u00a0 So, do teachers need to mark everything that a student works on as part of a course?\u00a0 \u201cIt is argued that you have to assess everything that moves in order to capture students\u2019 time an energy\u201d (Gibbs & Simpson, 2005).\u00a0 Not necessarily so!\u00a0 There are other ways to generate student engagement, including peer- and self-assessment.\u00a0 I am still playing around with the idea of how students could do a little self-assessment as a video to upload, or how they could use online apps to sort the information they\u2019re pulling from multiple sources.<\/p>\n
Tony Bates in 2014 noted that \u201cThe form of assessment should also be influenced by the knowledge and skills that students need in a digital age, which means focusing as much on assessing skills as knowledge of content.\u00a0 Thus continuous or formative assessment will be as important as summative or \u2018end-of-course\u2019 assessment\u201d (Bates, 2014).\u00a0 I think this Google Classroom course will have an appropriate focus on the skills students need for gathering and presenting information.\u00a0 In the past, I have debated whether to allow students to pick their own topic for study.\u00a0 It would be so easy to tell everyone that they were supposed to write about Alberta settlers, just to help \u2018get through\u2019 the Social Studies content.\u00a0 By shifting the focus to a needed skill set, I think there is a much higher level of student engagement.<\/p>\n
Many introductory modules (and course syllabi at the university level for decades) have had a detailed percentage break-down of summative assessment grading.\u00a0 At the elementary level, there has been long, deep discussion of the types of grades students receive.\u00a0 We are currently using only EX, AB, AC and NY (excellence, above average, acceptable and \u2018not yet\u2019), with no percentage descriptors.\u00a0 Students receive feedback and individual discussion of their progress, but no percentage grade.\u00a0 I felt it was useful to explain the difference between formative and summative assessment in a Grade-4-friendly way, but there is no table showing that some assignments are worth more than others.\u00a0 I think there is value in leading them through the process of writing and presenting an expository piece without picking out one part of the process as more important than another.<\/p>\n
References:<\/p>\n
Alberta Education Programs of Study (2000).\u00a0 English Language Arts K-9.\u00a0 Retrieved from: http:\/\/www.learnalberta.ca\/ProgramOfStudy.aspx?lang=en&ProgramId=404703#635484<\/a><\/p>\n Baird, L. L. (1985). Do grades and tests predict adult accomplishment?.\u00a0Research in Higher Education<\/em>,\u00a023<\/em>(1), 3-85.<\/p>\n Bates. T. (2014). Teaching in a digital age. Retrieved from\u00a0http:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/teachinginadigitalage\/chapter\/5-8-assessment-of-learning\/<\/a><\/p>\n