I was having a hard time getting started. I was feeling like my research and prior work was maybe not the direction I was heading. So I had to take a hard look: at Twitter, at Edutopia, at TeachThought, at what's happening at my school site. And then I was ready.
Quick refresher on the driving question: if teachers include students more actively in the assessment process, will students be more actively engaged throughout the lessons and more invested in the assessment?
I started a partnership with a fourth grade teacher. She is technology minded and willing and ready to try new things. Quizlet--here we come! Her current social studies unit was geography terms: latitude, longitude, compass rose, absolute location, prime meridian, equator. The kids were making flashcards. It was fine...but shouldn't we aim for more? So I made a Quizlet and helped her get the kids started on it. She modeled it in the classroom on her smartboard then took the kids up to the computer lab to try it out. I had written the URL on the whiteboard for the kids to type in. Just this first step reinforced the need for keyboarding skills for these fourth graders--they couldn't find Q. (More to come on keyboarding at a later time.) But I digress...
Once the students typed in the URL they quickly became totally engaged, even the student who never wants to do anything. Students started by reading the terms on the flashcards and exploring the quizlet. They moved on to play the games and that's when the noise level went way up, in a good way. I had played one of the games and the quizlet saved my score. Quickly the kids were trying to beat my score and then the score of the person sitting next to them. They were, of course, much faster than I was because they had actually studied the terms and because they were highly motivated by their score/time. Thank you gamification!
Created by Knewton and Column Five Media
Now I'm ready. I was struggling between the idea of feedback and voice/choice, and yet they are intertwined. The students received great feedback in the form of a decrease in their time and had many different types of questions on the quiz at the end. Students were highly motivated and engaged throughout this process. I am on the right track!