Saturday, November 12, 2011

Week 7 Change - Part 2

This week we created the plan for one-computer classroom and discussed learner autonomy with regards to students and teachers. Everybody agrees that autonomy should be developed and mastered in a person, however, it requires time, motivation and excellent guidelines. Funnily enough (I didn't know we would be examining the idea of autonomy when planning the activities), my change was all about autonomy:))

As you may remember my students submitted the entries to the diary last week. This week my class did the peer review of their works in groups of 3-4 and submitted their final versions of diary entries. Students assessed each other works using the rating scale and posted comments taking into account 5 divisions: contents, spelling, grammar, vocabulary, and organisation. This sub-task was due on Wednesday (Robert, I used your methods:), and the second sub-task was due on Saturday - students were supposed to read the comments they were given, take them into account or not, edit their works and submit the final version of their diary entry. I will be marking the works the whole day tomorrow.

What I like about this week's change that the students' creations are public and every one can see what others have written, what comments and grades other people are given. I created the online questionnaire to my students to leave their feedback about the project. Most of them say that this "public" trait make them more responsible, organised and forces to pay attention to spelling and vocabulary use. Many admitted having looked up words more often than they would normally do. The disadvantage of peer review is that some students didn't take it seriously or didn't want to offend their friends and would write something like "everything is good". To conclude, I should say that it was a real change for my class which, hopefully, helped them look at learning process from a different prospective.

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2 comments:

  1. Andi Muhammad YauriNovember 12, 2011 at 4:43 PM

    Hi Tatsiana

    It is great to see your progressive change in terms of your final project this week. You managed to involve your students into your project design. I could say that you are close to what students need since you have facilitated them to experience different perspective in learning process. So, you could go with your plan as is as well.


    Andy

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  2. ElmiraNovember 13, 2011 at 4:05 AM

    Hi Tatsiana,

    Very nice reflection on what we have achieved this week!
    We have practiced much and there is still a lot to learn. What I liked most is the change that we brought to the classrooms.
    It's a coincidence that we are doing the same. I mean the work with the diaries. It is a good technique to give the students time for peer-review and proof-reading. I still have some hesitation about students' peer-assessment. Sometimes it doesn't turn to be objective.
    This is my 'fear'.
    Hope my further practice with the tools that we acquire in the course will make my 'fear' disappear.

    Keep up the good work!

    Elmira.

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