One way I have worked to enhance academic performance, is to be more deliberate when I reteach material. In order to insure student improvement, students reflect on their own performance allowing them to focus on their own academic strengths and weaknesses. When grading assessments, or reviewing work, I look for common mistakes in order to differentiate instruction as we move forward. By tracking student performance, students and I both have a clear understating of our improvement. By tracking student data, I don't have to guess or assume that students are understanding material. When students can see their growth, and by being very explicit about why we are working on a certain skill, or reviewing certain material, it eliminate the guess work for students as well.
In a recent letter, sent home with parents at parent teacher conferences, I provided instructions for parents to navigate our class blog and interact with students. Parents are encouraged to read their child's work and leave a comment for them.
Convenient tabs on our student blog allow students and parents to see current and past due assignments as well as unit learning goals and objectives.
Students are encouraged to use Twitter to interact with me (@hoyt_rocks) as well as their classmates. This past week, I held a contest encouraging students to use Twitter to follow Michael Grant (@thefayze), who is the author of our class novel. It is fun to see students' reactions when the author responds to their questions.
Next month, a group of students will be selected to participate in a Skype interview with the author. They will have the opportunity to ask the author questions as well as share their thoughts about the book with him.
Next month, a group of students will be selected to participate in a Skype interview with the author. They will have the opportunity to ask the author questions as well as share their thoughts about the book with him.
By providing students a variety of ways to demonstrate their knowledge, I am able to reach each and every student. The student shown here, has chosen which task he would like to complete that day. He has 12 tasks to complete at his own pace. He can chose to complete the most difficult tasks first, or start with the tasks he feels most confident about and move on from there. Also, by breaking up the project into smaller tasks, I can give each student continuous feed back on their progress. This not only makes the project easier to grade, but students are always aware of what they've mastered and what they need to improve on.