I´m committed - Production formative assessments only!

It has been a crazy school year with lots of ups and downs, and we aren´t done yet. This semester I have really been tougher on my 3 students, and I am seeing some increased improvements not just in their fluency, but in their work habits. Finally, they seem to be understanding that they have to do their OWN work to be successful. After catching a few students, they have realized that they will not be successful if they cheat. I have been more inspired by them these last few weeks than I have been all year. Nothing energizes me like my students and seeing them making not just the language connections, but the life connections.

As my students have learned, so have I. I am going to work this summer on revamping my curriculum, yes - again. I think that good teachers are always tweaking and looking for ways to improve to help their students learn better. I am working on a new plan to use formative assessments with no written quizzes. I want all assessing to be based on production. I think that students have gotten too good at gaming the system and since the flip is no longer a new concept, they are finding ways to try to ¨game¨it as well.

This makes total sense. After all, I do believe that the only thing that counts in a World Language class is how the students can actually communicate. It will be a big step for me to move away from the few written assessments to all performance based assessments. I have a lot of thinking and planning to do to make it happen. But I am committed.....because I wrote it here!

On a final note - as I was preparing for my presentations this week, I found that on www.tagxedo.com I could create a cloud based on the words in my blog. I was excited to see what ideas carried the most importance. Just wanted to share the love with everyone!