The new teacher evaluation systems that are being put in place require all teachers to demonstrate student growth. This of course is something I have been doing already, but not as formally as I should be. So, I have been looking for some ideas to be able to demonstrate growth not only throughout the year, but from level to level. I have attended professional development sessions, both in general on the new requirements, as well as specifically for World Language. I am concerned that many teachers are willing to spend hours and hours of class time to effectively demonstrate growth. I am looking for something that my department and I can do that will cost minimal class time and be equally as effective.
One of my ideas is to do a common project at the end of each level. Given the curriculum of Spanish I, the project that we use for this will probably be based on family. My struggle is to work on how to evaluate the projects fairly for the different levels. A new colleagues of mine has shown me a rubric which I think may fit the bill, but it is going to require some training, not only for me, bur for our students as well. Demonstrating the quality and content of projects that will constitute an A, B, etc. will take samples and some class time. However, I think that it will be worth it not only for administration and teachers, but for the students to see how far they have come as well.
I gave a portion of this rubric a try with the final exam for my Spanish III students. Their assignment was easy - they were to create a video or presentation (for those without video capabilities) to show to foreign exchange students to introduce them to our school. Since I didn't have any samples of previous student work to demonstrate what I was looking for to the students, we spent some time talking about my expectations. Check out a copy of the assignment sheet here. Although the task was easy, completing it on a Spanish III level took more thoughts than the students had originally anticipated.
It was not enough to show rooms and people, there needed to be more detailed information using the grammatical concepts that we had learned. I really liked this project because I am trying to incorporate PBL into my class, but I have struggled with the final element, which is where the students present their work to the community. With this project, I told students that the best ones would be on the school website for real incoming exchange students.
The rubric overall worked really well. When I am grading projects, I have a tendency to be much more lenient than I am with written work because I can't help but get carried away by the quality of the presentations that the students do. This rubric kept me focused and really enabled me to give the students the grade that they deserved. I think it probably needs to be tightened up a little bit, and I still want to be able to give the effort grade, but honestly it is probably better if I don't.
I had one student/parent complaint about their grade on the final project, and I had another teacher in my department evaluate the student based upon the rubric. His evaluation matched up almost exactly with mine. That is enough for me to know that I am on the right track with the rubric. Next year I will do all summative assessments using this new rubric.
Hopefully, with more student examples and training with some formative assessments that I will use the same rubric with. Then, all of the students should understand what I am looking for, and be able to use the level of grammar and vocabulary that I know that they are capable of and be able to use the same project for multiple levels. If we begin these projects at Spanish I, by the time they get to the upper levels, it should be easy to make the necessary adjustments for them to continue to grow and be successful.
Finding a way to demonstrate student growth without detracting from what I am trying to do in the classroom will take time and lots of thought and planning, but it will be worth it. In addition to the common project, I am also looking into creating online student portfolios utilizing Google Docs with written work as well as audio files. More to come......
Showing posts with label spanish projects. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spanish projects. Show all posts
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Cultural activities across the levels
This time of year is the worst for teachers. Students have realized that their grades are not what they should be and are in full panic mode, and parents are on alert as well. The holiday season is also around the corner, and even though Christmas decorations have been up in stores for weeks, I am not ready for the work that comes with the holidays! With all of this going on, it is easy to focus on the negative and the frustrations in the classroom, but I am doing my best to focus on the positives.
This past week was a crazy one, with our fairy tale unit ending. As I have mentioned before, I have been working on a cross-level project between the Spanish 1's and Spanish 3's. I have felt that we spend so much time focusing on the harder vocabulary and more difficult conversations that the upper level students forget how to say some of the most basic things...the conversations that would be most important if they were in a foreign country.
So, the idea behind this project was to have the upper level kids create stores and sell to the lower levels. We planned and wrote assignment sheets and talked about vocabulary. I let my students choose what type of store to have, because as I have mentioned before, I firmly believe we need to give students choices whenever possible. Here is a copy of our assignment sheet. (I also put a copy in the Helpful Docs tab.) We also gave the kids a handout to practice key phrases, and add phrases of their own that they thought necessary.
The students created all types of stores, including music, movie, cafe, clothing, and a party store. I was so proud of my students. They stayed in the target language, even when the principal tried to talk to them in English. They were so generous, giving juice, soda, cookies, party favors, etc. to the lower level students. Since we were using Monopoly money, I had assured students they would get all of their items back.
Now, my PreAp class is during a time when there is no Spanish I, so we tried something little different. We did a "Tourist Day" between Germany and Spain with the German III students. In this project, some of the students set up stores, and other students were tour guides. The tour guides were in charge of teaching key phrases and helping their groups at the stores. The stores were based on what a tourist would need: a hotel, souvenir shop, tour/ticket office, and cafe. The students then took turns leading the tours and shops.
The kids were excited about this and it went very well. The students learned a few new phrases in a new language. They were also exposed to situations where they didn't understand what someone was saying, or how to respond and had to figure out how to get what they wanted. It was a great communication exercise for all of the students.
I was liberal with the assessment scores. I felt that if they were communicating in the target language during the duration of the activity (about an hour), and they helped the lower level students communicate as well, that was A work.
For me, it was a good week. Students did tons of communicating and had a great time. Hopefully this will be an annual tradition and something the students can look forward to. Now all I have to do is figure out how to do it again in the Spring. I think I will put my students on it! They have the best ideas.
This past week was a crazy one, with our fairy tale unit ending. As I have mentioned before, I have been working on a cross-level project between the Spanish 1's and Spanish 3's. I have felt that we spend so much time focusing on the harder vocabulary and more difficult conversations that the upper level students forget how to say some of the most basic things...the conversations that would be most important if they were in a foreign country.
So, the idea behind this project was to have the upper level kids create stores and sell to the lower levels. We planned and wrote assignment sheets and talked about vocabulary. I let my students choose what type of store to have, because as I have mentioned before, I firmly believe we need to give students choices whenever possible. Here is a copy of our assignment sheet. (I also put a copy in the Helpful Docs tab.) We also gave the kids a handout to practice key phrases, and add phrases of their own that they thought necessary.
The students created all types of stores, including music, movie, cafe, clothing, and a party store. I was so proud of my students. They stayed in the target language, even when the principal tried to talk to them in English. They were so generous, giving juice, soda, cookies, party favors, etc. to the lower level students. Since we were using Monopoly money, I had assured students they would get all of their items back.
Now, my PreAp class is during a time when there is no Spanish I, so we tried something little different. We did a "Tourist Day" between Germany and Spain with the German III students. In this project, some of the students set up stores, and other students were tour guides. The tour guides were in charge of teaching key phrases and helping their groups at the stores. The stores were based on what a tourist would need: a hotel, souvenir shop, tour/ticket office, and cafe. The students then took turns leading the tours and shops. The kids were excited about this and it went very well. The students learned a few new phrases in a new language. They were also exposed to situations where they didn't understand what someone was saying, or how to respond and had to figure out how to get what they wanted. It was a great communication exercise for all of the students.
I was liberal with the assessment scores. I felt that if they were communicating in the target language during the duration of the activity (about an hour), and they helped the lower level students communicate as well, that was A work.
For me, it was a good week. Students did tons of communicating and had a great time. Hopefully this will be an annual tradition and something the students can look forward to. Now all I have to do is figure out how to do it again in the Spring. I think I will put my students on it! They have the best ideas.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Flipping for Fluency...the first weeks of school
I want to get the blog focus back to the classroom, and that is easy to do because it is all I have been working on for the past 2 weeks. I have been reworking videos, writing PBL assignments, and creating better parent communication.
My new focus for grammar videos is a quick intro and then a story, or some other catchy way to show students how to implement the new concepts. I have been working with a variety of sources to make this happen.
I made a cute video for the future tense with GoAnimate, which will be published soon, but in order to push it out to YouTube I have to pay a small fee, so I am trying to do a couple at once so I can only pay once (or get it all done in the 30 day free trial!). This was cool because I typed the script and chose character voices. This was awesome because I could actually choose Hispanic speakers, so it makes it more like a real listening exercise! I am going to use it that way and have students answer questions and hypothesize in the future about possible outcomes.
Yesterday, I finished a video that I am planning to send to the parents of my students this year. It is using PowToon, which is still in the Beta, but looks really cool. Flipped for Fluency parent video was easy to put together once I decided what to say! I am going to send this out with my parent letter about a week before school starts. A word of caution though..have your script together before you start playing or you will be working on it forever! (I fell into the trap I always warn my student about when using cool technology!)
I have written some PBL exercises for my Mini Review Unit, which is the first two weeks of school. I am covering present, past, and future. I cut down the worksheets to just some quick conjugation worksheets to get the kids thinking in Spanish again. Then they will work on the PBL projects which are a combination of solo and group work. The Present Assignment Sheet outlines a "getting to know you" presentation. I do think that this is going to be a much more effective way to let the kids demonstrate their proficiency. Hence, I have decided to call them Proficiency Demonstrations. In the 6 regular units of study, these will replace my Unit Assessments from last year.
When creating the PBL assignments, I have tried to leave as many choices as possible open for the students. This is probably more apparent in the one I wrote for Unit 1 Proficiency Demonstration. I gave some guidance by giving them steps to consider, but left the topic and method of presentation up to them. I also decided to cut the vocabulary list down to the bare minimum 54 words for a 5 week unit. I decided that the students will have to discover many words pertinent to their topic on their own, so they did not need an exhaustive list from me.
I am looking at my assessing strategies and going to make some big changes to improve for next year. I need to get more things straight in my own head before I can commit them to the blog though.
On another note, I am going to be working with Sofia to have a Foreign Language Flipped Webinar in the middle of September. I will blog, post and tweet the details when I have them!
My new focus for grammar videos is a quick intro and then a story, or some other catchy way to show students how to implement the new concepts. I have been working with a variety of sources to make this happen.
I made a cute video for the future tense with GoAnimate, which will be published soon, but in order to push it out to YouTube I have to pay a small fee, so I am trying to do a couple at once so I can only pay once (or get it all done in the 30 day free trial!). This was cool because I typed the script and chose character voices. This was awesome because I could actually choose Hispanic speakers, so it makes it more like a real listening exercise! I am going to use it that way and have students answer questions and hypothesize in the future about possible outcomes.
Yesterday, I finished a video that I am planning to send to the parents of my students this year. It is using PowToon, which is still in the Beta, but looks really cool. Flipped for Fluency parent video was easy to put together once I decided what to say! I am going to send this out with my parent letter about a week before school starts. A word of caution though..have your script together before you start playing or you will be working on it forever! (I fell into the trap I always warn my student about when using cool technology!)
I have written some PBL exercises for my Mini Review Unit, which is the first two weeks of school. I am covering present, past, and future. I cut down the worksheets to just some quick conjugation worksheets to get the kids thinking in Spanish again. Then they will work on the PBL projects which are a combination of solo and group work. The Present Assignment Sheet outlines a "getting to know you" presentation. I do think that this is going to be a much more effective way to let the kids demonstrate their proficiency. Hence, I have decided to call them Proficiency Demonstrations. In the 6 regular units of study, these will replace my Unit Assessments from last year.
When creating the PBL assignments, I have tried to leave as many choices as possible open for the students. This is probably more apparent in the one I wrote for Unit 1 Proficiency Demonstration. I gave some guidance by giving them steps to consider, but left the topic and method of presentation up to them. I also decided to cut the vocabulary list down to the bare minimum 54 words for a 5 week unit. I decided that the students will have to discover many words pertinent to their topic on their own, so they did not need an exhaustive list from me.
I am looking at my assessing strategies and going to make some big changes to improve for next year. I need to get more things straight in my own head before I can commit them to the blog though.
On another note, I am going to be working with Sofia to have a Foreign Language Flipped Webinar in the middle of September. I will blog, post and tweet the details when I have them!
Monday, May 21, 2012
Student Culture Presentations
The culture projects were an interesting experience. Students could choose their own topics, and I had a wide range - everything from Dali to the Spanish Space Program to local cuisine and fashion. I had the opportunity to learn many cool things from my students, which was a pleasant change! I had many students that were very excited about their presentations and worked hard for hours and hours on getting them just right. Unfortunately, I had some (not too many) on the other end of the spectrum that didn't follow the assignment directions and/or murdered the language that I love because although their project was well researched, they didn't practice it. I also had too many students that just READ which makes me crazy.
So, I have decided not to do this as a final project for next year. I am going to do it again, just not for the exam. I have also decided that one of my main focuses for next year is going to be teaching my students HOW to present. (I have ideas cooking on that...more to come later in the summer.)
However, since I have never really shared student work before, I wanted to share some of my favorites. Although the language may not be perfect, there is huge growth and effort in each of these presentations.
Animals of the Amazon - This was done by a student that went from "I can't say anything in Spanish" to a peer tutor! She was so excited about her research that she asked if she could add the English subtitles.
Alternate Link: http://sdrv.ms/Js7Jlq
Guitar Music of Spain - This video is great (if you discount the Lady Gaga wig). After the video, he did a presentation about the origin and music of Flamenco. I wish it was on the video as well!
Alternate Link: http://www.screencast.com/t/LzAggODSIpTQ
Honduras Tourism Video - One of my "super smarties" that really struggled with the move to the flipped classroom. It was hard for her to go from being good at "the game of school" to actually being good in the class of Spanish.
Alternate Link: http://sdrv.ms/Js7O8L
Mexican Fashion - I had a couple of fashion presentations, all of which were really good. I had quite a few projects using this online book tool.
Just to reiterate how much I love the flipped class.....the kids got to allocate their time in class, so many had quite a bit of class time to work on their presentations and ask me questions about the programs and content. Without the flip, this probably would have had to be a total "at home" project.
So, I have decided not to do this as a final project for next year. I am going to do it again, just not for the exam. I have also decided that one of my main focuses for next year is going to be teaching my students HOW to present. (I have ideas cooking on that...more to come later in the summer.)
However, since I have never really shared student work before, I wanted to share some of my favorites. Although the language may not be perfect, there is huge growth and effort in each of these presentations.
Animals of the Amazon - This was done by a student that went from "I can't say anything in Spanish" to a peer tutor! She was so excited about her research that she asked if she could add the English subtitles.
Alternate Link: http://sdrv.ms/Js7Jlq
Guitar Music of Spain - This video is great (if you discount the Lady Gaga wig). After the video, he did a presentation about the origin and music of Flamenco. I wish it was on the video as well!
Alternate Link: http://www.screencast.com/t/LzAggODSIpTQ
Honduras Tourism Video - One of my "super smarties" that really struggled with the move to the flipped classroom. It was hard for her to go from being good at "the game of school" to actually being good in the class of Spanish.
Alternate Link: http://sdrv.ms/Js7O8L
Mexican Fashion - I had a couple of fashion presentations, all of which were really good. I had quite a few projects using this online book tool.
Just to reiterate how much I love the flipped class.....the kids got to allocate their time in class, so many had quite a bit of class time to work on their presentations and ask me questions about the programs and content. Without the flip, this probably would have had to be a total "at home" project.
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