Formative Assessment + Rubrics + Learning Styles

I have been working in the past few days along more than one line. I need to 1) find an interesting, clear – not overwhelming – way to share whatever I am learning with my colleagues, 2) find practical ways to implement the most important pressing strategies into my teaching/learning context, and 3) study the feasibility of integrating / making use of technological tools as often as needed.


In “channel 2”, I find that formative assessment is essential for better instruction and better results. We should in fact make it at the basis of our lesson plans and not keep it a matter of oral feedback given by teachers to students. Rubrics are a must in this context so that gradually both teacher and student are aware of the latter’s learning strengths and weaknesses. It follows that these weaknesses have to be addressed and students have to be given the right contexts and guidance to work on them. That’s one place where getting to know students’ learning styles and helping them get to know what kind of learners they are is important. A variety of instructional strategies should be employed in class to cater to the various styles. However, having a learner-centered class that calls more for students’ engagement in lessons – which could be technology-enhanced – and focusing on enquiry, creativity, and problem solving in authentic situations does help teachers track their students’ performance and detect their learning style better than teacher-centered lessons that end in summative tests.
Last but not least, encouraging students’ reflections is an asset to the above. It helps them be more involved and aware and gives teachers an insight about their needs and how to account for them.


All of the above corrects one misconception I had concerning learning styles. My focus was solely on pace and on providing extra activities when needed. Now I am aware that these are integrated in the main lesson plans and that gives me a means of assessing these lesson plans.

Talking of Technology in the Classroom: Web 2.0

I am kind of overwhelmed this week. To be honest, if I had posted in my blog a few days ago, I would have mentioned that I was starting to feel the topics to be repetitive. I don’t mind reading more and more on learning styles, rubrics, and assessment. There is always some new insight or even reminder to get or some new idea to implement. However, the reference to technology everytime was getting redundant for me, especially that topics are interrelated and many times I find myself jumping to one issue and reflecting on it only to discover it is the topic for the following week. It does bring me satisfaction that I am putting issues in the correct framework and finding the right links, but I guess I was tired as the pressure of the whole year was starting to have its toll on me.

Then again it would not be me not to benefit from any opportunity for improvement, so I made a rough list of the new issues I have learned so far and highlighted what I needed to learn more about. One recurrent term was assessment as I wanted to implement it at school. Another was the creation of a wiki and the term web 2.0. which were totally new to me. So I embarked on a discovery journey. Gradually, my usual energy was regained as I started to discover how much of it all is so close at hand yet not explored. I started taking notes about the best way to implement formative assessment and turning them into suggestions to share with fellow teachers in the coming year. I emailed Leslie and Deborah seeking their feedback. Then I decided that the best way to start using a blog or a wiki or any site as a learning tool is to try it myself as a space for teachers first. Our interaction would give us a hands-on experience of what it would be like for students.

In the process, I understood more the concept of social bookmarking on http://delicious.com/ and I created an account in http://slideshare.net/ where I viewed ppt presentations on web 2.0. and teaching English. I then created my own wiki, designed as a space for me and my colleagues to exchange ideas http://msenglishdept.wikispaces.com/

I suggest the following links on youtube introducing wikis http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY&NR=1 and social bookmarking http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x66lV7GOcNU&feature=channel.

At the end of it all – it is barely the beginning in fact – I am definitely overwhelmed with excitement at the prospects. I shouldn’t have mistaken exhaustion for redundancy. It always takes a fresh perspective!!! After all, learning is a trial and error process, and in this case it is a well-guided process.