Week 5 - Assessments, Rubrics, Project Based Learning & more

I can not believe it is already Week 5. How time flies when your having fun and learning something new. This week there were a lot of new things to learn. Even though it seems to be quite a difficult task to learn so many things at one time, we must believe that nothing is impossible when you have sent your mind to the task.

Besides, as teachers we must keep developing ourselves to improve our teaching methods or skills. Its the 21st Century and the students nowadays are very different. They are more technological savvy and information is easily accessed to them. Teaching now have to be visually rich, entertaining and fun to capture their minds.

I did have to crack my brain on the rubrics that I made using the Rubistar. Doing it for the first time is never easy but then how else can one learn but through adversity. Having a specific rubrics lets us to be focused in the assessment and this must also be exposed to the students. Letting them have the rubrics actually would let them have a clearer understanding of the requirements. There is a baseline for them to work with and lets them know what their weaknesses are.

Having clear and transparent rubrics lets students know how their assignments or projects are being scored. This creates self-motivation in my students to get better scores. Using alternative assessments helps us to specifying assessments based on the needs of each students' learning capabilities. Getting students to be more in control of the assessments will let them identify their level and thus adjust to improve themselves to get better scores. It in itself creates inner confidence and self-motivation in my students themselves. Weak students need motivation to strive on and when they are in control of their learning process this works best for them.

Now this is where I found that project-based learning lets students have a voice and choice to manage their own learning process with little intervention from the teacher. What is good is that students are free to carry out their own inquiries to find out their own answers to their questions. We coach students to think for themselves and discover new insights. Students with educational technologies are able to apply knowledge to new real-world situations, analyze information, collaborate, solve problems, and make decisions. Students get the opportunity to practice team-building activities, reflect on thinking and develop problem solving thinking.

At the end of the day, I hope that I am creating students who are more self-aware, have critical thinking-and-doing, creative, innovative and have self-reliance.

Creating the Webquest was fun. It looked like a lesson plan but with the activities attached. Need to further explore this site and use it to the fullest extent. Still needed to work on the process section.