Expectations


As a member of this Online Book Club, you are expected to post to the book blog at least once per week between now and July 11 -- that's six weeks. You should finish your book before then, and you will meet during the Institute in your groups to extend the discussion and plan how to present the book to the others in the Institute.

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Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Feedback, Critique, and Self-Assessment

Lattimer addresses the importance of feedback, critique, and self-assessment in chapter five and this chapter resonated the most with me out of the entire text. I practice a lot of what she recommends and I vouch for her conclusions that these three things are very important in a classroom. One thing I always had trouble with was the push back I often received after returning graded essays. Students would approach me wanting another point here or there, despite being very clear in my comments as to the problems with the essay. At some point I decided I had to do something about it, so I implemented a self-assessment of their essays, which they complete after I graded them, but before I return their graded essay to them. They mark up their essay, write comments about areas they thought they did well on and on others they thought needed more work. At the end they write a brief paragraph, which is a synopsis of their take away from assessing their essay. Then then score their essay using the rubric for the assignment. I found that students are far more critical of their own work than I am of theirs. Most of the time they are pleasantly surprised that they did better than they anticipated based on their self assessment, and this process alleviated the nit-picking for points.

I like how Lattimer suggests using self-assessment on more than just writing. I see applications for it in terms of discussion participation and maybe even effort in the class. While I have a student-centered, discussion-based classroom, I need to do a better job of conferencing with students quarterly about their progress in class discussions. It's an area of weakness for me and I think having individual conferences will improve the level of discussion.

Another aspect of this chapter I believe in is the value of critique and the process of critiquing in the classroom. We do need to take time to TEACH critiquing and not give up on the students when a critique session doesn't go as expected. It takes time to learn how to be constructive and helpful when giving feedback to one's peers. I also like how she suggests students respond to the feedback/critique with an action plan of how he/she intends to implement the feedback into the revisions. Good ideas in this chapter that will help improve my classroom for sure!

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