theMYPteacher.com
  • Home
  • Top 5 Tools
  • ATL Toolkit
  • Sciences
  • How to Embed
  • About Me

Assessment: Who's in Control...of the Fear

9/19/2012

1 Comment

 
Picture
Back in March I wrote a post about answering the question: What if students were able to choose when and what they wanted to be assessed on?  Through answering that question my colleagues and I have come up with a framework that allows students to choose not only their own assessment product (essay, experiment, video, website, expert talk, etc), but also the objectives by which they will be assessed.  Students are grappling with what our MYP objectives are and how best to ensure that their progress over the year matches the objectives by which they must demonstrate their learning . . . and it's freaking me out!

Last night I had a moment of panic lying in bed and I was tempted to throw in the towel and call the whole thing off when I realized how little I was in control.  How in the world am I going to manage all these independent inquiries?  What if someone slips through the cracks?  Are they really learning enough content?  Are they making connections to our concepts?  Everything that I could imagine going wrong was flying through my brain.  

However, as I began to reflect on why I was afraid of the process I began to realize that it was due to the unknown, and not knowing if this thing is really going to work.  That's when the light came on that I am right in the middle of my own personal inquiry cycle.  More importantly, I realized that many of my students are most likely also feeling fear and anxiety at various points in their own inquiry.  

So this morning, I acknowledged my fears, reflected on what was causing them, then tackled the issues in my classes today.  I still don't what the end of this whole process will be, but I know that tomorrow we'll be having a brief opening to class where we talk about our fears, and how to overcome them in our own personal inquiries and journeys as learners!

1 Comment
JPotter
6/8/2014 11:30:44 pm

I just saw this. This has been a dream for a while now. Has it worked well for you? I'd like to hear more.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Welcome to The MYP Teacher and 
    Em·bed·ED Tech Blog

    An educational portal for MYP teachers, and other educators looking to use technology in the classroom to enhance, not distract, student learning.
    View my profile on LinkedIn

    Categories

    All
    Animation
    Art
    Assessment
    ATLs
    Collaboration
    Games
    General Teaching Ideas
    Humanities
    Images
    Information Tools
    Inquiry
    Language A
    Language B
    Mapping
    Math
    Pedagogy
    Presentations
    Science
    Stats And Graphing
    Top 5 Tools
    Unit Planning
    Video & Multimedia

    RSS Feed

    em·bed

    “to incorporate or contain as an essential part or characteristic”
    - Dictionary.com
    Tweets by @Embed_Ed

    Archives

    February 2017
    December 2014
    September 2014
    June 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    May 2013
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012

Photos used under Creative Commons from the measure of mike, postscapes, PhoTones_TAKUMA, James Jordan
✕