Week 2 - Assessment of Project Phase #1 Objectives

Continuing...   "Week 2 - Project Phase #1"

Sunday evening

Yesterday I checked my students' blogs and realised that only 4 (all girls) out of 10 had posted their assignment and 3 out of 10 also commented on other student's blog. All students were sent some feedback together with the reminder of commenting on their classmates' blogs.  1 student (a boy) was late with his post, but posted it by Saturday night. Another student (a boy) contacted the teacher via email apologising for not posting owing to him being away with no access to the Internet, promising to post the assignment as soon as possible.

To make things clear, students were given homework - objectives Task 1 for Thursday, on Thursday they were assisted to create their blogs and by Saturday they were supposed to post what they had prepared for Task 1. According to the outcomes, it is believed that 6 out of 10 students were not prepared for Thursday  lesson because they were not able to rewrite their preparation by Saturday. Moreover, the same happened on Sunday so the first attempt has shown that there is still a lot of work to be done to force the students to do their homework.

Regarding them not doing their homework, the students were informed via email about lowering their percentage -5%  from homework assignments each day their homework is not done. 

Having read all posted assignment I decided not to comment on them yet due to the fact that one of the objectives is to post comments by students. I am going to make the students to finish Task 1 and Task 2 first. As for the assessment, I am thinking of praising hard-working students to motivate them but ask them to correct their mistakes in grammar and vocabulary in order them to learn and be more precise next time. They are going to be told at the lesson and be given time to update their posts so that  the teacher's comment will be positive. 

The aim is to teach them to be aware of their mistakes so they can learn what they do not know and be sure that they have made some progress. 

Tomorrow (Monday) the students are going to be examined orally from task 1 and be assessed according to Matricular Oral Examination rubric - see Nicenet.org discussion about ABCD Model for Behavioural Objectives.

Tuula has asked how blogs are going to be used later on and if the students are going to be instructed what to write there.

I find it very challenging to use blogs as some kind of their virtual exercise book or diary. I am thinking of encouraging them to write their diary - what they have done "with English" each week so they are going to say how much time they have devoted and what they have done, e.g. I watched 1 film "....." in English with Slovak subtitles, and give a short description of their feelings - if they have understood anything or just read subtitles......  

The other "sustainable" task is going to be their online homework - preparations for speaking and writing lessons. Since they are not used to work regularly, this seems to be a great way how to check on them.