Sunday, November 17, 2013

Students at different levels--assessing what they know


Like in all of our classrooms, we have many students at many different levels. They have different strengths and different weaknesses. They know different things. How do we assess what they know? I find it a very overwhelming task to be able to sit with each child (that 28 this year!) and have them explain their work. Instead, they can actually explain their work to me all at the same time. I still sit with the students and listen to as many as I can while they are actively doing this activity and I come back to the lesson if I need to with individual students. We are able to listen to what they recorded and that student can add or explain their thinking to me. They use the app Educreations. I have talked about this app many times and it is one of my favorites. In this activity, the students were identifying their every day needs. We were learning about needs and wants in this unit. The three children below are at different levels.

Leilani-Things I need
Claire-Things I need
Macarena-Things I need

Because of the way I have linked up educreations, the students are also able to listen to each other and learn from their friends.