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Here are some of your applications for wikispaces, constructivist classrooms, and formative assessments that were generated during the PD. Some of these strategies have been used before. Some are newly generated. Feel free to have a look and add more. We've organized the page by department for ease of viewing. If you'd like to add something, just click on the edit buttons in the upper right hand corner. You can also start a discussion about some of these applications if you like.
Counseling Department
Formative Assessment
How could or do you offer quick and specific feedback on specific skills?
“Do What You Are” assessments
Small Group Positive Reinforcement
Career Interest Inventories
One-on-one conversations
How does student self-assessment offer you, the teacher, feedback for future instructional planning?
Helps in scheduling student academic plan, giving a better picture of student strengths and interests.
Constructivism
What opportunities could students have to self-assess their work with regard to specific skills?
Follow up on career interest inventory; reflect on successes or failures in educational experience at Warde.
Social Technologies
How does a public sharing of student work benefit your discipline or an activity?
Utilize the technology to present students with discussion questions prior to meeting in a group.
Present a “College of the Week” with information from staff and students.
How does a Wiki offer opportunities for quick feedback to students in your classroom?
Comment on and support students in many different areas.
Science Department
Formative Assessment
How could or do you offer quick and specific feedback on specific skills?
Clickers.
Exit Cards.
General classroom activities.
How does student self-assessment offer you, the teacher, feedback for future instructional planning?
Adjust pacing.
Re-teach certain skills/concepts.
Constructivism
What opportunities exist in my classroom for students to define and create the criteria to be assessed upon (i.e. how do they create their own rubrics)?
Does not occur in many classes.
AP does sometimes allow for collaborative creation of rubrics with ongoing assignments.
What opportunities could students have to self-assess their work with regard to specific skills?
Rubric given ahead of time to use as a check list to ensure all components of assignment are achieved.
Social Technologies
How does a public sharing of student work benefit your discipline or an activity?
Students can see what other students’ work looks like.
Students can differentiate between exemplar and poor work.
Through the use of an anonymous screen-name, students who may shy away from participation would feel more comfortable.
Provides opportunity to communicate in the written form, which can be preferred.
Increases enthusiasm for the subject/discipline.
Increases the academic competition among students.
Increases the rigor within the activity.
Allows some students to see the starting point to a solution/answer.
Peer modeling and display of solutions can spur new ideas/methods/strategies.
How does a Wiki offer opportunities for quick feedback to students in your classroom?
If students post, then students can see what others think about work or how to help them improve it before it is handed in.
The ability to monitor responses to conceptual questions from anywhere connected to the internet.
The ability to identify with other students who share similar struggles.
Health and Physical Education Department
Formative Assessment
How could or do you offer quick and specific feedback on specific skills?
Verbal.
Q & A activities.
Demonstrate (PE).
Video analysis using flip camera.
Decision making.
Modeling.
How does student self-assessment offer you, the teacher, feedback for future instructional planning?
Depending on the results of the assessment we may adjust the instruction, re-teach the lesson, present the information in a different way. Extra help is offered if a student is not grasping the concept or skill. More opportunity to practice the skill.
Constructivism
What opportunities exist in my classroom for students to define and create the criteria to be assessed upon (i.e. how do they create their own rubrics)?
Teacher developed rubrics are in place. At this time, we have not had students define and create criteria for the assessments.
What opportunities could students have to self-assess their work with regard to specific skills?
Skill specific feedback (success or failure of completion of task) allows the students to make adjustments when performing the skills (PE)
When asked to answer a question during review games, smart board activities etc. Students determine if their peer is correct.
Social Technologies
How does a public sharing of student work benefit your discipline or an activity?
Students can view, more frequently, as opposed to watching techniques in class (PE).
Raising a question related to a topic that will be discussed in class the following day (health).
How does a Wiki offer opportunities for quick feedback to students in your classroom?
Upload a video of a student modeling the appropriate technique of a skill and post on WIKI.
English Language Arts Department
Formative Assessment
How could or do you offer quick and specific feedback on specific skills?
Feedback (comments on papers, comments in class).
Intro slips/Exit slips.
Class discussion (listening and responding to what students say).
Quizzes.
Free writes, journals.
Writing conferences.
How does student self-assessment offer you, the teacher, feedback for future instructional planning?
Identifies student needs, concerns, and gaps in learning so that the teacher might effectively plan future instruction; students can get a second look at their work—they can quickly catch mistakes and self-evaluate; students reflect meta-cognitively and teachers are able to observe this thought process; students can set their own goals moving forward.
Constructivism
What opportunities could students have to self-assess their work with regard to specific skills?
Distill criteria from model essays, set class expectations, students define expectations for assignments and class discussions, brainstorm elements of thematic unit, peer editing. (The English curriculum is a constructivist document.)
Social Technologies
How does a public sharing of student work benefit your discipline or an activity?
Students feel more accountable to the community and thus put their “best foot forward” or “rise to the occasion” or “raise the bar” when writing (edit and proofread more carefully), develop respect for classmates, could help struggling students to generate ideas by giving them something to respond to, by providing opportunities to assess the work of others, students become more adept at assessing their own work, revise ideas/opinion in a quick manner by posting additional comments, get feedback from multiple peers with varied strengths, fun activity that makes learning pleasurable, promotes divergent thinking, allows kids who don’t participate verbally to participate in a discussion which allows kids to hear normally quiet kids articulate their thoughts, creates community in a different medium, extends the classroom.
How does a Wiki offer opportunities for quick feedback to students in your classroom?
Peers respond immediately! Teacher can respond quickly, too. Teacher can be a part of the discussion alongside students.
History Department
Formative Assessment
How could or do you offer quick and specific feedback on specific skills?
Verbal.
Written.
Peer feedback.
How does student self-assessment offer you, the teacher, feedback for future instructional planning?
Clarify instructions (reveals difference between teacher expectation and students’ understanding of teacher directions/expectations).
Reveals difference between what was learned and what teacher may have thought was learned.
May change scope and sequence; may change teacher approach.
May inform on interest level of student.
Identifying trends through comments and then adjusting instructions accordingly, finding out that there are different types of learners and adjusting, re-teaching concepts because you realize that something did not (or did) “click” with your students.
Constructivism
What opportunities exist in my classroom for students to define and create the criteria to be assessed upon (i.e. how do they create their own rubrics)?
Student /teacher collaboration on assessment expectations/generation of rubrics.
Comparing student self grade with teacher evaluation.
Creating test questions.
What opportunities could students have to self-assess their work with regard to specific skills?
Self assess with teacher created rubric.
Grade each other on group project.
Social Technologies
How does a public sharing of student work benefit your discipline or an activity?
There are some concerns with this practice; students may have various valid reasons why some work shouldn’t be exhibited.
When it is positive sharing it may benefit.
In Special Education it can help create a positive environment.
Ex: typically shy person can participate who may not in traditional class setting.
How does a Wiki offer opportunities for quick feedback to students in your classroom?
Instant feedback from not only teachers but also peers.
Question: Is there a way to edit/censor postings to ensure appropriate/safe commentary?
Math Department
Formative Assessment
How could or do you offer quick and specific feedback on specific skills?
Walking around and checking progress.
Do now’s, brain boosters, exit slips, HW problems on board.
TI-Navigator.
Clickers.
Thumbs up, thumbs down.
White boards.
How does student self-assessment offer you, the teacher, feedback for future instructional planning?
The students’ feedback allows us to decide if we should stay on the topic or move onto the next one.
Collaborate with our colleagues on other students’ performances as well.
Constructivism
What opportunities could students have to self-assess their work with regard to specific skills?
Giving review sheets with answers so they can immediately check if they are correct.
Working in small groups.
Think, pair, share.
Presenting a problem.
Going over homework.
Social Technologies
How does a public sharing of student work benefit your discipline or an activity?
The current available technologies do not support our discipline. They have improved but it is hard because there is no math type or ways to right equations
Once one person posts the answer, others may just take that without looking at how they arrived at that solution.
How does a Wiki offer opportunities for quick feedback to students in your classroom?
It does allow quick feedback; however, it would be hard for us to use it in the classroom. We would have to have them take a picture and email it for their equations to show up where it would be much easier for us to look at their calculator or a worksheet and give feedback there instead.
It would be good for use outside like if there was a question on a HW problem allowing us to help if they get stuck on a problem at home.
Music Department
Formative Assessment
How could or do you offer quick and specific feedback on specific skills?
Listening to students perform as large groups, small groups or individuals and offer specific and immediate verbal feedback.
Use rehearsal rubric for individual written feedback on rehearsal skills. (see attachment)
How does student self-assessment offer you, the teacher, feedback for future instructional planning?
Students’ perceptions of learned and demonstrated skills are able to be shared with the teacher.
Student self-assessment offers dialogue between student and teacher concerning their learning.
Student self-assessment offers additional information to adjust instruction, if necessary.
Constructivism
What opportunities exist in my classroom for students to define and create the criteria to be assessed upon (i.e. how do they create their own rubrics)?
This is an area we would like to explore in the future. The large size of many of our ensemble classes often prevents or discourages this type of activity.
What opportunities could students have to self-assess their work with regard to specific skills?
Individual and/or group analysis of a rehearsal or performance
Social Technologies
How does a public sharing of student work benefit your discipline or an activity?
It could provide an opportunity for all students to think critically and actively participate in class discussion (even the quiet students).
How does a Wiki offer opportunities for quick feedback to students in your classroom?
It has potential for some class discussion, but we are already doing individual feedback for student performance.

Below are some pie charts that reflect some of the feedback from our January 13 morning PD workshop. We've posted some comments that seemed representational of the teacher feedback. Feel free to add more comments by editing this page. You can do this by clicking the edit button in the upper right hand corner.You can also start a conversation by clicking on the discussion button next to the editing button. BE BRAVE! Don't worry about messing up this wiki. It may be a valuable learning experience for you. We can always fix it.
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“Well organized/effective”
“To actually do an activity about the very subject we are helping to bring to our students was obviously time well spent”
“I liked to discussion about the constructivist approach to instruction”
“In actuality, we spent only a small portion of the day (30 minutes) playing around on wikispaces. The activity of posting a “main idea” seemed beneath the audience”
“It was nice to have the day broken up into segments”
“There was a lot of moving between groups. Would have liked less of that
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“I learned something new that will help my students”
“I already had a good understanding of formative assessment and use them regularly”
“I did learn new things however, what we saw and how it was shown would be hard to do in a math classroom”
“Didn’t seem too focused on formative assessment. Focused seemed to be on the article and wikispaces. Article was a problem with most in our group."
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Suggestions for additional PD on Assessment
“How to communicate to parents”
“More content specific work”
“We still need helpful, specific and on-going PD on formative summative assessments”
“interdisciplinary content would help”
Suggestions for additional PD related to Technology
“Setting up a wiki”
Comments, Suggestions, Questions
“Teacher presenters were excellent and a good idea. I think teachers were receptive.”
“I was worried I was being graded on the “3650 Days.”
“When giving an “assignment” to read and respond, it would be appreciated if it is relevant to all teachers. The article given was difficult to read and had no application to my classroom.”

Response from Bob Smoler
The author is decrying the fact that technology is creating a new reality/new interpretation of reality for all of us that in some way divorces us from the real events of the day. In the technological reality, we all view events from a distance and this distance is obscuring the true sense of what is going on. The author seems to feel that the barrier technology has created between us and real events has caused us to engage with the events to a lesser degree and thus we have become less reflective about and less proactive in shaping our world.

3650 Days by Seth
The main or central idea of the aritcle is that there is often great change in a decade and this past decade had much change because of advances in technology. Also, while there are numerous events that take place over any ten year period that seem, at the time, to be of huge consequence, many turn out to not be. As I read the examples of events of the previous decade given, I remembered some of them as being big news at the time. Most had very little staying power in the news as the next thing that came along quickly and replaced the previous. Of course there were several significant things that did happen in the last, or likely any other ten-year period, that did have a lasting impact on society. Those things will be remembered in the history books and discussed for years to come.

Article response
This article is a reflection upon the first decade of the 21st century. The main idea is that we don't live our lives very much in the real world or through other people, but rather vicariously through our technology. The real world cracks through briefly when crises occur until we have a chance to remove ourselves again through our technologies to that distant place where we can go without moving at all. The past decade has managed to confount us despite our technologies, because as we get more information from more places and faster, we become more confounded.

main idea
The main idea of the article is that with all the technology we have, we are still unable to predict the future. Technology has managed to desensitize us to outrageous events, such as the hot air balloon hoax a few years ago. We almost expect the unexpected with 24-7 access to news and media. However, none of these events enable us to forecast the future.
Instead, with society’s picture of ‘anything can happen’ being painted, it is just as plausible to think a fortune-teller’s prediction is likely to happen as it is to truly forecast more probable future events based on historical ones. The author is also pointing out that there is something almost comforting in leaving the future up to chance (such as buying into the Mayans’ prediction), rather than taking a realistic approach. It somehow takes the onus off of us if fate has already been pre-determined.
There is no way we could have predicted certain events—such as Hurricane Katrina or Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme (although the latter, in hindsight, should have been more transparent to us). We need to keep our eyes open and take better charge of our futures if we want to have a say in it.

response to article, m.giaquinto
In this article it states that, “we live vicariously through our little machines.” This is very true, since you cannot walk ten feet without seeing someone glued to their phone or searching facebook. There are people out there, like myself that do not have a high-tech phone or use social networks. Most of the world relies on these things to connect with other people, and in the article, it discusses that this is how people live. They live in a virtual reality. When things in the real world happen, such as 9/11, people that have been in these virtual realities take longer to react to these catastrophic events. However when they do react, there is no time to reflect or make connections between what we can know and what happens because of these virtual realities.
Throughout the past ten years, technology has been responsible for the way people have become. The way people interact with each other and the way people view the realities of the world. If you think about it, the way people react to newer technologies is unbelievable. I see individuals yelling at their phones because it does not upload a picture to the internet fast enough, or the fact their friend didn’t get a text message in under a minute. What people are not realizing is that the mere fact that we can even do these things is incredible. Ten years ago if we were told we will be carrying around touch screen phones that can allow you to access the internet, GPS, and many other things, I’m sure many people would think that was crazy talk. During this time of the advancement of technology has made the way people interact come to sitting at a computer or their phone and typing back and forth on a keyboard (or touch screen). The past ten years have brought great advancement in technology but this article explores whether or not it has created the ideal reality people live in.

3650 Days
"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." Our friend, Ferris Bueler, said this in the popular 1986 film "Ferris Bueler's Day Off," and who knew that It could be applied today. In fact, this quote rings true especially right now. Think about all that has happened in the last decade: September 11, the take down of Saddam Huessein, the stock market crash, a football team going 16-0, the election of America's first African-American preseident, etc. All of this, unlike the past, was thrown at us through many different mediums, such as TV, the Internet, radio, etc. I found out Osama bin Laden was killed on Facebook when I was "studying" for a college exam.

The fact of the matter is, we take in alot of information all at once through many different mediums. While it is great to have unlimited access to this information, it can be very easy to get lost in the mix. So, it is important take everything in strides and to not forget what you, personally, are dealing with at the time. The ultimate goal is to take what we learn from society and pop culture and integrate it into our everyday lives. Find balance in lifeand don’t get caught up in something you are not directly involved with.

Article Response
The author is decrying the fact that technology is creating a new reality/new interpretation of reality for all of us that in some way divorces us from the real events of the day. In the technological reality, we all view events from a distance and this distance is obscuring the true sense of what is going on. The author seems to feel that the barrier technology has created between us and real events has caused us to engage with the events to a lesser degree and thus we have become less reflective about and less proactive in shaping our world.