Another week has passed. We were offered a set of captivating and ... challenging tasks.
Captivating because the things we discuss are useful and generate interesting discussions. It's not that boring stuff that no one needs. These are things we can apply in practice and benefit from them. Challenging because I made up my mind to make a Web Quest. At first it seemed rather easy to me. But when I started reading about web quests I realized that to make a good one the teacher needs to do a great deal of work, to search the sites and to provide careful guidance to the students. So the Web Quest was this week's challenge, at least for me. I got really mad when I spent time to register on zurnal.com, and when I began to make my web quest it said that I could not do anything else because I was not a premium user. Finally, today I succeeded! Though, I think it's a fake Web Quest. I don't think it is ready to be used by the students. There are many things to be improved in it and probably I will come back to this problem some day. The most important thing is that I understood how it works.
Another useful thing for me was Alternative Assessment and mainly rubrics. I'm grateful to Jodi and Sherie for this wonderful tool. Once I attended a seminar in assessing writing. Among other things we were introduced to rubrics for essay assessment. All of our teachers liked it a lot and we kept the copy of that rubric to use it in our classes. Unfortunately, we weren't told that we can make one of our own. So now, when I know it I'm going to create different rubrics and share the link with my colleagues.
Before enrolling in this course, I thought I knew some things about teaching. But being part of this class, I realize how much room there is for improvement. I understand that a teacher never ceases to learn. And I like it!
P.S. Captivating and Challenging!
Captivating because the things we discuss are useful and generate interesting discussions. It's not that boring stuff that no one needs. These are things we can apply in practice and benefit from them. Challenging because I made up my mind to make a Web Quest. At first it seemed rather easy to me. But when I started reading about web quests I realized that to make a good one the teacher needs to do a great deal of work, to search the sites and to provide careful guidance to the students. So the Web Quest was this week's challenge, at least for me. I got really mad when I spent time to register on zurnal.com, and when I began to make my web quest it said that I could not do anything else because I was not a premium user. Finally, today I succeeded! Though, I think it's a fake Web Quest. I don't think it is ready to be used by the students. There are many things to be improved in it and probably I will come back to this problem some day. The most important thing is that I understood how it works.
Another useful thing for me was Alternative Assessment and mainly rubrics. I'm grateful to Jodi and Sherie for this wonderful tool. Once I attended a seminar in assessing writing. Among other things we were introduced to rubrics for essay assessment. All of our teachers liked it a lot and we kept the copy of that rubric to use it in our classes. Unfortunately, we weren't told that we can make one of our own. So now, when I know it I'm going to create different rubrics and share the link with my colleagues.
Before enrolling in this course, I thought I knew some things about teaching. But being part of this class, I realize how much room there is for improvement. I understand that a teacher never ceases to learn. And I like it!
P.S. Captivating and Challenging!
Wow, you have started zurnal, I haven't reached there yet. Still trying to see relevant rubrics and am going to analyze other examples first.
ReplyDeleteGreat start Ludmila! Good luck
Luidmila,
ReplyDeleteI think you touched on a key quality of a good teacher. "A teacher never ceases to learn." That is so true. I'm glad you've liked the rubrics, but sorry to hear your Zunal experience was a bit frustrating.