Sunday, May 25, 2014
Survey Says....
Call me a WHAAAAmbulance!
They aren't making the NEO2s anymore!
https://www.renaissance.com/customer-center/neo-downloads
This is too bad, because many of our students have enjoyed and benefited from the low-tech, distraction-free features of this writing tool. For some students, physically handwriting written responses, stories or essays requires a heavy cognitive load. They have to concentrate more on letter and word formation; therefore their ideas do not become fully developed. Using a keyboard (or a dictation tool) can be very powerful for these students to reduce the cognitive load and allow their ideas to take precedent.
image found at http://images.cryhavok.org/v/Whambulance.jpg.html
This is too bad, because many of our students have enjoyed and benefited from the low-tech, distraction-free features of this writing tool. For some students, physically handwriting written responses, stories or essays requires a heavy cognitive load. They have to concentrate more on letter and word formation; therefore their ideas do not become fully developed. Using a keyboard (or a dictation tool) can be very powerful for these students to reduce the cognitive load and allow their ideas to take precedent.
image found at http://images.cryhavok.org/v/Whambulance.jpg.html
Am I Happy & Interested at School?
We have been hard at work with our project, in spite of dropping off the face of the blogging earth! It has been a busy time and I think I am also a little apprehensive about blogging in general. Book, book, book (Chicken noises)
Here's the update:
The surveys were administered the second week back after spring break, and we managed to get everyone! Here is it at the left in 2 jpeg files. I don't yet know how to upload a Word document or a PDF into a post using Blogspot- I'll put that on my Summer Learning To-Do list. The survey has 3 negatively- and 17 positively-worded statements, a comment section, and a reflection on how the survey was completed. I spent a considerable amount of time researching and developing this survey, but I am not a statistician, so I am sure there are many imperfections. I won't be generalizing the findings, other than to use them for discussion and to support future planning for instruction and assessment, with a technology twist, in our school.
The process -Students ranked the statements that best described them. Staff support was available if requested/required. Each rank (Never, Sometimes, Usually, Always, & Not Sure) was assigned a score (1,2,3,4,0 respectively).The 3 negative statements were scored in reverse. If students responded the same way to the negatively and positively- paired statements (example - I enjoy school and I do NOT like school), I had a conference with them to determine their thoughts. So, presumably the higher the score, the more happy and interested the student was a school. The maximum amount of points possible was 80. Anecdotes from the comment section were recorded and pie charts were made for using the reflection part - most of the students completed the survey independently - answer (a). Results were shared with the classroom teachers and the tech tools were embedded in the classrooms - so far the NEO2 seems to get the most use. The survey did take a good chunk of time to hand score, so I have plans to use SurveyMonkey for the June edition (along with some edits). The results were then entered into an Excel Spreadsheet and shared with the teachers - stayed tuned for my next post!
Here's the update:
The surveys were administered the second week back after spring break, and we managed to get everyone! Here is it at the left in 2 jpeg files. I don't yet know how to upload a Word document or a PDF into a post using Blogspot- I'll put that on my Summer Learning To-Do list. The survey has 3 negatively- and 17 positively-worded statements, a comment section, and a reflection on how the survey was completed. I spent a considerable amount of time researching and developing this survey, but I am not a statistician, so I am sure there are many imperfections. I won't be generalizing the findings, other than to use them for discussion and to support future planning for instruction and assessment, with a technology twist, in our school.The process -Students ranked the statements that best described them. Staff support was available if requested/required. Each rank (Never, Sometimes, Usually, Always, & Not Sure) was assigned a score (1,2,3,4,0 respectively).The 3 negative statements were scored in reverse. If students responded the same way to the negatively and positively- paired statements (example - I enjoy school and I do NOT like school), I had a conference with them to determine their thoughts. So, presumably the higher the score, the more happy and interested the student was a school. The maximum amount of points possible was 80. Anecdotes from the comment section were recorded and pie charts were made for using the reflection part - most of the students completed the survey independently - answer (a). Results were shared with the classroom teachers and the tech tools were embedded in the classrooms - so far the NEO2 seems to get the most use. The survey did take a good chunk of time to hand score, so I have plans to use SurveyMonkey for the June edition (along with some edits). The results were then entered into an Excel Spreadsheet and shared with the teachers - stayed tuned for my next post!Thursday, April 3, 2014
Drum Roll, Please! Here are the Details!
We have made some changes to our original plan. With the support of our amazingly insightful school psychologist (Maxine M.), we have streamlined our data collection. An LVS Engagement and Satisfaction Survey has been created to administer pre- and post- project and Maplewood will provide us with attendance data. Originally, we were going to collect literacy and numeracy data too; however, Maxine felt that because of the short duration (April to June), it would be impossible for children’s cognitive processes and achievement levels to show changes. Furthermore, if a child has a true Learning Disability, they will be even slower to show growth – three months is just not enough time! However, we still can access informal achievement data through our school-wide assessment tools, for interest sake. At LVS, we collect individual student information in October and May each year to informally assess literacy and numeracy levels.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Makin' it Stick!
In our grade 6 classroom, we are talking about making our learning stick in ways that are meaningful to each individual. We had a class meeting and decided to make anchor charts to help us "walk the walk" after we "talked the talk." This chart was completely conceptualized and created by one of our students who best reads with his ears. I am very proud of him, because he honoured his strengths and learning styles with this chart. There are pictures and colours for visual learners; movable and 3-D pieces for tactile learners; and words for the word smart! He was also able to identify 4 things that help him as a learner which demonstrates some self smarts!
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