Create: Using Web 2.0 Tools to Differentiate Student Assessment Quest

Post date: May 22, 2016 2:23:22 PM

During traditional student presentations, I often look like (click on the image):

This is because the presentations tend to all look the same, which bores me and the students. They had no fun creating and delivering the presentation and I have no fun watching them present their information.

However, with the use of a web 2.0 tool for students to demonstrate mastery, the product could (and should) be engaging for both students and teacher (If I'm going to be grading 140 projects, it would be nice if they were interesting...). I could see using ToonDoo for my students. It could be used in physics for students to describe the results of a laboratory investigation or to illustrate the process involved in solving a particular type of problem. In AP Environmental Science (I know, not my Create topic, but still...), it could be used by students to describe the myriad of processes they are required to know for the AP exam (succession, how photochemical smog is created, destruction of the ozone layer, etc. etc.). Creating these storyboards would increase their ownership of the material (and likely their understanding) because they must not simply read about the process and memorize it, but they have to represent this process in comic/storyboard form. I've often heard that teaching someone else greatly increases understanding and comprehension of the material. This is basically what the students would be doing. After everyone has completed their storyboard, it would be interesting to post them somewhere where all students could view them and learn from them, thus expanding the educational reach of the created storyboards.

To grade them, a rubric would be needed. This would be easy enough to create using Rubistar. The rubric should be available to students BEFORE starting the project so they know exactly what they need to do to earn full marks.

Not only would these increase engagement and understanding in the students (at least, that's the hope...), they would be a lot of fun to grade and I could (hopefully) avoid the situation in the GIF above. It would be easy to see from reading the comics/storyboards where misconceptions are located and which students truly understood the material on a deep, comprehension level, which students had only a superficial understanding of the material, and which students did not understand the material at all and need further study.