Week 10

Essential question: What was the impact of my diffi-tool on Givercraft students & teachers; what should I change for Survivorcraft to ensure the my intervention is effective?

Givercraft has finally come to an end. I really wasn't sure how much of an impact the diffi-tool my team and I created would be for the students and teachers when we first started. I now understand after being in the world and noticing the tool being used, it was a huge impact. Here are some screen shots I took of the chests from the memories released station. 

I'm using the assessment of observation to notice that the diffi-tool was a success. I also noticed that we didn't need to build three houses full of memories. One chest was never even used. I looked through the student wiki page, but couldn't tell which memories were given to them. I know that  I made a wedding memory, so maybe this student that Thomas found wrote about their wedding memory on the wiki page " Yesterday the memory of a wedding popped into my head and it filled me with so much warmth and joy I knew I had to recreate one for myself. Today, I built my own wedding isle, and got married to BarboElla. It was wonderful! It was in the perfect location; by the auditorium. The entire community came which made it feel just like the memory. I don't understand why the community never had weddings. There is no harm in it and it fills everyone who attends with joy.
   A wedding is the celebration of when two people decide to spend the rest of their life together with the promise of a ring. Typically, a woman, the bride, dresses up in a fancy dress and walks down the isle to the gazebo or alter. The man, the groom, waits until the bride reaches the alter/gazebo. Then a person called the priest reads the vows and the couple says, "I do". Also a tradition is that the bride and groom choose their best friends to stand by their side when they say their vows. These people are called Bridesmaids and Groomsmen . Finally when they are finished saying their vows, they put their rings on each other and the priest says, "You may kiss the Bride." and they kiss" was given to them by their teacher, or they thought of creating a wedding memory. I did notice in the chest, that the wedding memory is gone, so it was used by the students. Where the diffi-tool can be assessed the best by observation and how well it was used. I also will send out a survey to the teachers and see how easy it was to access the tool. Did students appreciate having the tool? Also, how many students in their class were given a memory from the teacher and how often did the teachers have to use the tool.  Here is the link to the survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8YQ6PWH My only hesitation  with a survey is from my other class, we sent a survey to the teachers before creating our training... and only heard from two teachers. We sent another survey out at the end to assess our training and only heard back from one. So i'm not sure how this assessment will actually be a good tool to use. 

Assessment is key to a successful PBL. If you don't assess your students, you will never know if they understood the content, learned from the unit and retained the information.  Keeping data throughout a unit is important as well. The "use of data affects the work of all professionals involved in education" (Ontario). If the data collected provides a positive outcome for student learning, guaranteed others will want to do the same project. It's important during any project to observe and keep data on your students success. "In effective schools, teachers monitor student progress on a regular and ongoing basis in order to provide both differentiated learning experiences and appropriate support to meet the needs of students" (Lian and Chan). One best way to assess students is by self reflection. Self reflection "reports the students daily progress and development of the project" (Lian and Chan). When you read the students wiki pages that were completed during each scenario, students are reflecting on their learning and what they created. The wiki page is a great tool to use for assessments. "Assessments can take place wherever the student is learning" (Macdonald) and also be done  as a "group or individually" (Macdonald). It's mentioned in the Google Hangout Video that assessment can be completed by observing the whole group product as well as individual student goals. It's important for students to write out their goals and reflect on how they achieved those goals. Students can use wiki pages "blogs and online communities to reflect on their practice" (Boss) and show what they learned. If you have thirty minutes, the google hangout video is a very eye opening discussion on assessment with PBL. Throughout out Givercraft while I was in the world and giving Mr. William's class support, I was constantly assessing the students learning. I observed them directly talking with each other in the chat, reading the tasks and objectives over again until they understood, worked in groups to build structures, observed the buildings and read their reflections on the wiki pages. I know the diffi-tool was used. For survival craft, memories are not required. I would like to keep using the houses I built with the chests. My idea for survival craft, is to take the books out of the chest and replace them with building and survival tools. Students who have a difficult time staying alive can have the option of asking their teacher for support. Teachers will be able to give them supplies from the chest. For the maze runner, creative mode is enabled so, I think supplies are not going to be necessary. Another idea is to put hints on how to build the "escape" of their maze, if they can't think of one or need extra support. Teachers can give the students a hint from the "chest" and help them create their maze. If you have any other ideas, i'm open to suggestion. 

Here's the link to access the results from the survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-YKQSJGH7/

Resources

Using Data: Transforming Potential into Practice. (2013, December 1). Retrieved March 24, 2015, from http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/policyfunding/leadership/IdeasIntoActionBulletin5.pdf

Gillian Xiao - Lian, T., & May - Chan, Y. (207, January 1). Authentic assessment strategies in problem based learning. Retrieved March 24, 2015, from http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/singapore07/procs/tai.pdf

Macdonald, R. (n.d.). Retrieved March 24, 2015, from http://www.nuigalway.ie/celt/pblbook/chapter9.pdf

Larmer, J., Stevenson, I., & Jordan, E. (2014, April 2). Assessment in Project Based Learning. Retrieved March 24, 2015, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYRNWumyy4w#t=335

Boss, S. (n.d.). TEN TIPS FOR ASSESSING PROJECT-BASED LEARNING. Retrieved March 25, 2015, from http://www.edutopia.org/pdfs/guides/edutopia-10tips-assessing-project-based-learning.pdf