My students learned a great deal about macromolecules to include their structure, function, and how to identify them in due to their chemical properties. These are just simple facts that both, in most cases, easily memorized and recalled for times on the final assessment. Students also showed growth and learned other items to include: how to act properly for presentation, how to dress professionally, and how to ask questions for a guest speaker. Yes, understanding the facts about macromolecules is necessary for testing purposes, but public speaking skills is of greater necessity for future endeavors like job interviews. For most students, they showed enough growth to where what they didn’t know (or did not demonstrate) was not detrimental to their grade they earned for the culminating project. Out of the 24 students all showed growth but 3 students did not grow enough and it impacted their grade in the final assessment.
There were several items that did not run as smoothly as anticipated. First, was some major assumptions. I assumptions that the students should already know about presentations to include: seriousness, body posture, and using proper lingo. However, after a very short practice session I found out otherwise. Second, was the students would self-check as they were practicing. Yes, they are kids and yes, I should have never assumed but I had it set in my mind that they knew this was their grade and they would stay on task better. Also, was the time-line. I am a stickler for time and I set schedules for a reason. In pained me to add a couple more days to the unit due to factors of laptops not working properly, students spending too much time on certain topics, and in other cases, students just working slowly.
What I will do differently for the next one is more practice and critique. This would provide a better gauge for me to evaluate where the students are and where they need to go to be more successful. Also, I will involve several English teachers (it’s in their standards) to help evaluate them during their practice. Finally, the students can record their practices on the computers and go back and evaluate themselves to see how well they did.
Hi Scott,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate you taking time to assess students' learning with the macromolecule "vomit" pbl and analyze their growth from their baseline formative assessment at the beginning to their summative assessment at the end. I agree with you 100% that in pbl students gain way more than just a conceptual understanding of the content but also valuable soft skill experience such as their communication and collaboration that you embedded and prioritized in the unit. You explained how all but 3 students in the class met the overall goal and did well on their final assessment.
You shared how in reflecting on the unit, you also learned how students need time and instruction on soft skills we assume they possess when they arrive such as presentation skills and these had to be explicitly taught through the creation and consistent reinforcement of your expectations.
You shared how in the next unit you want to provide students with more practice and critique and involve your English colleagues to help provide some feedback in their evaluation. I think this is a great way to help ensure effective cross disciplinary instruction in your spring pbl.
Sincerely,
Dawn