Week 2 Relection

 

            This week we discussed observation techniques and how they should be implemented in the classroom. Observation is the foundation for all assessments and helps distinguish students' progress. There are many reasons for teachers to observe, including remembering what students can do and planning lessons that precisely fit students' educational needs.

         The types of observation are running and anecdotal records, time and event sampling, checklists, and rubrics/rating scales. I believe checklists would be the easiest to implement because they are quick to make and would be a great handout for students to check if they have completed all parts of a project. I think that event sampling would be essential when it comes to a student constantly misbehaving and determining why that behavior is occurring. However, I want to include all observation techniques in my future classroom to best evaluate my students' learning. 

            There are two kinds of rubrics, analytic and holistic. In an analytic rubric, the sections are divided and scored based on how a student performed each task, not the project as a whole. In class, my group practiced making an analytic rubric centered around students re-creating the life cycle. We thought it would be easy but soon noticed the opposite. We struggled when students met only some of the requirements for a specific score. For example, we said that students would receive a 3 for labeling if they put the correct words and spelling for all labels. However, some students had all the words labeled but not all spelled correctly. We then had difficulty deciding if the student should receive a 2 or 3. I would make sure in the future I think about that "gray area," have detailed descriptions, and practice the techniques I learned in this activity before releasing rubrics to my students.