Week Three Learning

This week I learned much from others blogs to help me find tools to manage and track differentiated students. On blogs, not only was I was able to get ideas of specific programs and descriptions of them, but I was helped out in understanding what it meant. On Twitter, I found many recommendations of sites to check out. Google Reader has been a great help. It is easy to read new posts on the blogs I have added to it. While reading others’ posts, I was struck at how important it is for students to track their own progress. Of course, it’s something I’ve always known, but have not used it as much as I should in class. After reading about students self assessing, I came up with some ideas that I could use in my class. The students are able to see their progress on programs like Accelerated Math and Study Island. On Accelerated Math, they know when they’ve master objectives, but I think I know a way it could mean more to them. They have a folder that they keep their Accelerated Math work in. I was thinking that they could have a list of the library of objectives they are working on. They could check off as they master them. This would give them more incentive to get those objectives mastered. We do have a chart where they put up stickers each time they master one, but it isn’t tied to specific objectives. Accelerated Math is technology based, and it gives me a great and easy way to track how the students are doing. The students themselves do not have access to the reports that I do. So even though checking it off on paper isn’t very technological, it goes with a program that is. Our school has been talking about getting iPads for student use. If and when they do get them, I’m sure I could find easy ways for them to track it on there. I am excited to find out how this affects their motivation for learning. Our Wiki group is starting to get ideas on how to organize our page. I saw on one of the videos on our class page how to organize it, but haven’t figured out how to do it yet. That will be what we work on.