Critical Reflection is a tool that educators can use to continuously improve instruction. It is often used as a tool of peer observation professional learning communities. Karathanos and Aminy (2008) write that educators should routinely critically reflect on lessons by asking questions such as: what went well, what did not go as planned, what was learned as a result of the lesson, how will this new knowledge be used , and what changes might be made going forward.

Retelling the “story” of instruction can call attention to moments of learning and missed opportunities. Costa and Kallick (2000) write that narrative reflection can be used in conjunction with teacher or student journals. The theory is that by recounting the actions, discussion and interactions that took place within a learning session give valuable information for crafting a better learning experience in the future. This theory is based on a concept by Wasley, Hampel and Clark (1997) that encourages educators to move forward in education with an eye on the past.

Here is a template that is used in my setting to encourage teachers to reflect on planning and practice.

SelfEvaluationForm1

References

Costa, A., & Kallick, B. (2000). Getting into the habit of reflection. Educational Leadership, 57(7), 60-62. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-               leadership/apr00/vol57/num07/Getting-into-the-Habit-of-Reflection.aspx

Karathanos, K., & Aminy, M. (2008). ). critical reflection in teacher education. Academic Exchange Quarterly,12(2), 87-92. Retrieved from http://www.rapidintellect.com/AEQweb/

Wasley, P. A., Hampel, R. L., & Clark, R. W. (1997). Kids and school reform. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Educators can get a well-rounded picture of the needs of their setting by including data that affects more than simply immediate student achievement.  Goldring and Berends (2009) remind educational leaders that in addition to analyzing data the measures student outcomes, they must also examine data that measure processes and changes that can affect student outcomes. Collecting data on the changing demographics of a school can provide key information about which programs are needed, which should be discontinued and what other initiatives are necessary to support the current population.

In my current setting, we examine trends such as language composition, country of origin, amount of previous schooling and cultural beliefs. Due to the extreme diversity of our school, these elements factor heavily into our decision-making processes. This type of data is collected mainly through the demographic information entered by parents or guardians at the time of registration. I do not think that it is sufficient to provide the depth of information needed. One clear example is the question that asks about the main language spoken at home. This question should have a follow-up inquiring if parents or guardians are proficient in English as well as their native language. We often don’t know this information until students volunteer to tell us more. Perhaps this could be accomplished by administering a follow-up survey to all students/parents specifying that a different language is spoken at home. Data could be compiled quantitatively to determine the percentage of our families that have a least one parent who is proficient in English as compared to those with no parent who is fluent in English. Additionally, survey data could be reported descriptively to analyze any other cultural factors at work in the home that may affect the student academically.

Goldring, E., & Berends, M. (2009). Leading with data: Pathways to improve your school. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Here is  how we analyze demographic data to help track student progress by demographic. 9W Performance Report

Additionally, here is an example of how we analyze student feedback data to help inform instruction:

Standards were provided to guide the learning of this unit.

Having access to accurate student data is important in any educational setting, but it is especially important in the online learning setting. Various types of information help educators to track enrollment, attendance, course objectives, communication, and progress. The reports in this lesson support educators and students in all of these areas.

The first example provides basic information on student enrollment, other classes attempted this term as well as start and end dates for the term.

Next, teachers have access to student level, whether the student has completed the orientation and any type of assessment required in the course. This information can help with differentiation and remedial tutorials.

Constant communication in both the positive and negative are essential to student success. The next example offers detailed information on contact between teacher, student and parents. The data includes type, nature, and date of the communication in addition to a brief comment outlining the exchange. The following chart shows a positive contact including the same information.

The following example provides detailed information on each student’s progress. It is important to know how much time students are spending on-task, interacting with the material. This information can help determine if there is a problem with comprehension or effort.

Finally, teachers are provided with information on various cases of feedback both formative for student improvement and summative for performance enhancement and grading. These examples display authentic feedback and final grading information.

When all of the I’s have been dotted and T’s have been crossed, it is time for a summative assessment. The goal would be to have every student demonstrate mastery not only on the entire assessment, but on each skill and/or domain represented on the assessment as well. Here is a student assessment report that offers detailed information on which questions were missed and which domains need additional work.  Student Assessment Reports

Often we tell a student “Good Job!” or place a grade at the top of their paper and call it feedback.  Quality feedback however, is something more. It is using information about performance, improvement and effective learning. While it often coincides with evaluation, it is a separate message altogether.

Here is an example of annotated feedback that was given separate from the graded assignment as an attachment that the student could then print and use as a guide without exposing their graded assignment if they chose not to. Summarizing, Paraphrasing & Quoting-Annotated feedback

One of the most powerful learning tools is feedback gathered from formative assessments. Formative assessments help educators to identify gaps in learning and address those gaps through re-teaching or remediation. Rubrics make a wonderful tool for both formative and summative assessment. They offer students authentic feedback that can then become positive learning action.

In Language Arts students were given an MLA Sample Essay to review, discuss and dissect. They were then asked to write a “practice” essay which was color-coded and then graded with the MLA essay Rubric.

They were able to receive specific feedback on which domains needed work. They were then able to use the practice essay, rubric and feedback as they crafted the “final” essay. The results were very successful!

In just a few short years technological advances have allowed education to become more engaging, interactive and appealing. Educators have now at their disposal a plethora of tools to help reinforce or remediate skills and lessons. The following are a few tools that allow teachers to gather, organize and create engaging and interactive lessons.

WordleWordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes.

PiktochartPiktochart- Make Information Beautiful. Create infographics. Engaging presentation app.

 
ChartsBinCreate your own interactive map. It’s free for now.

Advancements in information technology and greater understanding of the pedagogical principles which supporting successful distance education have led to the creation of innovative instructional approaches in distance delivery. One such innovative approach is the use of re-usable learning objects. These activities are interactive, engaging and can be used as stand-alone lessons or integrated into other learning experiences.

Language Arts Learning Objects

Follow this link to engage in an interactive review of basic literary terms.  Literary Who Wants to Be a Millionaire

Follow this link to practice subject verb agreement with a pop-up review. Subject/Verb Pop-Up

One effective way to engage students is through the use of learning objects. They help to differentiate delivery and engage multiple learning styles.                                                                  

Instructional Design’s Explanation of Learning Objects

The idea of learning objects is to create media content that is:

• interoperable – can “plug-and-play” with any system or delivery tool
• reusable – can be used or adapted for use in multiple learning events
• accessible – can be stored a way that allows for easy searchability
• manageable – can be tracked and updated over time

Definition

Learning object definitions vary greatly, however the basic idea behind learning objects are as follows:

• “The smallest independent structural experience that contains an objective, a learning activity and an assessment (L’Allier, 1997)
• “Any digital resource that can be reused to support learning” (David Wiley, 2002)
• “Any reusable digital resource that is encapsulated in a lesson or assemblage of lessons grouped in units, modules, courses , and even programmes. A lesson can be defined as a piece of instruction, normally including a learning purpose or purposes.(McGreal, 2002., p. 8)
• “any element of that [instructional] architecture that can be independently drawn into a momentary assembly in order to create an instructional event. Instructional objects can included problem environments, interactive models, instructional problems or problem sets, instructional function modules, modular routines for instructional augmentation (coaching, feedback, etc),), instructional message elements, modular routines for presentation of information, or logic modules related to instructional purposes (management, recording, selecting, etc.). (Gibbons, Nelson, and Richards, n.d., p. 5)
• “the holy grail” of digital content creation (Polsani, Feb. 2003, p1)

Examples of creative learning objects                 

FREE

Apple Learning Interchange
Searchable database of “thousands of Internet resources that can be valuable for teaching and learning”

Connexions
The Connexions Project at Rice University has created an open repository of educational materials and tools to promote sharing and exploration of knowledge as a dynamic continuum of interrelated concepts.

Education Network Australia
Supported by education.au, a non-profit company limited by guarantee and owned by the Australian education and training Ministers, EdNA provides users with access to over 16,000 materials of interest to teachers and learners of all levels, covering a wide range of subjects.

Educational Software Components of Tomorrow
A testbed for the integration of innovative technology in middle school mathematics. The project investigates replicable practices that produce predictably high quality digital learning resources”

Learning-Objects.net
Part of a larger collection of resources and forums that inform educators about the potential uses of learning objects and encourages their use and creation.

SUBSCRIPTION

Merlot
Propably the best-known (first?) learning object repository. Excellent site.

Wisc-Online
Good example of a repository that has value to educators and industry.

Splash
This site (or at minimum the concept) has much potential.
“The Portal for Online Objects in Learning (POOL) Project is a consortium of several educational, private and public, sector organizations to develop an infrastructure for learning object repositories. We address the issues of building such architectures including the metadata, software and hardware considerations and bootstrapping the system with initial content. We also make our tools available for download, to help set up similar infrastructures elsewhere and to connect them to POOL. The main advantage of our solution is that it can potentially embrace all nature of individuals and organizations involved in the learning object economy.”

eduSource
“The general vision of the eduSource project is focused on the creation of a network of linked and interoperable learning object repositories across Canada. The initial part of this project will be an inventory of ongoing development of the tools, systems, protocols and practices. Consequent to this initial exercise the project will look at defining the components of interoperable framework, the web services that will tie them all together and the protocols necessary to allow other institutions to enter into that framework.”