Creating an assessment

For this week, we continued to work on our formative assessments. I continued to work with what our math assessments are lacking in, while also trying to make it easier for teachers. I find that including technology into math is a lot easier to do than reading at the kindergarten level. I have to think a lot about what my students are capable of doing on their own, and what they would need full instruction on to complete. The hardest part for my students is when it comes to feedback. They can not read as well as older grades, so a lot of their feedback has to be verbal. However, when it comes to an assessment, we have to keep a record of what they have done. The feedback created for this, would be for the parents to see the growth and progress, while the students would be receiving verbal  feedback. With that here is the next part of my formative assessment.

For review, here is the first part.

CMS Assessment Creation

This week we created a CMS assessment online for students. With teaching kindergarten, I always find that you have to search for ways to really make it beneficial for the students to use. I took one of the websites that I use daily in my classroom, and created a grouping of games for the students to play. The website tracks points and scores and emails them to me when a student is done. I am able to see how a student is doing, and what they are struggling on. With that link, I embedded it on to Edmodo. I liked Edmodo for the fact that I can send messages out, and polls to collect answers. However, with teaching kindergarten, I am going to get more parent interaction, than student. Creating links and activities for students to connect to is a wonderful way to use this CMS in the classroom. It allows for me to have a record book of what students have accomplished, along with also having a cut off period to use. Here is my screencast of how I connected the assessment. 

CMS in the school

I review three different CMS options for this assignment. Two of the options were offered by the course, the other one is the NWEA Skill Builder Dashboard that my school is beginning to use. When it came down to deciding which one would have the most benefit for my classroom, I chose Google Classroom. I liked it because it has a section where you can search for different lessons, whether you are a student or a teacher. I also liked it as an organizational resource. You could store those resources in the tool to use on a yearly basis. You can connect apps throughout the lessons that your students can go do work in, while also attaching an assignment for them to work on at home. It connects to an email and communication, where you can  have a class discussion with students who are having difficulties. If necessary, I can also video conference with a parent, which would help  with certain techniques and routines that I use in classroom on any given day. Here is my review of the CMS options.

Minecraft and Assessment

This week we created our own minecraft worlds. It also began the week of learning technology is never reliable and that sometimes, 6 year olds really know what they are doing when it comes to Minecraft. I spent a lot of time this week playing in students video games trying to learn new concepts and even just how to build. Through this, I saw just how great this game is for my students and how I could use it for their advantage. The students hold a HUGE interest in building and collecting things throughout the worlds. Using this type of activity with rules and requirements would allow for students to begin to grasp a concept of becoming a builder and working on math skills without even realizing it. The following video allows just for one idea of assessment with Kindergartners.