Elaborating a rubric for assessment.

Hi there !

This time I am going to show you a rubric I created, so as to gauge students in my Open Educational Project: The Weather Forecasters.

What am I assessing ?

First an foremost, let me tell you that I decided to create a rubric concerning the final outcome of my project, which is a Special Weather Forecast, which you can take a look at, here.

I decided to focus on the assessment of the final outcome, since it is going to reflect all the contents and skills students are bound to acquire throughout the whole Open Educational Project,

How did I come up with a rubric ?

Once I had a clear idea about the focus of the assessment, I decided to create a scheme, so as to organize the elements to be taken into consideration when deciding the criteria, and have a crystal clear idea of the rubric, as a whole.

As a result, I elaborated the following scheme, by using an online tool called Digi-Key Scheme it, which is aimed at designing schemes. Once I registered myself, I was able to start introducing schematic symbols and the text.

Sample of the scheme for the rubric

Why did I chose this structure for the scheme?

I decided to include the creation of the comic, since it is going to be the learning mission immediately before the Special Weather Forecast. Consequently, the elaboration of the comic is going to set the basis for the creation of the video. Moreover, the items that are embedded in it are going to be taken into account when making decisions about the ratings of the rubric.

I decided to include the elaboration of the video - since it is the artefact students have to design - alongside the 21st Century Skills, due to the fact that they are essential, particularly when it comes to Project-Based Learning, and they are included in my project.

Before designing the rubric, it was time to bear in mind what it is about.

What elements should a rubric include?

Here you have an infographic I planned, to illustrate them. In so doing, I used a tool called Picktochart.

At that  moment, it was time to be hands on creating the rubric.

How did I create the rubric?

I used Quick Rubric in order to create it. I registered myself and I started elaborating it, by adding columms and rows, and editing the criteria, the ratings and the descriptors. Then, I uploaded it at Issuu.

Sample of the rubric

Rubric for the students

Students will be provided with a rubric, too, since the beginning of their learning missions, so that they will have a better understanding of what the have to do, once they read the instructions of the learning missions. I created it with Microsoft Word, and uploaded it at Issuuhttps://issuu.com/lucia2042/docs/finalrubric.

Self-reflection

Before starting with the rubric, I browsed several pages concerning tips and examples of what a rubric is about, which are the following ones:

• http://www.bie.org/object/document/project_assessment_map
• https://www.edutopia.org/blog/effective-assessment-project-based-learning-andrew-miller
• http://www.bie.org/object/document/rubric_for_rubric

After being investigating, I decided to take a look at the project I looked at in detail to analyse an Open Educational Project, which you can take a look here. Due to the fact that it helped me a lot to design my OEP, as well as, the learning missions, I decided to look at the rubrics it provides, as it contains rubrics for both students and teachers. This rubrics either deals with each mission, or with the overall project.

After taking a look at them, I started designing mine. To tell you the truth, I tought it would be easier, since I had a general idea of what my rubric would contain. Nevertheless, it was a demanding process, after knowing all the essential elements it should contain, as well as its features. I was thinking long and hard, and after creating the scheme showed before, I started introducing the criteria, and the descriptors. Concerning the descriptors, I had to make some changes, since I wanted them to be gradual and really illustrate improvement.

Furthermore, I created a rubric for students to assess themselves, too, since I am of the opinion that it is something students have to be accustomed to, so as to be more critical, reflect about their learning, and notice the learning, too. Consequently, they will also train their higher-order thinking skills.

All in all, I have to say that I am of the opinion that planning a rubric needs time, and we have to pay attention to the assessment. It is something that cannot be done in the blink of an eye. Besides, it needs practise, so from my point of view, you actually need to put the rubric intro practise and monitor it, so as to see if it is really manageable and accurate, in oder to enhance it. I will definitely take into account the essential elements of a rubric, since a great deal of times, we tend to add  lots of  items, and we do not focus on the main criteria. So, if we add fewer elements and explain them clearly, we will not have any problem when assessing our students.

In addition, nowadays, there are scores of online tools to design our rubrics, and for example, the one I used was easy to manage.

See you later, collaborator !

In charge of creating learning missions. Part 2.

This time I am going to show you another example of how to turn a flat activity into a flabbergasting learning mission. I selected one of the tasks I developed for my Open Educational Project "The Weather Forecasters" that you can take a look by clicking here.

This learning mission is built on the previous one - In charge of creating learning missions. Part 1. 

How to turn a flat activity into a super learning mission ?

• Choose a humdrum, boring activity from the textbook or from your own material.
• Select the goals you want your students to accomplish.
• Select the competences you like them to practise.
• Think of an ICT tool you want to incorporate.
• Choose the final artefact to be created.
• Give your activity an appealing title.
• Present it as a mission, with all the instructions to follow.

Which flat activity did I choose ?

Activity 2.

Open your books on page 32. Look at the weather symbols of the map. Indicate where India is located. Open your notebook and write a sentence concerning the weather India has today, and another sentence about the weather you think India will have tomorrow.

Collaboration time

Before explaining the learning mission, let me tell you that - as it occurred with the previous activity- I joined two of my colleagues to work collaboratively: Ana Márquez and Carmen Olmedo.

I collaborated with Ana Márquez @ana94mqz, because of the fact that our learning mission concerns India, among other countries, as her project does.  You can take a look at her project here.

Moreover, I collaborated with Carmen Olmedo @CarmenOlPas, as she is working with  “The 30 goals challenge”, particularly with “Revamping a lesson” goal. Due to the fact that this goal includes aspects like: creating learning missions, making the lesson more hands-on, including technology, and adding humour; I decided to apply this characteristics to the mission. You can take a look at her project here.

Retrieved from: http://teacherrebootcamp.com/2016/08/07/goallessonupdate/

How is the learning mission aligned with my collaborative project-to-be?

This learning mission is aligned with the collaborative movement I am looking forward to participating, which is called “Design a Badge Goal”, from “The 30 Goals Challenge”, since I have created digital badges for the role each pupil is going to play, so as to reward them.

Retrieved from: http://teacherrebootcamp.com/2016/07/21/goaldesignabadge/

How did I create those badges?

I went to “Design a Badge Goal" page and I browsed a slideshow provided by Shelly Terrell @ShellTerrell. I decided to use again one of the recommended tools called Open Badges Me, I registered myself in a couple of seconds and we started working on the graphics. Firstly, you  have to give the graphic a title and a description. Then, you design it by choosing and editing: shapes, inner shapes, banners, texts, and adding icons. Finally you complete it and keep it.

Since this the learning mission is also based on cooperative learning, these are other badges I created for each role students will play.

                                                               


















 By  Lucía Carrasco

By Lucía Carrasco
                                

 By Lucía Carrasco                                                                                                                                                           

                                                                 

 By Lucía Carrasco

Learning mission: The Special Weather Forecast.

Here you can take a look at the Canva I designed, in order to indicate the goals, competences, grouping and time.

mission2 de Lucía Carrasco

Getting a deeply understanding of the learning mission

I decided to create a draft of the activity in Google Drive , and then a presentation that I uploaded to Slide Share to explain the development of the mission. Since this course I worked on the analysis of an Open Educational Project - you can see the post clicking here - I was utterly inspired by the one I analysed. As a result, we created the following presentation akin to it with the steps to follow, so as to overcome the mission. Consequently, you are going to visualise the mission in the same way students will visualise it.

Learningmission2 de Carrasco510

How did we create the artefact?

We created a video, which is the final outcome of the mission. As we were in charge of India, our special weather forecast focusses on it.

First and foremost, we distributed the roles: Ana was the tourist expert, Carmen was the flora detective,  and I was the climate advocate. Secondly, we drafted the script for the special weather forecast in Google Drive. Thirdly, we decided where to shoot the video, the green chroma we were going to use, and the materials we had to bring to record the video. We decided to a add a tad of humour, that is why we decided to wear complements related to the Indian culture; therefore, we brought loud coloured scarfs, a colourful bandanna, and a bracelet. We also painted a bindi (dot) in our forehead. Finally, we rehearsed and recorded the video by scenes.

The next step was making the video, in so doing, we followed the coming steps:

• We chose the images we were going to use.
• We created the images concerning the weather predictions, by overlapping images. We used Gimp.  Nevertheless, you can find similar photo editors to work online, like Pixrl.
• We used IMovie to edit the video, but other tools can be used, the likes of: Sony Vegas and Touch Cast.
• We uploaded it to Youtube.

Sample of the final artefact

Self-reflection

I am on cloud nine with this second learning mission, as I am of the opinion that we came up with a mission that shows a further step, as far as the previous one is concerned - creating a comic about the weather - as they were designed to show a gradual evolution and development; therefore, the information students gathered when creating the comic was utilized to prepare the script for the video. Moreover, the elaboration of the comic allowed students to have a better understanding, as for the video creation, due to the fact that they had the scenes organized according to the cells of the comic. To my eye, although the editing of the video may be a tad demanding for them, with the help of the teacher, they will succeed without any problem. They will definitely have a whale of a time while recording the video, as we had.

The carry out of this learning mission was enjoying although we spent time mulling it over, so as to design the mission and create the sample of the artefact. The edition of the video was a bit demanding, since after recording, we had to insert the background images, where the chroma was.

As far as the badges are concerned, it was the first time I created digital badges and I have to say that I really enjoyed it, since you have a wide range of elements to choose from, and you can customize them. Moreover, I was very implicated with it; therefore, I am of the opinion that students will be absolutely eager to get them. Consequently, I will definitely incorporate them in my future classes.

As teachers, by promoting collaboration with this kind of activity, we are going to urge students to self-reflect more about their roles and responsabilities, since the rest of the members  will assess their work in some way, indicating ideas to improve, supporting their ideas, highlighting them, etc.

I will absolutely use cooperative learning in my future classes, as I have experienced it, and I have to say that it is really motivating and rewarding. Students will be keen on it, as they are going to be assigned roles in a random and different way, and they will have responsibilities, supporting each other. Besides that, their roles will be attractive, which will also help. Moreover, their learning will be far more meaningful. To my way of thinking, this kind of learning will be great for students with difficulties or with special educational needs, since by working in groups they will help each other, and the environment will be more relaxed. Moreover, the missions will absolutely draw their attention and they will be fully involved.

Concerning turning flat activities into super learning missions, it is not as difficult as you may think, if you search some Open Educational Projects on the net, you will have a better understanding of it. Furthermore, by following the steps I have explained, you will have the recipe to start designing your super learning mission, in a easier way.

See you later, collaborator !

In charge of creating learning missions. Part 1.

Hi there !

This time I am going to show you how I turned a flat activity into a flabbergasting learning mission.

First and foremost, to get started with this new challenge, I selected one of the tasks I developed for my Open Educational Project "The Weather Forecasters" that you can take a look at, by clicking here. 

How to turn a flat activity into a super learning mission ?

• Choose a humdrum, boring activity from the textbook or from your own material.
• Select the goals you want your students to accomplish.
• Select the competences you like them to practise.
• Think of an ICT tool you want to incorporate.
• Choose the final artefact to be created.
• Give your activity an appealing title.
• Present it as a mission with all the instructions to follow.

Which flat activity did I choose ?

Before explaining the activity, I have to say that the day before doing this activity, students will be asked to bring a picture of the Earth’s globe to class, as homework.

Activity 1.

Open your books on page 30, and look at the Earth's globe with the different climate zones, which appear on it. You have to listen to the teacher, who is going to say one climate zone each time. Then, you have to point to each climate zone, and tell the teacher the name of one country that is included in it. After that, you are going to pick your picture of the Earth’s globe, and paste it on your notebook. Apart from glueing it, you are going to copy the characteristics of each climate zone under the picture.

Collaboration time

Let me tell you that I joined two of my colleagues to work collaboratively: Ana Márquez and Carmen Olmedo.

I collaborated with Ana Márquez @ana94mqz, since her project is about India and she is working with Infoedugrafías, and the artefact of this first learning mission is to create a storyboard, which is an infographic. Because of her project being focused on India, I have included this country in this mission. You can take a look at her project here.

 

Retrieved from: http://infoedugrafias.blogspot.com.es/

Moreover, I collaborated with Carmen Olmedo @CarmenOlPas, as she is also working with Infoedugrafías, and “The 30 goals challenge”, particularly with “Revamping a lesson goal”. Due to the fact that this goal includes aspects like: creating learning missions, making the lesson more hands-on, and including technology; I decided to apply this characteristics to my activities, and also her topic: plants. You can take a look at her project here.

Retrieved from: http://teacherrebootcamp.com/2016/08/07/goallessonupdate/

How is the learning mission aligned with my collaborative project-to-be?

This learning mission is aligned with the collaborative movement I am looking forward to participating, which is called “Design a Badge Goal”, from “The 30 Goals Challenge”, since I have created digital badges for the role each pupil is going to play, so as to reward them.

Retrieved from: http://teacherrebootcamp.com/2016/07/21/goaldesignabadge/

How did I create those badges?

I went to “Design a Badge Goal" page and I browsed a slideshow provided by Shelly Terrell @ShellTerrell. I decided to use one of the recommended tools called Open Badges Me, I registered myself in a couple of seconds and we started working on the graphics. Firstly, you have to give the graphic a title and a description. Then, you have to design it by choosing and editing: shapes, inner shapes, banners, texts, and adding icons. Finally you complete it and keep it.

Since this the learning mission is based on cooperative learning, these are the badges I created for each role students will play.

By Lucía Carrasco.

 

By Lucía Carrasco. 

 

By Lucía Carrasco.

By Lucía Carrasco.

Learning mission: Creating a comic about the weather.

Here you can take a look at the Canva I have prepared, so as to explain the objectives, competences, grouping and time.
.

mission1 de Lucía Carrasco

Getting a deeply understanding of the learning mission

We decided to create a draft  in Google Drive and then, a presentation for students that I shared in Slide Share, so that we explained the development of the mission. Since this course I  worked on the analysis of a Open Educational Project - you can see the post clicking here - I have been utterly inspired by the one I analysed. As a result, we elaborated this presentation with the instructions to follow in this learning mission. Below, you are going to visualise the mission in the same way students will visualise it.

Learningmission1 from Carrasco510

How did we create the artefact?

Carmen, Ana and I created a sample of the final outcome of this Learning Mission: creating a comic about the weather, we did it concerning India.

First and foemost, we put ourselves into our pupils’ shoes; therefore, we distributed the work as follows:

• Characteristics of India (Ana)
• Features of the climate of India (Lucía)
• Plants of India (Carmen)
• Weather forecast of India (Ana, Lucía, Carmen)

We created it with the same tool we recommended students in the instructions, which is StoryboardThat. What we had to do is open this tool and add more cells, since there are 3 cells that appear by default. Then, we chose the backgrounds for each cell. After that, we introduced some pictures in each cell. The next thing we did was adding the characters; we created one to represent each one of us. Finally, we jot down in the speech bubbles, according to the information we searched.

Sample of the artefact

Made with Storyboard That

Reflection time

I am over the moon with this challenge, since I have enjoyed it a lot, and I think I have learnt a lot, too.

First and foremost, when we were told we could collaborate with colleagues, so as to enrich our learning missions, I did not think it twice, since I am keen to collaborate with others and learn from others. However, it was a tad difficult, as for decision-making, since we had to mull the potential activities over. Firstly, Carmen explained me her project and the partners she was looking forward to collaborate with. Then, I did the same, and after being proposing options, we reached a common ground to start designing the activity in our minds. Immediately, we talked to Ana, and we decided to collaborate with her, too. Consequently, we started coming up with ideas to incorporate Ana's project. After being debating about them, we came up with the activity proposed.

Collaboration wise, I noticed the importance of collaborating, since by brainstorming, people come up with different ideas and you widen your perspectives, as you listen to others' suggestions and assess them, in some way. In addition, when we created the sample, we decided to do it in the same way pupils would do it, and we were utterly motivated, distributing the tasks and designing the comic. Due to the fact that for us, it was definitely meaningful, we believe that for students, it will be the same; therefore, I am of the opinion that by creating learning missions students are bound to be further motivated.

Comic wise, I utterly recommend this tool, since students are going to work on higher-order thinking skills, like creativity and application, as well as, lower-order thinking skills, the likes of: summarizing, selecting the information and understanding. Moreover, they are going to develop their writing skills, while having fun.

As a teacher, I thoroughly recommend the turning of flat activities into learning missions, since students are going to work on contents, in a cross-curricular way, and they are going to create catching artefacts, with which they are going to work on the language, too. Moreover, they are going to learn to use ICT tools that are likely to be useful for their adult life.

See you later, collaborator !

Next mission: partner search

I am thrilled since once having designed my open education prototype, I went for the search of a partner to collaborate with. In so doing, first and foremost, I was scrolling up and down running collaborative projects across the world. After looking at them, the collaborative movement called “The 30 goals challenge” definitely drew my attention. This project was designed by Shelly Sanchez Terrell @ShellTerrell; she is the author of “The 30 Goals Challenge for Teachers: Small Steps to Transform Your Teaching”. Among all the goals, I went for the “Recognize with a Badge” one.

Retrieved from: https://credly.com/claim/54334/619-A570-926

Why did I select this “Recognize with a badge" goal?

As you may remember, the open education prototype that I created about the weather and the climate - The weather forecasters - concerns both ICT and social science; therefore I had to choose a collaborative project that matches my topic. As a result I went for the 30 goals challenge, particularly, the “Recognize a badge” one, because it was the one that better suits my prototype, since it talks about teaching students by creating missions that they have to overcome, and reward them by using digital badges.

To put  my prototype in line with this collaborative project I had to modify the assessment of the missions students have to complete. Since apart from gauging their outcomes, I will take into consideration how they manage their responsibilities and roles. As a result, I will create digital badges for them, but also they will create badges, as in the missions, students will have different roles and responsibilities; therefore, they will assess and reward their peer’s role and behaviour.

Another adjustment I made in my prototype was the name of the project, since I decided to call it “The weather forecasters” so that it is more appealing.

At that point, I was ready to prepare my elevator pitch.

What is an elevator pitch?

An elevator pitch is a strategy used to present a project - in a convincing way - in order to look for a potential buyer or supporter. This strategy is usually used by entrepreneurs  looking for financial backup.

In this case, I have used the elevator pitch technique with educational purposes, to try to cajole the “Recognize a badge goal” people to accept me to collaborate with them. In so doing, I created an elevator pitch that lasts 20 seconds.

How did I create it?

First and foremost, I opened an online document in Google Drive, to create a draft of my elevator pitch. I started with a sentence that will catch the audience’s attention, then, I linked it with the reason why I chose the present collaborative project, I presented my project in few words and I concluded the pitch mentioning my status.

In this part of the post I am going to give you the scheme that in general an elevator pitch follows. I created it with Canva.

Elevatorpitch by Lucía Carrasco

How did I elaborate the video?

Firstly, I timed my elevator pitch, to match the 20-second speech. After that, I memorized the speech.

Secondly,  I was recorded in an elevator and  I signed up in WeVideo. When I was editing the video, I noticed that there was a big watermark; therefore, I went for the Movie Maker tool that you can download here. I inserted the video and I added two slides; one at the beginning with a title, and the other at the end containing my twitter handle and the link of my blog. Immediately, I inserted two animations; after the title and before the last slide, and I kept the project.

Finally, I uploaded the video to Youtube and that was all.

Here you have my video. Hope you enjoy it.

Reflection time

As for the selection of the project, it was easy, since after taking a look at different ones, the 30 goals challenge definitely caught my eye. Then, selecting the particular goal - “Recognize with a badge” was easy too, since I found it extremely motivating and innovative. Besides, I thought that since students will create digital badges to reward their classmates, and they will assess them in some way, they will work on their higher-order thinking skills, since they find giving feedback difficult, and I strongly believe that this is a skill that students have to train from a very young age, to be critical and value the work others do, and learn from them.

As far as the draft is concerned, I found it difficult to prepare, since I had ideas in mind, but I wasn’t able to put all them in a 20-second speech, in fact, I had to rewrite it several times. I found this elevator pitch technique interesting and useful, to promote or present things in a clear and direct way, and be more efficient when transmitting your message. However, we usually find it difficult, as we have to summarize a lot, and I am of the opinion that we are not accustomed to doing that, at least in this way. Besides that, as teachers, we can incorporate this technique in our classroom to urge our students to summarize, present their ideas and have fun while doing it. I consider that elaborating elevator pitches is a motivating exercise.

Regarding the elaboration of the video, it was extremely motivating and engaging, although I admit having had to record it several times until it was appropriated. For me, having to transmit my message in 20 seconds was a bit demanding, since I had to focus on the speech, look at the camera, sound convincing and control the time. Nevertheless, I utterly recommend it, to practice your speaking skills.

All in all, I have enjoyed this challenge a lot, so I will encourage my students to create their own elevator pitches to practice summarizing, and speaking skills, while having fun.