Cybercoaching, rubrics, and constructivism - week 6

Cybercoaching and Rubrics

Clip art by Dake 

I love the idea of teacher as coach and mentor.  When I give a test, I call it "game day".  I tell the students that we have been practicing up to this point (I am the coach) and now it is time for the real game (summative assessment)!  We say 1,2,3 go chem! It's a fun way to approach a test.

The readings this week, however, made me think of how I need to improve this coaching role. Naomi Jeffery Petersen's points out in her article, Cybercoaching: Rubrics, Feedback, and Metacognition, Oh My! (2005), that coaching is the giving of feedback to improve and develop skills before the final assessment.  This can be done through formative assessments. A key coaching component is then to adjust the instruction as needed after these assessments.  I had thought that I was doing formative assessments correctly, but I think they were more like mini summative assessments.  I assumed that after a quiz, the students were making adjustments themselves before the test.  I also was not requiring any proof that they had made any changes. This was more like the students were self coaching (or at least I hoped they were self coaching).  I realize that I need to change this.  The key now is how?  I am looking into adding some activities or specialized requirements after a quiz so that true improvements can occur.

What about my other types of assessments - projects, lab reports, etc.?  The article also emphasized the use of rubrics as a formative assessment.  I, once again, thought I was using them correctly.  I would give the students the rubric before the assignment.  It was helpful, for them, but again not truly formative or coaching.  I want to include using the rubric on a draft version first (which I had not done).  Then students can make adjustments and improvements before the final version is completed.  I am not sure how much time this would involve, so I may have to rely on peer assessment also, and some peer coaching.  Lots of things to think about!

Constructivism

Here I felt a little better about my teaching.  I love to give students problems in the lab especially where I do not give them any procedures.  Students have to rely on previous knowledge and then adapt it to the new learning challenge.  This is one of the key components in a constructivist approach.  The labs are active, rely on past knowledge, intentional, (sometimes very authentic) and cooperative - all attributes of meaningful learning as listed in Bill Brandon's article on Applying Instructional Systems Processes to Constructivist Learning Environments.  I just need to keep this in mind when I have my online activities too!