After teaching some corporate students, and reluctant to hand out school-type "grades" but still needing something, I developed the idea of a "Participation Index" to have a measure of how involved the student was in the training. This experience gave me a different viewpoint on grades.
Attendance
At my college I had one student who came on the first day of class and again for the final exam. I promptly forgot him after seeing him the first time and wondered who he was when I saw him the second time. The class monitors keep track of attendance. Now I have the class monitors also keep track of attendance in my Excel spreadsheet. At the most basic level, if the students are in class they are (hopefully) going to learn something. The idea is to show their "participation".
Class Interaction
But still some students are doing some other homework, reading something else, chatting with their neighbors, etc. Are they learning during this time? No. (Perhaps they already know. In that case it probably should be OK for them to do something else if it doesn't disturb others.) The idea is not to punish students but to show their "participation" in the lesson. Some MBA course instructors give scores up to 40% of the students' grades for "airtime", visibility acquired on basis of class participation. In "Alternative Approaches to Assessing Student Engagement Rates", Elaine Chapman at The University of Western Australia describes several ways of measuring participation and I'm thinking of using the one she describes as "Direct Observation".
Homework
I have 160 students and sometimes hand out homework with each class. So I usually see if the students did the homework without seeing how well they did it. The idea is that applying themselves to the work is beneficial for their learning whether they got it all correct or not. We then go over the questions and answers together and everyone self-corrects.
Quiz
I want to use quizzes more effectively and more frequently to see if the students are "getting it". When I haven't done this I've been surprised how many students really didn't understand (or pay attention).
Exam
To measure the take-away from the training. I'm having lots of other thoughts on this. While the school course teaches things like how to read the corporate year end report, I have found a lot of my students go out after graduation and get jobs as Nokia phone salespeople in a discount department store or other sub-entry level job. It is likely that a lot of what they learned is lost well before they get a chance to use it. I am thinking about not only not testing their comprehension of corporate reports but steering the course away from that sort of thing and focusing more on English that they will have more hope of using soon. If they don't use it they'll lose it. But to help them keep it we should teach what they'll use.
Showing posts with label formative. Show all posts
Showing posts with label formative. Show all posts
08 March 2007
21 February 2007
Jack Welch and the language classroom
...well, OK, it's not really Jack Welch talking about English teaching but it is adapting a couple of his ideas.
A couple of Jack Welch's ideas that he expounds in his best-selling book, "Winning", are how he uses every opportunity to appraise the people working for him and how he regularly fires the bottom 5% performers.
In my spoken English class I am using almost every exchange with students to help evaluate their English. I'm not waiting for the end of term exam or even quizzes. Especially after a pair or group work activity I like to call on a few students to tell us what they talked about, what decision they made about the situation in the activity, what answer they have to the questions they were to talk about. When they speak I may ask them a couple more questions and then I will give them a score which is recorded in my computer and averaged with other scores and indicators.
In this way I can get a pretty good idea which students are doing well in my class and which ones are not doing so well. When you have classes of 40-50 students there are always a few very naughty students sitting in the back of the class and a few very smiley and bright ones sitting in the front of the class. Both of these types of students distract you from the more unobtrusive majority, many of whom are rather quite although often with good English skills. Only by systematically checking all of the students can we find these students before giving them an exam.
This leads us to the next point...
Another practice of that Welch follows is firing the bottom 5% performers. The employees that are doing the least in the company get fired as a regular practice. Well, as teachers we usually can't fire our students. But we can make a point of identifying exactly who the bottom performers are and trying to develop a plan to help them whether it's extra training, extra homework, extra encouragement or whatever.
In every class there are students who are doing well and students who are doing poorly and many in between. Unlike something like a writing class or four-skills class there may be less evidence of exactly how the students are doing. The speaking class students are not turning in homework and usually no quizzes. What some teachers do is to just teach, teach, teach and give an oral exam at the end of term.
My suggestion is that teachers should use as many opportunities as possible to assess the students, formative evaluation. I have realized that in the past I let many of these assessment opportunities slip by. I now make full use of them.
As far as face goes, we must understand the significance of face in Asian society, respect that and take it into consideration in all that we do. But face saving is not a goal unto itself. There may be instances when we are unable to preserve face and do what our jobs require at the same time. If a student is struggling in the classroom we must try to help them. Of course, we'll do everything we can to help him save face but his grades, his success in school and his success in life are not measured soley by the amount of face he retains. In fact, there are certain situations when it is better to lose face.
Concerning borrowing a page from Jack Welch, a captain of capitalistic-commerce, I believe he knows a lot about organization. I despise some of the snaky things Welch has done. If he is responsible for even half these things he should be tried as a war criminal.[1] I despise his attitude that business is more important than family.[2]
But that does not mean he cannot have good advice that can help us. After all, you or a friend of yours probably enjoy some of Hitler's good ideas, right?[3]
[1] http://www.cleanupge.org/gemisdeeds.html
[2] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7305761/site/newsweek/
[3] http://ask.yahoo.com/20050308.html
A couple of Jack Welch's ideas that he expounds in his best-selling book, "Winning", are how he uses every opportunity to appraise the people working for him and how he regularly fires the bottom 5% performers.
In my spoken English class I am using almost every exchange with students to help evaluate their English. I'm not waiting for the end of term exam or even quizzes. Especially after a pair or group work activity I like to call on a few students to tell us what they talked about, what decision they made about the situation in the activity, what answer they have to the questions they were to talk about. When they speak I may ask them a couple more questions and then I will give them a score which is recorded in my computer and averaged with other scores and indicators.
In this way I can get a pretty good idea which students are doing well in my class and which ones are not doing so well. When you have classes of 40-50 students there are always a few very naughty students sitting in the back of the class and a few very smiley and bright ones sitting in the front of the class. Both of these types of students distract you from the more unobtrusive majority, many of whom are rather quite although often with good English skills. Only by systematically checking all of the students can we find these students before giving them an exam.
This leads us to the next point...
Another practice of that Welch follows is firing the bottom 5% performers. The employees that are doing the least in the company get fired as a regular practice. Well, as teachers we usually can't fire our students. But we can make a point of identifying exactly who the bottom performers are and trying to develop a plan to help them whether it's extra training, extra homework, extra encouragement or whatever.
In every class there are students who are doing well and students who are doing poorly and many in between. Unlike something like a writing class or four-skills class there may be less evidence of exactly how the students are doing. The speaking class students are not turning in homework and usually no quizzes. What some teachers do is to just teach, teach, teach and give an oral exam at the end of term.
My suggestion is that teachers should use as many opportunities as possible to assess the students, formative evaluation. I have realized that in the past I let many of these assessment opportunities slip by. I now make full use of them.
As far as face goes, we must understand the significance of face in Asian society, respect that and take it into consideration in all that we do. But face saving is not a goal unto itself. There may be instances when we are unable to preserve face and do what our jobs require at the same time. If a student is struggling in the classroom we must try to help them. Of course, we'll do everything we can to help him save face but his grades, his success in school and his success in life are not measured soley by the amount of face he retains. In fact, there are certain situations when it is better to lose face.
Concerning borrowing a page from Jack Welch, a captain of capitalistic-commerce, I believe he knows a lot about organization. I despise some of the snaky things Welch has done. If he is responsible for even half these things he should be tried as a war criminal.[1] I despise his attitude that business is more important than family.[2]
But that does not mean he cannot have good advice that can help us. After all, you or a friend of yours probably enjoy some of Hitler's good ideas, right?[3]
[1] http://www.cleanupge.org/gemisdeeds.html
[2] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7305761/site/newsweek/
[3] http://ask.yahoo.com/20050308.html
Bob: Continous assessment
There are always some students who get more of the teacher's attention, either through their excellent participation in the class or their bad behavior. But these characteristics can mislead the teacher as to how the whole class is doing. About half the students are more unobtrusive and are doing well or poorly. In fact, some people who seem like they are doing poorly are doing pretty well and some who seem like they are doing well are not doing well.
With my class list in my computer (or could be on a sheet of paper) I go down the list or hop around the list calling on every student. It may take from 2-4 days, but I get every student to answer some questions that were the focus of our pair/group work or questions put to the entire body. Sometimes when the students are doing pair/group work, I will take my computer (or list) and walk around to some of the students and interview them personally.
This way I will have a pretty good idea of how each student, even the quiet and unobtrusive ones, are doing in my class even if I have 40, 50 or 100 students.
I will also be very knowledgeable about which students are skipping class because I'm keeping this information on my computer and it keeps accumulative data with alerts to problem areas, although it could also be kept on paper, I will also know who has been missing my class for a long time.
I, too, had a similar problem as you. Two years ago a student came to my first class and then came to my last class for the exam. In the time between I had forgotten all about him. I was determined to not let that happen again and that is why I began keeping track of attendance on my computer.
But in any case, my suggestion is that in the speaking class we can use every opportunity to evaluate our students throughout the term to develop a picture of how each student is doing. Then, using that information we can segment the students into three groups. Doing well, doing OK, doing poorly. With that we can challenge the groups that is doing well to do better so that they are not limited by the "ceiling" of the class. The group that is doing poorly we can offer more attention, perhaps outside the main class or something else.
This is a way to more customize our approach to training to the needs of the class.
With my class list in my computer (or could be on a sheet of paper) I go down the list or hop around the list calling on every student. It may take from 2-4 days, but I get every student to answer some questions that were the focus of our pair/group work or questions put to the entire body. Sometimes when the students are doing pair/group work, I will take my computer (or list) and walk around to some of the students and interview them personally.
This way I will have a pretty good idea of how each student, even the quiet and unobtrusive ones, are doing in my class even if I have 40, 50 or 100 students.
I will also be very knowledgeable about which students are skipping class because I'm keeping this information on my computer and it keeps accumulative data with alerts to problem areas, although it could also be kept on paper, I will also know who has been missing my class for a long time.
I, too, had a similar problem as you. Two years ago a student came to my first class and then came to my last class for the exam. In the time between I had forgotten all about him. I was determined to not let that happen again and that is why I began keeping track of attendance on my computer.
But in any case, my suggestion is that in the speaking class we can use every opportunity to evaluate our students throughout the term to develop a picture of how each student is doing. Then, using that information we can segment the students into three groups. Doing well, doing OK, doing poorly. With that we can challenge the groups that is doing well to do better so that they are not limited by the "ceiling" of the class. The group that is doing poorly we can offer more attention, perhaps outside the main class or something else.
This is a way to more customize our approach to training to the needs of the class.
Bob: Tracking students' progress
"Bob" is a computerized system to help you manage your class.
A teacher lamented: "I to try to collect the information on how my students were doing, but I still feel that I need a secretary or a volunteer to gather much of the data or at least put it into the computer as while I am doing those things in the class I losing focus on the other students and thinking about my next move."
A secretary or teacher's assistant is great but I don't have one. The data can be kept on a list like the roster. I like to keep mine on my computer using an Excel spreadsheet. It is part of a bigger system I call "Bob".
My spreadsheet keeps a running average so I can see how this student has been doing over a long period of time. Using Excel I can make the data cell or box change colors according to the data I enter. For example, if you give a student a high score then his box can be a certain color for "good", lets say yellow. If you give him a low score then his box can be another color for "warning", lets say red, to alert you that he is not doing very well. Then when you look at your entire sheet of score data if you see lots of "warning" colors and few "good" colors you can get an idea of how the whole class is doing.
In this way you can develop a sort of "dashboard" system just like when you are driving a car. Just as the indicators on your car (speed, engine temperature, RPM's, brake fluid, gas gauge) can tell you how your car is doing and if there is anything that needs your attention, we can have indicators in our teaching that show us how our class is doing.
It doesn't take hardly any time at all to enter in the data. I look on my list of names, choose one that I haven't checked in awhile and call out her name and ask her the question that she should have been talking about during the pair/group work. If she hems-and-haws then I know she wasn't doing the pair/group work.
For this particular class of students, if she gives me a fairly good but not perfect sentence I'll give her a "9". If she has a lot of trouble making a sentence I'll give her a "6". "7" and "8" fall in between. I only do this with 2-4 students at a time, like after pair/group work, so as not to hold up the whole class or bore everyone.
Alternatively, while they are doing the pair/group work I may walk around (with my notebook computer in hand or with a piece of paper and pen) and interview a student here or there. Even if a student comes to ask a question during a break you can make an evaluation and enter a score. To enter the data takes only a second for each student.
A teacher lamented: "I to try to collect the information on how my students were doing, but I still feel that I need a secretary or a volunteer to gather much of the data or at least put it into the computer as while I am doing those things in the class I losing focus on the other students and thinking about my next move."
A secretary or teacher's assistant is great but I don't have one. The data can be kept on a list like the roster. I like to keep mine on my computer using an Excel spreadsheet. It is part of a bigger system I call "Bob".
My spreadsheet keeps a running average so I can see how this student has been doing over a long period of time. Using Excel I can make the data cell or box change colors according to the data I enter. For example, if you give a student a high score then his box can be a certain color for "good", lets say yellow. If you give him a low score then his box can be another color for "warning", lets say red, to alert you that he is not doing very well. Then when you look at your entire sheet of score data if you see lots of "warning" colors and few "good" colors you can get an idea of how the whole class is doing.
In this way you can develop a sort of "dashboard" system just like when you are driving a car. Just as the indicators on your car (speed, engine temperature, RPM's, brake fluid, gas gauge) can tell you how your car is doing and if there is anything that needs your attention, we can have indicators in our teaching that show us how our class is doing.
It doesn't take hardly any time at all to enter in the data. I look on my list of names, choose one that I haven't checked in awhile and call out her name and ask her the question that she should have been talking about during the pair/group work. If she hems-and-haws then I know she wasn't doing the pair/group work.
For this particular class of students, if she gives me a fairly good but not perfect sentence I'll give her a "9". If she has a lot of trouble making a sentence I'll give her a "6". "7" and "8" fall in between. I only do this with 2-4 students at a time, like after pair/group work, so as not to hold up the whole class or bore everyone.
Alternatively, while they are doing the pair/group work I may walk around (with my notebook computer in hand or with a piece of paper and pen) and interview a student here or there. Even if a student comes to ask a question during a break you can make an evaluation and enter a score. To enter the data takes only a second for each student.
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