Sharon Hartle,in her post “Is it an Error not to Correct” has once again brought up issues that are very relevant to my daily life in the classroom. My focus is mainly on errors in written work.

Hartle says: “Once they (errors) are robbed of their explosive emotional charge, we can start to look at why they occur”.

I couldn’t agree more. Learning from errors mainly happens when students don’t see their errors as a threat, as something that must be ignored or simply made to disappear (by making a bee-line to the nearest trash can!).

I have found that giving students an opportunity to correct their mistakes and then either resubmit their task or get extra points, has had a huge positive impact, both on my adult and high-school students. While not everyone takes advantage of this (I have NEVER found something to work for EVERYONE), I’ve seen a significant rise in the number of students who actually read my comments and correct their mistakes.

However, like everything in life, it has a price. Mainly for me. This topic is so close to my heart because I’m still looking for ways to reap the benefits without working as hard.

I do as Hartle suggested, I don’t try to correct all mistakes, nor have the students correct them all. With the adult students that works better, especially since I began using EDMODO. Edmodo let me easily keep track of who was handing in things a second time and I wasn’t flooded with papers.  Since I could see my previous comments, and I didn’t mark all errors, reading the tasks a second time was much quicker. On the other hand, the adult classes are so very large, 38 students in each course so far…

With the high schools students it is more complicated. Our students take  a lot of tests. In the past many students used to throw tests away without looking at my comments. For the past few years I have been  giving 5 extra points to a student who corrects a test with me in class. 5 points can mean a lot to a student. Each class is small but altogether I have to keep track of more than 50 students. Instead of just grading tests and typing the grade into the computerized system, which is the most efficient way to work, I first write the grades in my diary. Only after a student has corrected his exam do I type up his grade. It is so much more time consuming to keep going back to the grades of each test and typing up individual grades.

I tried using a color coded system to help students be aware of the type of mistakes they are making and gave them a chart to track and see if they are making less of these mistakes. It was a very interesting experiment but I couldn’t keep it up – it took me twice as long to grade each test! And I had to be even more organized in class to make it work!

I can’t stop though – personalized comments and correcting does work! Have to figure out how to make it work for me too!

Whatever you are celebrating, may it be a joyous time.

Here it is Passover and Springtime. This is a tree in front of our apartment buiding.

And here is another fun  musical Passover clip.

ENJOY!

We (thank goodness! ) are on vacation now.

The moment I return to high-school, it will be “reckoning time”. The whole time left till the end of the year is basically about tests, literature logs to be handed in and grades.

The time when students finally see the results of being physically (or mentally!) absent from the lessons. Some students are quite amazed that it matters.

This time of year reminds of an incredibly apt and wonderful poem by Tom Wayman. I would like to thank Steve Hellmann for introducing me to it.

Wouldn’t YOU like to say such things to a student sometimes?

Did I Miss Anything? by Tom Wayman

When I was a teenager, back in the days of the blue aerograms, when letters still arrived with colorful stamps, I had pen pals from around the globe. I used to listen to a special program on BBC World that helped connect teens from distant countries. In high-school I had pen-pals from Iceland, Malaysia and China. I still have their pictures in one of my photo albums.

When our high school got the first computers connected to the Internet, (in a room kept specially cold, that one had to reserve in advance) I tried to recreate the excitement. There were a number of attempts, some lasted longer than others, but they all suffered from the same two problems:

* After the initial stage of students expressing curiosity and writing about their hobbies, their motivation to participate petered out.

* It was a lot of work. I was devoting time and energy to create activities that would cause them to stay on board and learn something about the country we were corresponding with. I seemed to be the one learning the most. I still remember how amazed I was when our friends from Finland wrote about the huge number of lakes they have and wanted to know how many we had. Eh, ahem, one… The kids weren’t particularly awed though.

So when the AWESOME teacher of deaf students from Conneticut, Arlene Blum, contacted me about a global project I was excited and nervous. Adjusting to the new school curriculum is difficult and time consuming and I was worried about the extra work. In addition, I was concerned about the repeated pattern of students losing interest. But how could I miss this opportunity?

Arlene started us off with a blog on Edublogs. Since we are both on Edublogs I believe that is how she found me. The blog has the advantage of being open and accessible (the comments and posts are moderated, of course!!!) . It is easy to work with and it has helped Arlene attract more schools. There are now 3 schools in the US, one in Australia, one in South Africa and one in Italy, not all equally active (and our school in Israel, of course!).  Writing on the blog is good practice for the students and  an excellent place to post videos that promote global feelings of friendship such as the one Arlene recently posted here or the summary of facts we have learned along with a moving video promoting friendship we sent in.

But the main disadvantage of the blog is that because of a need to protect our students, we don’t post pictures of students on the blog. Students with a hearing loss really want more visual modes of communication. They wanted to chat with the other students too but we can’t do that in any case because of the time differences. We also don’t share a common sign language!

So I suggested, following my experience with Edmodo with my course for adults, that we open a secure group for us there. The Facebook-like feel of Edmodo attracted the students and a large number of them wanted to sign up.  We moderate the posts and comments there too. Some of them uploaded profile pictures. Not many actually write though. But I’ve decided to be pleased about the ones who do. I write updates about tales from our Global Friends on the board, so at least everyone is exposed to some information. I’ve also decided to be happy with the goal of having students expand their world knowledge. The benifits for their English is rather limited because most students take advantage of Google Translate and read the posts in Hebrew…

Since Edmodo supports videos, we’re currently trying to add a new component – students upolading videos of themselves. Not the same as chatting but will bring those foreign students to life! Some of my students suspect I’m making all of this up!

Sandy Millin’s post describing how much her students enjoyed a “Design Your Own Soap Opera” lesson reminded me that I hadn’t shared any of my activities related to Soap Operas.

I really dislike Soap Operas. But, perhaps because I was determined not to let this show, I ended up creating a whole unit on the topic for my weak learners, high school students. A huge percentage of them adore the genre. In Israel the influence of Spanish speaking soaps has been very strong, so the programs are known as “Tele-Novelas”.

Here are trivia questions that serve as the lead-in activity. Students first guess the answers and then learn the correct answers by matching the questions to the answers on the next page.  Most teens are shocked to learn that some “soaps” have been on air for years and years! It seems to me that every year fewer boys are embarassed to say that they watch these programs too (the material was written 10 years ago).

In the first attached document you will find the trivia questions. The questions are in English but the multiple choice options are in Hebrew. For the students for whom this was written, it worked  as a better lead in activity this way. I could use ridiculous answers to interest them (such as ” these shows teach you how to sing with soap in your mouth”). The questions can  be used without multpile choice options or you can make your own options, suitable for your group.

In the second attached document you will find the matching answers. All in English!

(A click on the images will enlarge them)

Enjoy!

I first learned about Edmodo from Sandy Millin’s detailed post back in June, 2011. Yes, that was quite a while ago but till recently I hadn’t had any real incentive to experiment with it on my own. Tools I had already mastered were enough for me.

All that changed after I had taught my first course to 38 adult students in a private language school and had agreed to teach another such course.   I was determined to ERADICATE some of the problems I had encountered the first time around and I can’t thank Sandy Millin enough for discussing Edmodo with me. The course ended last night and here are a few problems I DIDN’T HAVE:

1) No student claimed that he didn’t know which assignment he was supposed to have done (or that I never said it needed to be done). Edmodo shows the students very clearly, both in a written list and in a graphic representation which assignments are waiting to done, which have been completed and how they were graded. Complete with comments!

2) No student claimed that he HAD handed in assignments and its just me that was claiming that he didn’t. True, in the first course there were only two such students and they said to me later (after I refused to back down) that since the final exam is such a “high-stakes exam” they were just trying their luck, but it stung.  Such an argument can only be used when tasks are done on paper, graded and returned. On Edmodo all tasks are handed in online and remain there.

3) I didn’t receive multiple copies of the exact same answers to a homework assignment, sometimes even photocopied copies of the same task! I won’t say it isn’t possible to do so on Edmodo but the fact is that it only happened once during the entire course. It could be argued that I didn’t notice but I teach low level students and copying is so much easier to spot at that level…

4) I didn’t come home with piles of papers every lesson and carry them back the next lesson. The number of papers multiplied since some students are absent each lesson and their papers go back home again too. This time I only carried home certain vocabulary quizzes which I wanted the  students to do in class – everything else was handed in and checked online.

5) Students can upload a profile picture. Remembering 38 students’ names was more successful this time around (though not perfect -only half of the students bothered to upload a picture.). I had a terrible time with names last course!

During the last lesson we discussed Edmodo and almost all students said that  it helped them be more organized (me too!). They also said they liked the fact that they could easily write me with questions. If it was really needed, I sometimes answered in Hebrew – Edmodo supports that too!

After working so intensively with Edmodo for the last two and a half months I have been emboldened to explore other ways it can be used. These are in the beginning stages so I will mention them briefly here – more in the future!

* As a safe platform to collaborate with other high-schools of the Deaf around the world. This project is led by the amazing Arlene Blum. We have been using a blog till now and I suggested we move it to Edmodo.

* As a platform for an a-synchronous 3 week online course for deaf and hard of hearing high-school students mainstreamed into regular classes. This hasn’t opened yet (Feb. 8)  – I’m working on it!

Someone asked me how Edmodo makes money and I haven’t a clue. It is completely free and there are no advertisements at all. All I know is that I’m glad it exists!

” Hi Naomi Good morning, I’m glad I got better, and really fun to learn with you, the very caring and important to you I do ”

That was what a student wrote to me as a reply to my comments on a returned assingment (the tasks are handed in, commented on and graded using edmodo).

She got a 76 , its the highest grade she’s ever got in this course. She’s had to hand in revisions for every single task till now. For some tasks it was several revisions.

I was so touched.

And am so concerned.

I certainly have cause  to worry that that grade of 76 may have been a lucky fluke. The course is practically over. Will she be back where she started, with a failing grade?