Tuesday, January 24, 2023

E-stands for Evaluating skills

As we all know, the lockdown compelled teachers worldwide to veer over the wheel. Consequently, our teaching ways changed thoroughly. Two years ago, I decided to become an online teacher since I realized that there are unlimited opportunities to develop and succeed in this domain. Hence,  I started researching new and efficient approaches to delivering content, monitoring, and assessing my students online.

In previous posts on this blog, I have shared ideas and some tutorials to create quizzes and tests in Google forms, speaking task rubrics, and self-assessment charts in Google spreadsheets. 

A few weeks ago I needed to evaluate my students' performance in their four skills: listening, reading, writing, and speaking, and share the report with them. I found great ideas and tutorials on the web to create rubrics in Google forms. All I needed was to filter the overall can do statements from my coursebook and create a separate section for each component and descriptor.  I used a Likert scale from Excellent to Failed and added a table with a transmuted grade in percentages. This would give a clearer perspective to my students on how their performance is being evaluated. Finally, I added a section for comments. 

One of the advantages I discovered is that the spreadsheet that Google forms displays could be reused to save space and time searching for each group of students. All it takes is to add a calendar and a multiple-choice section for each class then I would color them differently to spot each group of students.

To insert the names of the learners, I used the drop-down menu which made it easier by copying and pasting the list from my roster. Once the rubric and the teacher's comments are filled I click on the send button and the form will allow me to send another response. This time a new student from the drop-down menu is chosen and so forth. Once all the students are evaluated, a PDF document can be downloaded and emailed to the students.  

In the following link, you will find an example rubric for A1 with the overall descriptors for the level.   I  hope you find it useful. 

Download a copy of the rubric HERE.  

E- that stands for Early Finishers

  Students progress at their own speeds , and that's perfectly fine! But how can we engage a student who completes tasks ahead of schedu...