EEND 679 Reflection

     I really enjoyed and benefited from the discussion during module 2 about the topic of formative assessments.  It was really eye opening to see all of the different ways that people in our class are assessing their students.  I have always had this mental block that assessments were difficult to administer and took forever to create.  After reading through the resources and hearing what others had to say about their favorite ways of assessing, it was refreshing to hear that it doesn’t have to be so hard and can actually be simple and efficient if you do it right.  I think my biggest takeaway was investigating the website GoFormative and hearing what everyone else had to say about it.  I really like the layout of the site and it seems very simple to use with chromebooks that our students have.  I am a big fan of Plickers as well because they are so simple to use and very efficient in a PE setting.  There is no chromebook or ipad required by a student, just a small piece of card-stock with a unique logo on it.  My students have responded very well to using Plickers but I think it might be fun to try a different way of assessing by using GoFormative. 

     My other big takeaway from this class was our time spent on rubrics.  This is one area that I have always pushed away because they always seemed too hard to make and too cumbersome for a simple task.  However, after digging through the resources of module 7, I discovered there are a TON of resources online to help with rubrics from pre-made rubrics, to rubric builders, to articles explaining why they are so important in assessing students’ learning.  I created a rubric for a fun, technology project that I do with my 5^th graders and I am convinced to making more rubrics for other assignments in my class.  In addition to the rubrics, I also learned a lot about digital portfolios in this class as well.  Many students in our class shared that they have done portfolios with their students before and that they really enjoyed them.  I really like the idea of having a PE portfolio for my students but there is one thing that is keeping me from committing to them and that is time.  I have very limited time to begin with (30 min, 2x a week) and I just don’t want to give up that time to have students on a device.  For me to incorporate a digital portfolio, the majority of the work would need to be done outside of class on their own terms.  I am not opposed to this but I feel like students have enough on their plate with their other disciplines that creating another portfolio just to show that we have one, seems like a lot of work on both ends.