Week 5: Half way left, half way to go

This week I learned at least four interesting topics:

1. Webquest

Webquest is a great way to create students independent and meaningful learning activity. Students are free to create their webquest by searching and selecting the related and relevant webs, videos, document files, presentation files, photos, and many more form of learning sources that match the project objectives. The product is very useful not only for the students who create the webquest but also other students because the webquest can be shared to others to enjoy or use and these users can make comments or responses to it. Therefore, there is interaction in it. Webquest is really excellent to motivate students learn and improve their learning.

I believe WebqQuest become one of the alternative for project-based learning (PBL) because Webquest is not one session activity. It may takes as short as a week project of longer than that. Because webquest is a basically web-based project, in my opinion it is very suitable for students who have familiar with internet/web technology. For those the internet technology is something new may take time to accomplish webquest project. What I am afraid of is the students will not learn the content of the project but only the project accomplishment.

I have tried to make my first webquest although it was still half way I guess because it was not complete and there were some parts missing. I need to learn more to develop it and make it applicable in class.

2. Project-based Learning

Project-based learning (PBL) is the activity in which students work together within a certain time frame to solve a problem or certain issues related to their study to promote their learning. PBL is one of learning method to facilitate students’ different learning styles to acquire knowledge. Through PBL students are expected to gain skills in problem solving, critical thinking and cooperative learning (Cuthbert, 1995; Peterson & Myer, 1995). Project-based learning also enhance learners’ motivation, improved their performance in writing and communication, and initiated their active roles in learning (Gu, 2002). Such condition was also experienced by Susan Gaer as she wrote in her article ‘Less Teaching and More Learning’ that “using a project-based approach to language learning gives meaning to the learning that normally goes on in a classroom. … I do a lot less teaching and see a lot more learning in the classroom”.

3. Alternative Assessment

As the name suggests this new kind of assessment is an alternative for the existing ‘traditional’ assessment that teachers usually use such as quiz, formative and summative test, mid and final test, etc. in which "students are evaluated on what they integrate and produce rather than on what they are able to recall and reproduce" (Huerta- Macias, 1995, p. 9). There are many methods the alternative assessment can be employed,  as Jo-Ellen Tannenbaum shows in her article ‘Practical Ideas On Alternative Assessment For ESL Students’, for example:

1.       Nonverbal Assessment Strategies

-     Physical Demonstration

-     Pictorial Products

2.       K-W-L Charts

3.       Oral Performances Or Presentations

4.       Oral And Written Products

-     Content area logs

-     Reading response logs

-     Dialogue journals

-     Audio and video cassettes

5.     Portfolios

Because alternative assessment depends on direct observation, instructors can use checklists and rubrics to evaluate student performance/product.

4. Rubric

In this topic I learned how to make rubric using Rubistar. Rubistar really helps me easy to create the rubric since it provides template tables as well as pull-down choices of category.

 Thank you my little assistant, your cry at night kept me awake to guard you and finish these assignments.