Over the past two years, several teachers in Dearborn have been integrating technology to help their students engage in effective peer- and self-assessment. Utilizing the Moodle Workshop module, students have assessed their own work and that of their peers with accountability–accountability for their own work, as well as for their assessment of others.
The Workshop module, as I’ve mentioned before, is one of my favorites within Moodle because of the power it gives teachers and students. But it is also one of my favorites because it empowers students to engage in thinking that transcends the technology. It’s a tool that requires a little time to set up, but results in amazing conversations and understandings that emerge from the experience.
Listen to what some of our teachers recently had to say about theirs and their students’ experiences:
Benefits for students
The Workshop module enables students to
- take on a more critical role in the classroom, becoming an active part in assessment rather than being a passive recipient of it
- become familiar with the use of rubrics, and well-versed in specific rubrics that may be used repeatedly
- have their writing observed and compared to a rubric by multiple individuals, rather than one solitary teacher
- participate in peer-assessment with students who are in other classes
- become more critical reviewers of their own writing by seeing the positive and negative aspects of their peers’ writing.
The Tech Coaches are available to help you design the experience for your students, as well as to be present while your students are engaged in the Workshop activity. We’ll support you, as always, from inception to conclusion. Take the advice of these teachers and jump in today!