Student-Centered Learning with Symbaloo - Day 2

Yesterday I wrote about a new adventure that I’m trying in my classroom with student-centered learning using symbaloo.  If you haven’t read that you should definitely take a look before reading this post.

I had initially planned to check off student work using a Google spreadsheet.  When each student turned in or completed a piece of work I was going to put a grade or completion check into the spreadsheet.  I had setup a couple of strategically placed computers around the classroom so that I was never far from the document.  Yesterday it actually worked just fine because everyone was generally moving at the same pace.  Today was different.  Students started to separate from each other and there could have been 5-6 different things being worked on by different students.

Mistake #1 was that I found myself entering grades and checkmarks most of my first class and not doing what I was supposed to be doing which was to facilitate the learning.  I decided after that class that I was going to let students check their work against my key(s) and simply have them show me that they completed it.  The only grades that I’m going to take going forward are a few checkpoint assessments which are all done through Google Forms.  I’ve decided that it’s best to let the learning be a more enjoyable experience for them and to simply grade mastery of the content.  I haven’t had anyone not master the first quiz yet, but I’m even considering letting them re-work an area they struggled with and then come back and re-take the quizzes for no deduction.  If we’re truly about content mastery then I really have no issue with this.

A positive thing that I saw was that one of my more challenging students had notes that were FAR superior to the notes that I had planned to give them in class.  Compare my notes from last year to the notes from one of my more challenging students.  His notes are at the bottom of the image and he composed them in about 20 minutes with the help of the websites and links that I provided.  I was so proud of  him and I could tell that he was proud of his work also.  He truly seemed to take ownership of it.  I know it’s impossible to read, but they were beautiful and very thorough.  They made my notes look like elementary work.