Rubrics

These pictures show how assessment is understood by some people:

For some teachers, assessment is based on a simple number or letter and they want the students to learn the same contents to pass their exams and if they don't do it, they fail. This kind of assessment does not take into account the individual improvements in their learning process.

Analyzing these ways of assessing students we should think about something new according to our way of teaching. So, as I reflected on some past entries, I personally agree on doing a differentiated instruction and this is why to do it, teachers are expected to assess also focusing on every different child's progress and not only on the marks they get. Because these marks are based on the SAME exam for DIFFERENT children, with different backgrounds, abilities, interests and also very different learning styles, so we cannot reach to teach every child if we assess them with the same exam.

To change this old way of assessing we have a great tool: Rubrics. It is a way of assessing focused on the child's progress, so with it, they can really understand in what stage of the learning process are them. They can see their weakness and their best abilities, so that they can focus on what they need to keep on practicing.

How to Make a Rubric:

1. Decide what criteria or essential elements must be present in the student’s work to ensure that it is high in quality.
   
   
2. Decide how many levels of achievement you will include on the rubric.
   
   
3. For each criterion or essential element of quality, develop a clear description of performance at each achievement level.
   
   
4. Leave space for additional comments and a final grade.

There are different possibilities with Rubrics that can be used to enhance students' learning experience: the teacher can give the Rubric to them before doing the assessment, so they can be conscious of what they are expected to achieve. 

It is also a successful practice to involve them in the rubric development process. As we did in class with the rubrics to assess our PLE, students as a class or in small groups can talk and decide the criteria for grading a task. The teacher would be the guide in the process but also gives the students an opportunity to participate on their own learning process by thinking which are their goals and being able to self-assess themselves.

To conclude, we have to bear in mind that rubrics help teachers to display criteria but also levels of achievement, so, the more explicit the items are, the more realistic the rubrics are. With this tool students can understand the reason of their mark and they know what they have to do to improve on their learning process.

Some examples of rubrics:

CLIL

In the last years, CLIL has become a point of interest in lots of education systems of European countries.

 

The term CLIL refers to any activity "in which a foreign language is used as a tool in the learning of a non-language subject in which both language and the subject have a joint role" (Marsh 2002:58).

  “CLIL refers to situations where subjects, or parts of subjects, are taught through a foreign     

   language with dual-focused aims, namely the learning of content, and the simultaneous learning of    

   a foreign language”.

   “It [CLIL] provides exposure to the language without requiring extra time in the curriculum“.

    (Marsh, D. 2002. Content and Language Integrated Learning: The European Dimension – 

    Actions, Trends and Foresight Potential).

But, after defining the term, we also have to pay attention to the process needed to do a good CLIL in class. As Do Coyle mentions in her article, there is a big danger, CLIL can become another version os TEFL or ESP. So, to prevent this from happening, we have to bear in mind that this kind of programmation can not be taught only by an English teacher (who doesn't dominate the contents of another subject) or by the specialist of another subject ( who doesn't know how to teach English).

As the author says, to integrate perfectly language and contents, the CLIL subject must be taught by the two teachers, the language one and the one who knows the contents. Only if the two combine their learning and design the lessons together, the CLIL lesson will have success.

To end this section of defining the term, it is very important to remember what is CLIL, but also that it is a very flexible practice, it can have very different curricular timetabling, it can be studied by very different ranges of ages, it can include projects or investigations, it can include chemistry practices,...etc. This can be better understood with this picture that I have found on the Internet:

As the author comments, research shows that CLIL has some advantages for learners and teachers, it can: raise learner linguistic competence and confidence; raises teacher and learner expectations; develops risk-taking and problem-solving skills in the learners; increases vocabulary learning skills and grammatical awareness; motivates and encourages students’ independence; it takes students beyond reductive foreign language topics; it helps improving L1 literacy; it encourages spontaneity on talking if students are enabled to learn through the language rather than in the language; it develops study skills; generates positive attitudes and finally, puts cultural awareness back on the agenda.

Lots of schools in Europe are teaching CLIL units, but is not as easy as it seems...

Coyle has provided us with the 4c's framework to support CLIL pedagogy:

This framework, as we can see in the picture, focuses on the relationship between culture, communication, content and cognition, which means to integrate learning (content and cognition) with language learning (culture and communication). 

To sum up this idea, we can say that we need to integrate learning to use language, and use language to learn. So it is necessary for CLIL to succeed, to take in account the 4C's carefully in the planning of the unit to be taught.

Learners are going to use and develop language TO/FOR/THROUGH learning, this is why teachers also must plan, monitor and evaluate CLIL learning and teaching from different perspectives. 

This approach demands to analyze the role language plays in CLIL processes and engages providers in planning, monitoring and evaluating CLIL using a different set of criteria.

To finish this reflection it is important to bear in mind that as trainee teachers we should read all the principles on CLIL and also have the chance to practice CLIL methods in real contexts in order to be able to use this method in our future classrooms.

We have to keep on reading articles on CLIL to form our own idea of it. As future teachers we have to take in account that CLIL gives lots of advantages to our students because they are learning not only contents and not only a new language, they learn to use a language and also use the language to learn.

Teaching and learning management

According to the article "Rethinking classroom management", there is an old conception of this term:

The authors think that we need to deep into the classic concept to define a new one: "teaching and learning management", which implies a process of great complexity. 

First, we need to know that there are three interrelated areas to analyse in order to understand this concept: 

1. Organisational issues
2. Curriculum issues
3. Social issues

If these three areas are not integrated it won't be guaranteed a successful teaching and learning management.

Organisational issues:

As the authors say, it is very important to explicit rights and duties in the school, and at classroom level, rules should be the result of a process of negociation between students and teachers. All the students will participate in the process so it will be easy to follow the rules because they all feel part of the community.

Once we have the rules, the teacher should be coherent and consistent in its aplication, he should be kind and firm.

Curriculum issues:

In order to be communicative teachers, we have to read the curriculum, not only  we have to transmit contents unidirectionally, but also we should establish our goals in terms of WHAT to teach and HOW to do it. 

The activities have to be powerful and meaningful so that enable students to think deeply and critically; give them opportunities to be creative, innovative,...; enable pupils to manage risks and respond possitively to challenges; contribute to progression on learning and finally, engage ALL the students.

Moreover, it is a very important point to take in account, the fact that most students love working individually or in cooperative groups. As teachers we have to bear in mind that they really learn when they are able to practice that contents.

On the one hand, cooperative learning is useful since students feel all important, helps improving their oral skills, it promotes students' social skills and increases their self-esteem. But it is crucial for the cooperative learning' success to be taught to the students how to participate in a group situation.

On the other hand, individual learning is also necessary for the students because they can develop self-discipline, needed for future real life.

Social issues:

According to the authors' point of view, teachers have to provide the conditions needed for learning. Some social issues can emerge from the other two areas, such as self-esteem, respect,...etc. but they do not have sense without the establishment of a positive affective relationship in the classroom. Students need to feel safe, secure and accepted in the class to learn better.

This relationship has to be bidirectional, students must respect the teacher and the teacher must respect the students.

To conclude with this reflection I would like to say that although the teacher's job is difficult and can be hard, we have to do it all with optimism. As teachers we will have to work hard to create effective and meaningful activities and we also have to think deeply how to assess and how to manage our classroom, but we have a great amount of resources and ideas to promote a successful teaching and learning management.