BIG IDEAS

HI TAC Learning Community:

This week has been full of big ideas and more tips for identifying and framing understandings.It is quite surprisingly to me that the word understanding comes in a plural form. But after learning about the importance of essential questions in planning a unit or a lesson it is becoming easier for me to realise why this word comes in the plural form. The crafting of essential questions is the key to the understanding by design since essential questions are divided into topical and overarching questions. While the overarching questions reach out to information beyond the topic content they are also beneficial for outlines of courses or programs of study. On the other hand, topical questions are of a great value to making the road paved for creating overarching questions. In addition to that, topical questions usually require a right answer which means they don't promote students' curiosity. To make it more clearer to the reader I would say overarching questions are deep and beyond content questions that can be dealt and argued by consecutive generations while topical questions are focused on the unit of study or the most important ideas of the course at hand. An example of an arching question: in your opinion why has Obama been strongly and enthusiastically celebrated and welcomed by the American people as well as by the world? while a topical question would be what are the reasons for Americans and people of different backgrounds to believe Obama is a significant president.

Hi TAC learning community:

It's been an incredibly busy weekend with all the chores and activities but it's been a productive one though (look at the half full glass). Now let's get back to our main focus that keeps us hooked which is the theme of quality education and its factors. Can we examine the education process without taking into account its surroundings?Accrding to the Spanish philosopher Jose Ortegay Gasset saying"I'm myself and my circumstance",the education paradigm relates to its factors; teaching,learning and assessment. The quality education embraces preparing students not only for writing tests but also for the future.When the assessment of learning focused on the teachers' teaching the content, students doing the assignments and a test is held at the end of a unit or term to see what students retained, the results reflected only a temporal ability to answer practiced questions using rote memorisation. On the other hand,assessment for learning gives students who did porly on an assignment or test the opportunity to redo, relearn and show evidence of learning.This is why all students shoul engage in pre-assessments and mid-unit assessment to help teachers determine what students need to know and how they are going to get their students learn it..a golden rule:pinpoint the learners' strengths, be clear about any weaknesses and how to improve, andprovide multiple evidence of learning in your class. Correction doesn't guide, encouragement does. This one is inclusively for me. Amira

Hey Everybody:
I've started my blog and wanted to share my reflection on a book with a title"Living Between the Lines". I found the book is a good example of this week's topic(Assessment for learning) as well as a leading start for our practicum. the main theme of the book is teaching of writing and the connection between reading and writing. The author encourages teachers to use the notebook as a tool for writing and living then she suggests the shift from notebooks to projects where small groups are the fertile environment for sharing experiences and thoughts. The author"Lucy McCormick Calkins"as a professor of English Education and Director of the Teachers College Writing Project emphsises the importance of reading and writing the story of our lives. The reason for her to highlight real life stories is that they take writers and readers on significant journeys. The point that I want to share with you about time and the idea of giving our students enough "slow to grow"as Eve Merriam said: A Lazy Though
There go the grownups
To the office
To the store,
Subway rush,
Traffic rush;
Hurry, scurry,
Worry,flurry.

No wonder
Grownups
Don't grow up
Any more.
It takes a lot
Of slow
To grow.
The students want clearly set goals, methods of frequent feedback, and records of growth shared with classmates. When students get opportunities to read each others' piece of writing, comment on them and are trained to self-assess their own work they become aware of the criteria of what makes a written project . The students' reflections and reading the classmates' responses enable the young writers to grasp the concept of setting goals for writing projects and looking backward to revise their plans in order to create a writing portfolio which the student may go back and appreciate his\her own improvement and the skills acquired during the learning journey.