Monday, April 12, 2010

1st thoughts

It's funny that when I came to class last Thursday I didn't realize we would be talking about the topic we had chosen for our capstone (oops...didn't get a chance to read my work emails!).  It was purely coincidental then that I had been thinking about this on my walk with Claire that day.

I was thinking of 2 questions:
1) How does written self-assessment (through the use of a portfolio - or gathering of work) improve/affect students' performance?
2) How do peer conferences (both individual and group) affect student writing. 

It was actually quite helpful to talk in a small group and get my ideas out in the open.  Maria and Deb really helped me clarify my question.

I now know I want to concentrate on student conferences (both individual and group).  I have chosen this route for a few reasons:
1) I know I want to improve both how I confer with students but also improve how I teach them to confer with one another.
2) I am currently reading "How's It Going" by Carl Anderson and am really motivated by his ideas.  I want to try these out in class.
3)  For our current assessment class we need to create an outline of a unit where we change/improve our assessment (using things we have learned from class discussions and readings) and I feel that project would be a great help with my capstone project. 

Next steps: start my unit outline for the assessment class.  This will be a basis for a)finding resources and b)framing how I will teach this writing unit so I can then do action research.  Also, I need to check the cohort wiki to add my concept so others can offer me suggestions on resources.