Grading Groupwork

Different ways animals work in groups

We all know the pedagogy.  Group work is great. Having students work in teams gets them to practice

Group work offers students the chance to teach one another (and we all know that teaching is one of the best ways to really learn, understand and remember something).

However, groupwork has its downsides too. Often one student will be dependent on others not really giving their full effort. Other times, group-work is not properly divided. I talked about a group once that got in trouble for plagiarism.  They had divided the group work as follows: Student1- Make the drinks they were going to pass out during class, Student2-Write the brochure, Student3- Format the brochure.

Do you see the problem with this? One person was doing all the research, citing, summarizing, etc. while the others did much less work. No wonder the student turned to plagiarism!

Funny pie chart discussing the faults of group projects

Now, part of this is just part of life. Just like in real life, sometimes you'll be doing group projects with people who try to take credit for your work, don't do as much, or are perfectionists who want you to re-do everything you do!

It is true that life isn't fair, but I feel that teachers should make grading as fair as possible.

HERE ARE A FEW WAYS I GRADE TEAMWORK  

• Have team members grade one another. This is a popular way of keeping students involved. I usually make a "teamwork" grade worth about 5% of the total.



Portion of a sample rubric

• Give a rubric!
• You can see a small portion of a rubric that I've used before. to the right.
• Give them a number of points they can divide among the group
•  For example in a group of three I may give 10 points.
• If the students feel that their two team members worked well together they'd give each member 5 points. 
• On the other hand, if they feel that one partner did a bit more than the other they would give one person 6 and one person 4
• Consequently, if one team member was amazing and one team member was pretty lousy the points could be divided as 9 points and 1 point.
• Pros: Students feel like they get a say. Cons: Some students will grade based on personal relationship, not actual effort (most of my students seem to be honest when filling these out). 
• Divide the work. I am not a huge fan of this with most projects, but with some projects it works well (and lends itself to differentiation).



A confession bear meme describing what many students feel

• For example, if the students are working on an essay together make one student in charge of the First Body Paragraph, another the Second Body Paragraph, and the third the Last Body paragraph.
• I am not a huge fan of this as I think that part of the joy (and horror) of working in a group is that you get to use the weaknesses and strengths of other members to work TOGETHER in a finished product. However, sometimes this works well.
• Assess what you see  
• Sometimes I have my groups work during class. At this point I literally assess what I see.
• One student is writing, another is researching and a third is working on math homework... the math homework one won't receive the same grade as the others.
•  Have students use something like primary pad and you can track who is typing what.
• Some students perceive this as unfair because group-work is more than what is done in class or on the computer (which is true).
• Just give one grade
• Don't grade based on the effort or work done by individuals students, just grade the finished product and let everyone have the same grade. 
• If a team builds something assess purely the end result and have all members get the same grade.
• Many students protest this because it doesn't reflect the effort and time they put into it. It is however very similar to many real life situations.  

I'd love to get input from other teachers (or students). How do you grade group work? Do you let students grade one another for teamwork?

Vocabulary Mobiles

My students always really struggle with vocabulary despite my many different attempts at helping them learn.

This semester I've decided to give them some help. We'll be making vocabulary mobiles to hang from the class ceilings. These will not have the words on them, but may help them remember words which are on the tip of their tongue during the test.

This is the first time I've done this, so please let me know if you have any ideas I should add! 

Right now I plan on assigning each student a different word. We'll have one presentation per class where students look at the mobile and try to guess the word. Then we'll hang the mobile on the ceiling where it will remind until the test.

So far these are my directions:

You will need:

• A wire coat hanger
• Old Magazines / Advertisements / etc.
• Construction paper / Colored Paper
• String / Yarn
• Glue
• Scissors

If you need help finding any of those items please let your teacher know as she can loan them to you for the project.

Using the previous mentioned products you will create a mobile for one vocabulary word from the Walrus and the Carpenter.

You MAY NOT have words or letters on your mobile.

Otherwise, you can use anything you like. Here are some ideas:

• Use pictures which remind you of how the word sounds
• Use pictures that remind you of the word’s meaning
•  Use pictures of the word’s antonyms and draw an X through them
• Use pictures of someone you think acts like the word
• Use small light items: key chains, origami, pens, pencils, etc. Remember it has to hang from the ceiling, so nothing heavy
• BE CREATIVE!

Example: What does the mobile here describe? It has: a wallet, a pink square, ocean waves, and a picture of a lot of animals.

A walrus! It is a pink animal that lives in the ocean. The word walrus sounds a  little like wallet and rust.

Can you think of any other ideas I can give them besides the ones listed above? If so please leave a comment or tweet me! Thanks so much! I'll be sure to take pictures and let you know how this goes!

Book Review: English As a Second Language: Learn English Fast and Have lots of Fun

Since I've been talking about students putting in the extra effort and movies in class, I figured this would be a good time to introduce a quick book review of a book I read a few weeks ago.

Title: Englsh As a Second Language: Learn English Fast and Have lots of Fun Author Binh Phan Price $4.87 Pages 55

Who should buy it? This book is definitely made for ELLs more than ELTs. It would be a useful book for an ELT to have a loan out to students, or a book you could suggest you students look into on their own.

What’s it do? This book goes through different, “fun” ways to learn and practice English. It covers, Movies, Songs, Games, Chatting / Blogging, and Reading.

In each section it explains:

Why you should do this:

Example:  The book explains that there are many benefits to singing. Your body increases its oxygen intake, balances its metabolism and aids the motor skills between primary senses and the brain. It also tends to put you in a better mood, and most people consider it fun. Since the brain associates fun as something pleasant you are more likely to retain the information in the lyrics!

How you should do this:

Example: For reading, the book suggests that you read out loud, read and record your voice, read books that movies are based on, read animated stories, read comics, read Fairy Tales, and read English jokes. In each category it tells you why reading this specific type of text is good and what people will probably enjoy it the most. It also gives examples of where to find things in this category to read.

Is it any good? The author admits he is not reinventing the wheel. Most of the information in the book is common sense and probably stuff that you already tell your students. However, many students are convinced that their teacher’s advice isn’t as great as someone who wrote a book. If you think your student would get a wakeup call from the book, or just needs to hear what you have said from someone else then YES the book is worth buying.

Plus, after the book is over he gives away another e-book of his for free “Learn English Fast, A guide to improving your English with accelerated learning techniques and unstoppable motivation.”

And wait, there’s more! If you leave a review and share it on Facebook or twitter he will gives your student access to two weeks of the, “Learn English Fast ‘n’ Fun” program.  Perhaps those two weeks would be of some help to your students?

I’d love to know if you end up reading this what you think, or if you have any similar ideas feel free to leave a comment!

But I don't have time to show a movie!!!

I know a lot of teachers who don't show films in class due to the time constraint. Filminute has 25 different films all chiming in at a minute!

You can use them as listening activities, attention getters, things for students to describe, or inspiration for your students' own events!

Here are some that I liked and could see using in class.
 
Idiosyncratic I am sure they'll remember the word idiosyncrasy after this! A great clip to cover, "What would you do if this happened?" There is censored female nudity and a cigarette I think I would use this in class one day when working on guessing the meaning of a word from the context.

The Kissing Booth: Talk about a twist! Super cute! You can talk about what he was thinking and introduce the word, "homely" I'd probably use this for a grammar point (conditional, participial phrases, relative clauses, etc.) or just to start a discussion about love.

The Veil This is another sentimental one. Great if you are talking about the Arab spring, different cultures, or empathy. Not any dialogue, but I still think there's lots to do here! (There is some blood and you can hear guns so be sure it is appropriate for your class).

Maybe Another Time This does have gunshots. There are thick accents, but it is subtitled. I think showing this and The Veil back to back and having students compare them would be amazing.

The Present Lots of talking for a listening activity. Pretty clear and very sentimental! A great tie in if you are going to read / talk about the downfalls of different jobs. No gore, no blood, no violence.

There are so many more! for example would be great for adjectives. How do they fee? I'd have my students get started on a poetry unit with it, or we could talk about symbols!

Take a second to check them out and let me know if you think you would use any in your class. You won't waste your time, after all each is only a minute!

The pleasant suprises a blackout brings

I hadn't seen my students in over a week (class was cancelled for a bit due to hurricane Manuel in this area).

The beautiful campus!

Their partial exam (originally scheduled for last Weds) got rescheduled to today! Worse still, they didn't tell the teachers until 8pm yesterday. Despite my e-mails and tweets, many of my students didn't know until they got to school their exam would be today.

Regardless once we got to class they dilligently started their exams.

The lovely lit class.

My school has a beautiful campus with mostly great classrooms. Awesome windows, green views, space to try out different chair layouts, etc. This class is held in one of my less favorite rooms. It's a big room with all the technology I could want, but very dull. It has no windows and those tables that are heavier and harder to move around. Since I am only in there three times I week I don't get to decorate it.

Picture of the dark room

Halfway into the exam the lights flickered and went out.

Well...shoot!

I ran to the lights and helplessly flicked them on, and off, and back on ignoring the fact this was doing nothing to the lighting in class.

I opened the door and asked a loitering student if he could get a maintenance man. In the meantime my students just kinda sat there. "You can move to the front row if you want to grab the light from the hall." I stated still standing at the door keeping it open.

The dark room with the door open

Eventually one of the maintenance men came and explained that there was a problem with the power of the whole school.

He helped me wedge a trashcan to keep the door open; then at least I was free to wander a bit. At this point a student asked, "Teacher, can I take out my cell phone and use the flashlight?"

Within minutes my class was filled with students holding their cell phones over their tests.

I was pleasantly shocked and surprised. Normally students will whine and beg whenever they can, but this time they persevered and kicked butt!

Within the next 15 minutes I asked our secretary if she could call my boss to see what the procedure was. She couldn't get a hold of him, but she did look in my class, "It's actually beautiful" she commented. I agreed, and am a bit sorry I didn't take a picture (but I didn't want to leave then unattended to grab a camera). It wasn't just the soothing glow throughout the class that was pretty. It was the fact that my students were doing what they needed to do!

We managed to cram my students into a teacher's lounge (with big windows letting the beautiful day's sunlight fill the room) to finish their exam, and the fact that they happily moved rather than moaning and groaning filled my heart as well.

Have your students ever reacted differently than you expected and surprised you (pleasantly)? I'd love to hear about it! Drop me a comment below.

Ways to Keep in Touch with parents

If you are a tech savvy teacher (or you pretend to be) there are a lot of ways to connect with parents:

Remind101 is a service designed with teachers in mind. It essentially lets parents sign up for their student's class. From them on when you want to send a reminder, "Students will be reading at a nearby preschool next week! See if your child wants to practice their book with you."
Pros-
It's free! No need to wait for your tax refund.
It respects privacy: your number is never shown to any parents and their numbers aren't revealed to you.
It's easy! It walks you through step by step.

Cons-
It is only available in the US and Canada... so that leaves me out of this loop.

If you use a site to record grades, or monitor behavior (Engrade, ClassDojo, Blackboard) they usually have a way for parents to log in and access the site.

Sometimes this is more passive on your part. You keep the information up to date and they make the decision to check it or not. That's what something like Engrade and blackboard offer.

 ClassDojo is also passive, however it also lets you send your reports to the parents. For example, if you are reacting to a particularly good day with a trouble student you can send the report to a parent so they can praise their child as well!


These programs are great because if you are already using them, it doesn't require much more effort to allow the parents access. It also makes your class a lot more visible. Students can't claim they don't know why they are failing, or that the teacher doesn't like  them. Their actions and grades are all very transparent.

You can create a class website, blog or twitter too! These take a bit more effort as you have to maintain them, but I find they are great for students who lose papers or need reminders. I love using Twitter. It is fast, easy and most of my students are addicted so it works well.

It is also nice for those less tech savvy teachers because it really doesn't require that much know-how to make a twitter account and get started.


No computer access?
If you simply cannot access technology (or you don't think your students' parents can) you can still connect with your students' parents in others ways:

I have talked about how I send a letter home the first week; this way, parents know what I expect and how to reach me.

My mother always sent out a monthly (or was it weekly) newsletter to her students.

My school had a weekly "Family Envelope" with reminders of school events, class assignments and other must know things. Parents would sign whatever was inside the envelope and return it to the school with the student. Sometimes they includes little "password questions" randomly. If a parent spotted it, they would answer the question and send in the answer. This would put their student in a drawing for free homework passes, free dress days, etc.

What about you? How do you keep in touch with parents? Does it work? What would your ideal system be? I'd love to hear form you in the comments, or on Twitter.