"Overall, I learned a lot of things that have made other school subjects much easier. Learning how to convert and use Web 2.0 tools has been very useful both at home and in my other classes. After this first semester in Physical Science I am now aware of a lot of what the internet has to offer and how it can be used. In a way, science has been a combination of all of my classes."
"I think the very first unit with the Web 2.0 tools it showed me that the world is changing into everything with internet and technology. By the time I will be in college there will probably not be any textbooks, and it will all be online using these Web 2.0 tools. So i am glad we did this Web 2.0 tools unit. "
These kinds of comments make me glad I spent some time letting students explore various Web 2.0 tools. As a result, my students aren't fighting me tooth and nail like they were last year about using technology; I think it took away some of the fear they had about using technology and gave them more options for displaying their knowledge. For the two weeks I spent letting them explore, the student empowerment in using technology has been a huge return on my initial time investment.
"If I could grade myself, I'd give myself a 4 because I worked hard understanding the objectives and I cans."
"I don't feel that I need to do anything different over this semester because I have tried my hardest for each worksheet I have gotten and I have done everything I have been assigned and there is nothing I need to do differently."
It seems I need to work on helping some students get rid of the old, "I worked really hard and my effort should earn me a high score" attitude and emphasize the fact that scores represent learning--and nothing else. Effort leads to learning, but it should not be included in scores of learning.
"Through the semester I think going slower through the units made me comprehend the information more unlike speeding through the chapters like we did in middle school."
Real learning takes time. It's easy to get caught up in all of the standards that "have to be covered." They don't have to be covered. What has to be done is helping students learn how to learn, learn how to create their own understandings, and learn how to think for themselves. That's what they'll take with them after they leave your class. I hate to say it, but they will forget most of the content I have taught them in the years after they experience my class; but learning how to learn will stay with them for a lifetime.
"For the entire semester, I would give myself a 4 because I understand all the concepts but I just need to learn to use the knowledge."
It's a joy to see all of the metacognition with which I have been hammering them is making some of them more aware of what they truly understand and can do with the information. I don't see it to the extent that I would like, but it is encouraging to see that this "self-awareness of learning" is taking root. With what I have planned for next semester's portfolios (see below), I am going to take a different approach to metacognition and reflection for second semester.
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Overall, I am glad that I had students create these portfolios. This is the first time my students have ever had to show what they understood on a final exam in this manner (what a colleague of mine terms as "put up or shut-up" displays of knowledge). They are used to final exams that are all multiple choice, tests that contain hundreds of questions that students are asked to answer in a 90-minute guess-fest that is easy for the teacher to score but very difficult to view what the student actually knows, understands, and is able to do. In other words, these portfolios are really showing me what "stuck" during the semester.
They are also showing me what students really think "knowing" is all about. I encouraged them and showed them how to make connections, yet a lot of students listed definitions or gave me short "git-r-done" answers to the objectives. Very little connections were made between objectives or concepts were made--indicating I probably need to show them more clearly how to do this 2nd semester, and make this a regular requirement on assessments so they can get into that habit of mind.
What I also need to work on is getting them comfortable taking ownership of their own learning. My students often look at me as the final educational judge and jury, the gradekeeper, the evaluator of all learning, and they think it's my job to sift through their evidence of knowledge and issue a score that, unfortunately, many students use to determine their self-worth. Well, the more I teach, the more I realize that's not my job. If students are to own their own learning, they need to sift through their own evidence, evaluate it, fix it, examine it, fix it again, and decide what is quality evidence of true learning and what isn't. My job is to teach them how to self-evaluate, not be the evaluator. To do that, we will now be working on these porfolios weekly, evaluating what they know and don't know, and writing reflections on personal blogs weekly.
It seems I have my work for 2nd semester cut out for me. But it's work worth doing, especially when I read things like the comment below on one student's portfolio: