That is an excellent idea to help others make new friends and feel comfortable in the class.
Each class is unique and different from each other so you need to assess each individual class before you come up with assessment tools for the class.
we need to comunicated to the students the advantages the CATs offer.
Comunication between instructor and student is the key.
Hi Joe,
Thanks for the interest. I do have a revolving set of my own Reading Journal prompts, again usually geared to the concepts or larger assignments we're working on, but you can use whatever prompt you want.
For instance, I have a short excerpt from George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" where he puts a verse from the KJV Bible into "modern English," with the goal of demonstrating how unclear and ineffective modern writing and modern communication has become (a dominant theme of that essay). This is the first Reading Journal I do in a course, usually around Day 2. I don't provide his explanation right then and there; all I provide are the two verses (KJV and modern) and ask why Orwell changed the language so dramatically. The most frequent responses run along the lines of "To show how the same thing could be said in different ways" or "To update the language" or "So the modern reader could understand it". But then, after I explain what his real goal was, I use that and more excerpts from the essay as a springboard into some general discussion about what makes "good writing."
At another point in the course, during a Restaurant Review Essay assignment, I'll pass around some small object that I can feel reasonably certain nobody in the class has ever seen - for instance, I use a cheap, imported toy from the Kid Robot company that, although commercially available in the US, is pretty uncommon. I ask the students to make five detailed, descriptive statements about it. By the next class, I have listed all of their details (specific colors, descriptions, etc.) and I tell the students to do the exact same thing WITHOUT using any of the previous day's words or descriptions, which are compiled on their worksheet. (If "yellow" or "about three inches tall" have become off-limits, they have to find another way to describe yellow.) The task, then, is to describe the thing without using any of the most obvious observations and without using any of the most obvious descriptive words and terms. The whole point is description; because we're working on a Restaurant Review, I tell students that part of their job in that essay is to be descriptive without relying on cliche, bland words, or worn-out and meaningless adjectives like "delicious". (In particular while writing their reviews, with words like "delicious" and "good," I tell students that "a delicious steak" tells me exactly how YOU feel about the steak, but it doesn't tell me anything at all about the steak itself, so as a description, it's virtually useless.)
I'm thinking about a variation where I divide the class in half; one half describes their object, and the other half tries to draw (with basic colored markers) the object based on those descriptions, the point being how detailed and accurate our descriptions can and sometimes need to be. If it doesn't allow or help somebody to reconstruct or imagine the thing with any degree of accuracy, how effective ARE your descriptions?
Another variation I'm thinking about would be to pass around an object that is completely familiar (like a Duracell battery), but which varies from the ideal in some way - the battery might be scratched or dented - and ask them to do the same thing, to see how they can go about describing something that probably differs in some way from the reader's own preconceived notion of th ething. Sometimes the reader's existing mental image is so engraved that the writer has a hard time replacing it with the explanation or description (s)he wants to provide, and that's one of the reasons, I tell a class, that it is so vital that we are clear in our own use of words and details.
Anyway, again, these little exercises can take a variety of forms, and as I said before, can serve a variety of purposes. Play around with them and see what seem to work. I find that after a few weeks of class, students come to anticipate them. I don't know if they're *eager*, but hey, at least they're getting accustomed to having to write, and we all know that's a hurdle in itself...!
Hi Eric- The feedback on tests is really important - I agree. Otherwise the learning does not proceed because the student is not given the opportunity to learn where they went wrong. Best wishes - Susan
Hi Robert- I really like the use of writing journals and you point out many of the advantages of using them. Best wishes - Susan
CAT's can be used to get feedback from students, and the more information the instructor has, the more effective he/she can be.
What a great idea..I never thought of that, I will attempt this next quarter
Thanks, joe
Sharing assessments with everybody is helpful.
In my writing classes, I use what I call "Reading Journal" exercises. They are short exercises at the very beginning of a class. Usually they're geared towards or at least relevant to the overall course material that we're covering at that time. They might be response pieces, their reaction to a particular cartoon or quotation, or any other quick writing prompt. I tell the class they serve a variety of purposes: to get the juices flowing in the morning, to get them thinking, but also to let me get early and frequent glimpses of their "real-life" writing. Rather than waiting for a big essay to grade, I want to see them writing much more often and I want them to know before that first big essay is due what they might need to work on. And that of course lets me know what, specifically, I might need to work on, either with that student individually or with the class as a whole. Although they are "graded," they're not right/wrong exercises, and my attached rubric shows the students that at least for these quick exercises, the grade is more dependent on what they have to say rather than how they say it.
After the class has submitted their Journals (which by design don't take more than a few minutes to complete), I'll briefly sort through them, quoting some of them anonymously and reacting to what they say, or I'll use them as my own prompt for a mini-lecture, mini-demo, or mini-discussion before jumping into that day's material. I can also use them to "put out fires," if I sense from them that many students are struggling with a particular concept or principle.
Hi Susan
It'S important for the instructor to tell the students the reason of the test, it's part of learn proscess exemple CAT and give feedback of the test enswer to the students
Eric
By using them during the process phase of a design project. This includes research, concept development and sketching.
As a design instructor, CATs are a very important tool to access the process work such as researching, brainstorming, and sketching for a project.
Hi Stephanie - That's a very good use of CATs. It will give you immediate feedback to adjust your instruction if necessary. Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career! Susan
I would incorporate CATs into my instruction after a challenging concept to determine how students are handling the information. This would allow me to make changes to my instruction.
I do a variety of things to hold the interest, I teach night classes to non- traditional students. In class we do the review questions, case studies, role playing, etc.
Hi Dorothy - excellent that you carefully tailor your lessons to the feedback that you get. Teaching at it's finest!! Best wishes - Susan
constant feed back is needed in cooking school to improve presentation and flavor, we simply talk about it. one on one, very candied conversation
Using practical techniques to aid students in the business world really aid in relating course content and retaining the material.
The best ways in which to incorporate CATs in my area of teaching are the "minute paper" and "background knowledge probe" formats. Since we work in a kitchen, we have very little budgeted time for in-class writing assignments, so the instantaneous and concise responses to the minute paper technique are most efficient. And for obvious reasons, the background knowledge probe is an effective tool when I need to know exactly what my incoming students do and don't know. Feedback for the students begins immediately: as soon as I see the results to the background knowledge probe, for instance, I can tailor the next day's lecture and demo to include or exclude various topics as needed, depending on their collective knowledge base. Sharing the results of the CAT allows the students to feel more involved in their own eduction.
