- Formative: Did the project get implemented as planned?
My WPP on teaching paragraph writing more effectively by using a Google Doc was implemented as planned for the time frame we had. The students spent 10 minutes of tech time once a week for 3 weeks working on the Google Doc I made and learning to write paragraphs. I began maternity leave shortly after introducing this project to my class. My substitute took over the in class management (time to work and reminders) while I communicated about and developed the project from home. Although, I had hoped to do more lessons with the class but communication of expectations was watered down by my absence, so we needed to do the first lesson a second time.
- Summative: Evidence of success in addressing the problem of practice
One issue that came up was how the students found it fun to comment on the Google Doc. I didn’t prepare for their excitement so we lost one lesson to the wrong type of comments and had to do the commenting lesson a second time. Instead of commenting on the paragraph elements students left each other personal comments or opinions about their favorite subjects.
We will continue this project beyond CEP 812 and students will complete another lesson on identifying the topic sentence and they will complete a quiz on the parts of a paragraph.
- How would you approach another project of this type differently given what you’ve learned here?
- What are the lessons learned that others might benefit from knowing about?
- In what ways will you endeavor to do the same project again, and what will you change or not do
I would make several changes when I do this project again. First, I would allow a lesson for “play” on a Google Docs so that students could explore Google Docs and the features before getting to the lesson. Second, I would like to be present in the classroom while implementing this project again so that I could reinforce the lessons and gain greater feedback of students' understanding through their other class writing. Thirdly I would give more lessons on paragraph writing in a shorter time frame to keep the momentum going. Due to my current situation I was unable to give all the lessons I had planned in order to make this project most effective.