Tina Nicholson Mallén
Yes, Kyle, I too have changed my topic! After reading the articles about forming a research question and Chapter 3 of Stringer, I realized that my previous question was going to be difficult to measure.
I teach two year-long Spanish I classes which meet fourth and fifth periods. Both classes contain a large variety of race, age, and abilities. Each class meets for a total of 55-minutes, five days per week. My students' ages range from 15-19 years and each class contains roughly 29 students.
After struggling for over a semester with student apathy, lack of participation, and continued poor performance with listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills, I have puzzled over what method would be best to encourage more student participation. I believe that many of my students have the skills, but do not fully understand what exactly they can do with the language. Even when I have explained what objectives and standards each activity meet, students do not see how far they have come with what they have learned so far. Therefore, I want to conduct a study that allows the student to show what they can do, without "teacherese", but by using a portfolio system that states what the students can do, not with state standards lingo, but with "I can" statements.
What happens when my Spanish I students use portfolios to measure their performance?
Comments (8)
A good question, and one, I imagine, with lots of literature available. You may wantot examine, since we are allowed to bring in theoretical perspectives and it may help with the overall context of the subject, articles on classroom wikis. There are a lot of articles out there, and they give a great picture of what happens when students are allowed to control a portion of their learning/education material. The theories of learning models we have been studying in other clsses may be of help as well.
What sort of activities will be included in the portfolio? And what methods do you intend to use concerning the study? I really like the question and idea, and the participants are very well-defined, but am unclear as to how you will go about performing the study. In addition, Hubbard warns of approaching a problem from the researcher's point of view, and I think that empowering your students in such a manner will go a long way to preventing that, but I would advise to keep in mind the section regarding your impact on the students' percpetions and activties. Good luck!-John Harrington
Posted by Anonymous | January 31, 2009 8:25 AM
Posted on January 31, 2009 08:25
Thank you, John, for asking that question! I didn't include that part in my entry, but I will include it now.
I plan to use the LinguaFolio portfolio system, which gives the students the opportunity to set their own language goals (based upon both national and state standards). The goals are easily read by students as they are written with "I can" statements. For example, instead of the goal reading "The student will be able to conjugate verbs in the past tense" the goal might read "I can tell a story about things I did last summer". Because the portfolio is student-driven, student-maintained, and student-oriented, the students will have more of an idea about where they started out and where they are now because they can look back over the list of acheived goals and also see products that reflect those goals. I am interested in seeing what happens with the level of student participation when this method is used. I hope that explains the process a bit more clearly.
Posted by Tina Nicholson Mallén | February 1, 2009 12:15 PM
Posted on February 1, 2009 12:15
Tina, I am very interested to see how this affects your students participation and motivation. Portfolios are something that I have been interested in using in my Spanish classes but haven't ventured into it yet. I look forward to see your fidings.
Posted by Kristen Clark | February 1, 2009 5:40 PM
Posted on February 1, 2009 17:40
It seems that student apathy and declining performance in long term classes is an issue for several of us. While the subject, technology aspects and age groups are different, I can see many connections to the research I am looking into in my own classes. It will be very useful to compare our ultimate findings. The impact of student defined goals on performance should hopefully be a quantifiable statistic. Best wishes.
Posted by Jeff Kitchen | February 1, 2009 8:01 PM
Posted on February 1, 2009 20:01
Tina, I wonder if the fact that foreign lang. is a requirement tends to dictate "interest and performance level" somewhat. Do you find those with a true love of foreign language perform differently in class than others?
Posted by Roxie Miller | February 1, 2009 9:09 PM
Posted on February 1, 2009 21:09
Student apathy is one of my main concerns. The majority of students who fail my course fail because of apathy. I would love to see how their portfolios effect their apathy. I am always looking for something to overcome their lack of motivation.
Posted by Shannon Mosteller | February 2, 2009 11:18 AM
Posted on February 2, 2009 11:18
I really like the question, Tina. You've gotten good feedback from colleagues.
I'm wondering about the word "measure", though. Are you using portfolios to really measure, or are you using them as more of a reflective component, or even as you state it a goal-setting strategy?
Think about it....
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Posted on February 4, 2009 13:32
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