Google Forms and Flubaroo

 Google Forms and Flubaroo 

22nd June, 2016

 

Will provides a short run through of one way to use Google Forms to quickly collect, mark and grade assessment data.

As a pre-service teacher, I am sure you have heard about or engaged with Google Forms before. They are becoming increasingly popular in the classroom and I have seen 4th and 5th grade students use them effectively. This post will share just one way to use Google Forms as a pre/post assessment tool that I have found extremely helpful.

I am not going to discuss how to actually make a Google Form test – this is self-explanatory and there are numerous tutorials already available. I enjoy the flexibility of the types of questions – short/long answer, multiple choice, checked boxes, drop down menu and more.

You want to make the first two questions of your test “What is your first name?” and “What is your surname?”. Once the test is created, you need to complete the test with the correct answers. You are now ready for students to complete the test. After they have finished, you want to click the Responses tab and the View Responses in Sheets button. 

Once in Sheets, you need to download the Add-on that will automatically mark the test for you. This is called Flubaroo and can be found under Add-ons > Get Add-ons. Once you have this installed, head to: Add-ons > Fulbaroo > Grade Assignment

Step 1: The first questions (What is your name/surname?) can be used to identify the student. Other options allow you to change the value of each question but the default is 1 point per answer. A new feature is manual grading for those questions that you need to read individually before marking. 

Step 2: You now chose a person’s response to grade all the other submissions from. This is where you select your response which will have the correct answers. Once you continue, Flubaroo will work its magic. It will produce a new sheet with some valuable data for analysis including:

• There is a nice little summary at the top. A good place to see how many students completed the test, the average score and summative grades can be recorded.

• Vertically you can see student names with their score and percentage. Flubaroo goes the extra step by highlighting in red any students who scored below 70%. This is excellent data to see the range of student abilities on the topic and help in forming focus groups.

• Horizontally every question is listed with the answers. Boxes are highlighted orange if they were poorly answered across the group. This can be used for key concepts to focus on in future lessons. For example, students may easily answer a multiplication question with 2-digit numbers but struggle with a question using a 3-digit number.

At the end of a unit, complete the same test and compare students’ before/after scores and clearly identify questions/concepts that they are still struggling with.

I encourage you to try out Google Forms and Flubaroo. This was just a short introduction to some powerful software that is valuable for assessment practices in the 21st century classroom.

- Will

Employment after graduation

Employment after graduation

April 6th, 2016

Adelle has spoken to some recent graduates on their experience with

employment as a graduate teacher

As many of my year level are looking to graduate and gain employment at the conclude of this year, questions about resumes, applications, cover letters, portfolios and criteria are floating around.

Attend the universities workshops on resume writing, interviewing, speaking workshops and cover letter writing. These are designed to assist you in getting that job which is ultimately the aim of many who are completing a university degree.

However,

Due to my extra experiences while at university my graduation date has been extended by my own accord and while I am perfectly happy with being older when I graduate and gaining more life experience before starting a career, others respectfully have different plans.

My original year level's classmates graduated last night and although there is a pang of jealousy that they all got to celebrate together while I went to a 9am class this morning, it is apparent that more than a few of them haven’t been successful in obtaining a job.

I asked a few of them why they thought they hadn’t found that job yet and I got mixed responses.

A few are doing emergency teaching and loving the variation and experience they are gaining through that. Others feel they don’t interview well and need work in this area. Some have reviewed revised and redone their resumes and cover letters countless times and with the feedback they are getting from potential employers, identify that as an area that needs work also.

However, each of the graduates I have spoken to have one thing in common. Although they feel quite sad at times about not securing that dream position yet, that is the reality. They will wait, apply and use their gained skills for other uses until that dream job presents itself.

The main message they all tried to convey was, that just like getting into uni or working your way up through a company, there are always pathways and options to get to a result. If things aren’t going to plan straight away, bide your time, use your skills for other purposes, obtain feedback and get a mentor for applications, apply for a CRT agency to gain experience, teach overseas, explore other options, your degree isn't going to expire. The job market is always unfavourable with the amount of graduates in one area from various different universities so if your applications aren’t receiving the praise that you feel they should or your interviewing skills aren’t quite what the employers want, try again. If you fail, learn from that and remember why you want to be a teacher in the first place. If you put in the work, your chance could come at any time and you have to be ready.

I have recently read a book by Daniel Flynn who is a co-founder of the company thank you (responsible for thankyou water and various other products) he himself was a university drop out because he had an idea and dream that he thought would work and ultimately it was a game changer. He followed this dream, failed and learnt from that and took action and risks to make his idea come to life. He is very successful in his field and has funded and aided an incredible amount of people living in poverty. This number is still increasing and he is quite an inspirational young person whose story can be very relatable to a lot outside of his own business. I would highly recommend this book, you can purchase it from their website https://thankyou.co/ or from any airport in Australia and New Zealand.

Remember that things can always be better and hidden opportunities reveal themselves through our ‘failures’.

-Adelle

Finnish School System

  Finnish School System

17th February, 2016

With her experience and inspirations while in France, Adelle reflects on the Finnish school system and what education is in one of the leading countries of the world

While in France I have frequented the cinemas to watch various movies or documentaries. Some in English, some in French and one in particular, a mix of both. The film “demain”, translated means, tomorrow. It is a film that explains problems with the way the world works and offers alternatives and solutions to the rapidly increasing global climate and society issues. This documentary was quite inspiring and if you have the time and can find English subtitles, I would definitely recommend it. Part of the film, covers education and its importance in the world. The team focus’ on the schooling system in Finland and their turn around from a reputation not to be admired, to one that is used as a superior  example.

One quote in particular from the schools director, “we spend our time teaching not assessing” has stuck in my mind. Is it true that we assess our students all too often? We are expected to assess and have evidence of any questions that can be asked by colleagues, parents, auditors and the like.

Finnish schools have just one major exam when they are sixteen. They are not constantly tested to compare across classes, schools and other countries. The country as a whole takes the reality of parents being the first teachers of a child seriously. Children do not start school until they are seven, they are not given homework until well into their teens, they are not measured for the first 6 years of their schooling. This is an acceptance that children learn, grow and develop at different rates and allows them the time and comfort to progress at a pace that encourages their learning and not comparison with others. All children are taught in the same classrooms regardless of intelligence levels and the results of the students reflect the skills and professionalism of their teachers. They have the smallest difference between weaker and stronger students in the world and their teachers are selected from a superior range of educators who have obtained masters degrees of a high level. Their master degree is fully subsidized. As a community and a country they expect a lot from their educators, so as an incentive, the country subsidizes the degree to produce teachers that will advance future students.

Teachers in Finnish schools are well respected, they eat lunch in cafeterias among and while socialising with the students. They only spend four hours a day in the classroom, all of which is real teaching time and two hours a week, per week is dedicated to professional development.

Yet another different school system.

The below link will take you to the website for the film “demain”. The entire film is incredibly inspiring and has given me some really insightful thoughts about what should be taught in the classroom and areas where education should really be a focus outside of the curriculum.

http://www.demain-lefilm.com/en

- Adelle

Thinking Out Loud: Pre-service Teacher Skills

27th January, 2016
  
Alex talks about the lack of focus in current teacher training courses on behaviour management, a skill he believes is crucial to starting out as an effective teacher

As I enter the fourth and final year of my teacher training course, I have begun to reflect on what I have learned and whether or not it has prepared me for my first year of teaching. While I will happily acknowledge that my time at university has developed my skills and understanding of pedagogy, especially in relation to the teaching of mathematics, I must admit that I feel there have been, in my view, several key elements left out. The one I wish to discuss here, and in my view the most important, is behaviour management.

One of the issues that seems to consistently arise when talking with recent graduates is the challenge with behaviour management. It is, in my mind, the most important skill for new teachers to have when they enter the classroom and I've heard various horror stories (directly and indirectly) of stressed teachers struggling to achieve order and function due to a lack of management skills. Thus it seems curious to me that I had to pursue an elective, under my own motivation, to develop an understanding of behaviour. None of the core (compulsory) units at my university covered the topic in any particular detail, nor provided strategies or research on how to master the classroom. I consider myself extremely lucky to have chosen the elective which looked in-depth at behaviour, classroom management, community creation, and crisis control. I learned a vast amount of practical and theoretical information which has shaped and improved my behaviour management skills. However, many of my fellow peers have not had the chance to engage with this unit and may not be able to before the end of their final year. I fear for my friends as they enter the workforce with skills that may be inadequate to deal with the challenges they face. I can't imagine a stressful and frustrating first year of teaching will inspire any loyalty to the profession. Thus I can't fathom why a topic as fundamental as behaviour management is not covered rigorously over the first few years of our teacher training - when it is, perhaps, at its most crucial.

I believe this lack of a core behvaiour unit results in two serious issues; firstly the lack of development of an essential skill. As I mentioned before, various teachers have told me how important having strong behaviour management skills are, and I think there are many pre-service teachers graduating under-prepared into the work force. This sees them struggling in their first years of teaching to deal with issues that they simply do not have the skills to successfully resolve. This in turn results in the second serious issue; a reliance on ineffective and negative management techniques.

As I progressed through my placements I took on the behaviour management strategies of the associate teachers I worked with - simply because I had none of my own! I was a blank slate with no comparative concepts of management and classroom set up. Now I have engaged with the behaviour management elective I can see that some of the tactics and strategies used by teachers I have viewed are extremely negative. They are short-term, authoritarian and destructive. I have also seen some extremely positive and long term behaviour strategies. However, I think many pre-service teachers are leaving university with little or no behaviour management skills, and the ones they have are not best practice. If you know no alternative to yelling, then that will be your behaviour strategy. And the tragedy is that after a few years whatever behaviour practices you use will become habit. I believe that many pre-service teachers are graduating with knowledge only of negative, authoritarian behaviour practices.These will destroy any chance of positive relationships with your students and ultimately cause them to dislike you, and dislike school. Children and teachers deserve better than this.

Every pre-service teacher needs the chance to develop their behaviour management skills. They need a compulsory unit where they can learn about behaviour, its functions and causes, as well as how to manage behaviour in a positive way. I believe as teachers we model the different ways that our society and culture functions. It seems paramount to me that every student is engaged in a pro-social, democratic classroom environment with a teacher who can help children learn how to self-regulate their behaviour. At the moment I believe too many teachers are graduating with insufficient skills to make this happen. There needs to be a change. Best practice of behaviour management is essential to being an effective teacher, our teacher training institutions should reflect this and modify their curriculum accordingly.

- Alex