Week - 5 Reflections

So we’ve reached the halfway stage in our journey and how changed we already are! I wonder how the rest of it is going to affect us.

This week brought about a great change in my thinking and attitude. My skepticism about the use of rubrics for student assessment changed into my admiration for them. After reading a lot of articles on alternative assessment and use of rubrics, I finally changed my views about rubrics. NCLRC's article is really impressive with pop-up examples and a detailed information on alternative assessment. It is mainly responsible for my changed attitude towards rubrics. And when I created a sample rubric on RUBISTAR with unexpected ease, I was compelled to think if my laziness wasn’t partly a reason for my disliking of rubrics.

I have always believed in the learning-by-doing technique and PBL for that matter. But I didn’t know many ways of implementing it in an ESL classroom. Now, I have discovered many ways of using PBL in ESL classrooms, which I previously thought wasn’t much feasible. Susan Gaer’s article is wonderfully informative and full of insight about PBL. A carefully planned and managed project can definitely involve the students in the learning process to the extent of educating them according to the course objectives.

Creating a webquest was a unique experience. I’d only heard the word before, but didn’t know what a webquest was. Now I have created one and I strongly feel that I will be using them a lot in future.

This week was also important from the project task point of view. I hope the technology related change I have thought of implementing in my classroom works. If it does, my students will be able to make a better use of their smartphones than making calls or listening to Bollywood songs.