A little more about your class:
I teach Special Education Practicum 775.
The issue you’re addressing:
Increase student interest and engagement especially in online course formats.
Tell us a bit more about your teaching innovation:
I will be offering a wider variety of assignments so students can choose which project they want to work on. This increases their interest and engagement. When teaching SPED 707, the research seminar I always advised students to choose a topic they were passionate about. “If you do not choose something that interests you the research process can be tedious.” Well this is also true for projects in other courses. Some projects will interest some students and not others. Selecting what they choose to work on lets them pick what will help them most in their growth as teachers and development of their instructional process. It is also a way to differentiate instruction. Students can work with the modality they feel most comfortable with.
My course involved as a project reading a book about offering students alternatives to traditional grades. That is something else that can be discussed with the class each semester. Every class is different and may decide to opt in or out of a traditional grading system. As always every student will be afforded the same opportunity to redo work if they are not happy with the outcome.
KEY Change: More comments on student work on how they can improve and make their submissions better so that the experience is about learning and not grading.
Your initial takeaways:
My students love the flexibility and feel less stressed about the workload. They are engaging with materials they are excited about not forced to read what I assign.
Suggested “podcast pairing”:
“Rigor and Assessment from the Student Point of View” (Dead Ideas in Teaching and Learning podcast)
Dr. Breanna Boppre on “Alternative Assessment: Creative Ways to Use Technology to Engage Students and Assess Learning” (Lecture Breakers podcast)
Susan Blum on “Engaging Ungrading” (Think UDL podcast)
