Formative, "21st century" Lessons and Assessment

At BCL11, I've been using new technology that I haven't been using on this trip, from Twitter to Flicker to a number of blogging sites, but I'm most interested in the ways in which lesson plans and assessment are being discussed.

Ewan MacIntosh made reference to a paper entitled Inside the Black Box : Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment by Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam from King’s College London School of Education that I found helpful and relevant to our teaching.The article discusses the importance of giving students as much feedback as possible as they learn rather than relying on sumative assessments. I feel that trying to create many ways to replicate and transfer the skills you want students to learn is intutitive but not always easy to carry out in a day to day 40-80 minute block. Using the "flipped" classroom model of having the kids do the research and content work at home and the engagement/discussion/"doing" at school helps alleviate this problem, and the use of blogging and wikis gives the kids a chance to interact intellectually and socially at the same time while completing homework tasks.

Ewan and many other presenters also point out the importance of peer feedback. Using technology and other methods of creating meaningful peer feedback, especially in the writing process, is an area where I want to continue to improve, and this workshop has me thinking of new ways to do it.