Earlier in the semester three of my fellow Mac'ers
presented the website Prezi to our cohort and I must say I was impressed. I was impressed first and foremost by Cory,
Even, and Matt's well done presentation and delivery of Prezi. They explained the website top to bottom and
spent a good amount of time showing the class how we as future educators can
use the website to better present our daily lessons . Moreover, I was also impressed with the
actual product of Prezi. Prior to the
presentation I had only heard about Prezi and its ability to allow a user to
create an aesthetically pleasing presentation.
Additionally, initially I had no
clue how to make a Prezi presentation, I
also had no knowledge of what the websites limitations were. As a future secondary history teacher I see a
lot of potential in Prezi and feel that I will definitely find a use for it in
my class. Through Cory, Even, and Matt's
presentation I feel like I have a good grip on how to navigate the Prezi
website and create my own Prezi from scratch.
I
feel that incorporating Prezi presentation with a traditional history lecture
could create a very effective combination for initiating learning. With the ability to embed videos, music, pictures,
and other medians I believe that Prezi is perfect for catering to the multitude
of different learning styles present within an average classroom. Throughout the groups presentation Cory, who
is an historian by trade, showed the class a couple example presentations of how
you can create and implement a history Prezi presentation. Prezi allows the creator to include primary
sources such as, maps, artwork, documents, pictures, political cartoons, and
much more inside the presentation. It
also allows the creator to present the information with unique transitions and
backgrounds that make the presentation much more captivating for students
during their long days at school. The
technical term for these cool transitions that can be customized based on the
users desire is "Zooming User Interface", or commonly abbreviated as
ZUI. From the few times I have messed
around with Prezi since the presentation in class I have found the website to
be user-friendly and easy to navigate. All
in all I give Prezi a grade "A" and find that it can be a very
effective supplement when presenting information to students.
So, then, Mr Sorich, how would you assess (grade) our Prezi presentation? What rubric would you use/follow? Turning to your own teaching, how do you assess your students? Multiple-choice, short-answer, or otherwise? The short-answer item is used primarily to measure simple recall of knowledge. Although this item type tends to be rather easy to write and use, they are no very adaptable to measuring complex learning outcomes; and scoring is tedious, time consuming, and somewhat subjective. A handful of rules for writing short-answer items helps teachers steer clear of these and other shortcomings: (1) State the item so that only a single, brief answer is possible; (2) Start with a direct question and switch to an incomplete statement only when greater conciseness is possible by doing so; (3) It is best to leave only one blank, and it should relate to the main point of the statement; (4) Place the blanks at the end of the statement; (5) Avoid extraneous clues to the answer; (6) For numerical answers, indicate the degree of precision expected and the united in which they are to be expressed. But I should like to point out that each child learns differently. For example, I currently assess all of my 120 AP students every Friday. They receive 20 multiple-choice questions every Friday; in addition, they receive a short essay question every other Friday. The latter is used as a means to bolster grades; it’s a time to receive an extra 30 points or so. This is done, in part, because many of the students struggle with multiple-choice questions. But what’s the different between, for example, a 56/60, 52/60, 51/60, 49/60, 47/60 or below? It just seems so subjective. These points may not sound like a like, but they could potentially mean the difference between an A and a B, which for most students is a big deal! Any suggestions?
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