This year as I contemplated my final exam for Spanish 3, I didn’t want to do what they did last year, because I like the PhotoPeach reflection much better as a relaxing ending to AP Spanish. Since my most popular blog post ever is about student choice in homework, I thought, why not the final exam too?
My students are all interested in different things, and motivation is the primary key to language learning, so why not let them choose their own topic? They are all involved in different things, baseball and spring drama and final projects, so why not let them choose their own due date? Imposing technology on students doesn’t usually work, so why not let them choose their own format? And that’s sort of how the whole thing went.Here’s the info and plan they made for themselves. I hope it works as well as the homework options do!
OMG LOOVVVVVVEEE!!!
I am enamored with this idea… but as I was thinking about presenting my 3rd years with the same project, I wondered about (*sigh*) grading. How are you going about doing this?
About the grading – I use a performance assessment rubric to grade all my assessments (they're all performance-based). As for time, that's part of the beauty of letting them choose their due dates – they spread themselves out from Apr 24 – May 18, and no one chose the final exam day. So I have them spread out fairly well and the bulk of final exam week to grade them as well. 🙂
Wow. Awesome rubric! I'm going to present this to my students for their final, and hopefully no one will pick final exam week as well 🙂
First one turned in yesterday – a student who wants to be a teacher did a Photopeach on education in Spain.
http://photopeach.com/album/iepymt?invitecode=bd07f1c77c
[…] more information, see the original post It’s time for them to use their time, as well as Design your own final exam and the Google doc of my class’s weekly activity […]
Love this! I have used projects instead of final exams for a number of years, but I needed a good idea for my grade 12 project as I haven’t really been happy with what I’ve done in the past. I am definitely going to use this one!
Great, hope it works out as well for you!
This is my modified version :). I combined yours and another teacher’s rubric (I forget who!) with my own ideas and came up with this. Thank you once again!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r73MfcfsnK5avSdwFKfyGW6zuqLYTtUcr3n8ObWZDno/edit?usp=sharing
I combined your ideas with another teacher’s rubric (I forget who!) and my own modifications. Thanks again!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r73MfcfsnK5avSdwFKfyGW6zuqLYTtUcr3n8ObWZDno/edit?usp=sharing
[…] helpful. When I give students their options for their Aventura fluency homework or their final exam, if I hear, “Boy, I wish I could do X instead,” it doesn’t stifle them. It […]
Loved this idea! I am not sure I can convince some of my coworkers to do it this way. They are so used to following a textbook. But for those of us who don’t, this is a great idea!
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