Animals and Literacy

 

Develop an action plan

 

NAME: MARIA ARÁNZAZU MIGUÉLEZ MORALES

AGE GROUP/S YOU TEACH: infants / lower primary / upper primary

SUBJECT/S YOU TEACH: English, Science and Art

 

I would like to start doing short oral presentations with my YEAR 2 students in Science and I consider that using evaluation criteria and assessment grids to assess will be a perfect tool to put into practice. The specific examples you presented in the session are very helpful.

2

Next unit I am planning to do in Science is about animals and one of the aspects what I want students to do is to describe animals according to nutrition, reproduction, etcetera. After explanations and exercises on the unit, I will ask students to make a project consisting on students choosing an animal and making small posters with pictures and information. Finally, the students must do a short presentation.

 Before they start with the task, I will introduce them what evaluation criteria are and what they are for. I will show some of them previously designed for me. I will try to include general ones for being able to assess both Science and Literacy as I also teach these students English. (e.g. The presentation was clear and students used the descriptive words learned throughout the unit). Furthermore I will ask students to share ideas and make agreements to design more criteria.

3

Whenever we ask our students to do a specific task we must tell them clearly what we expect them to do. They must know in advance what we are going to evaluate and how. It will help them to carry out the task and I think it will also increase students’ self-confidence. Using evaluation criteria also provides them the opportunity to self-evaluate and to reflect on their work. Lastly it also helps us as teachers to make a better evaluation in my opinion.