C4T Post #3

Student-created Political Parties
This is the follow up to the What My Students Believe about Politics post. For phase two students formed groups based on common ideas as discovered from isidewith.com. Students then created their own parties including name, slogan, logo, campaign platform, and 30 second commercial. They then premiered them this week in front of state representative along with a 2 minute stump speech. Overall they did a great job and I feel like the energy and interest in this project was the highest I have seen. Students definitely made an impression on the representatives. Check out their commercials and their party platforms are linked in the YouTube descriptions.

Honortarian Campaign Ad

My Comment: Hi Michael, I am a student in EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama. I was assigned to comment on your blog this week! I must say I love what you challenged your students to do. It is so important that they learn the importance of the election and what it is all about, it doesn't come around that often! I was never apart of anything such as this while I was in elementary school. Your students did awesome on their videos, very entertaining! You have inspired me for sure!


Stopping Students from "Cramming"
In this blog post, Michael touches on how his students are rushing to finish their final work in his classroom. They are suppose to do the assignment, receive feedback, then refine their work. However, the students are waiting until the last minute to submit their work. He is attempting two new changes to alleviate this issue. One is students will be required to initiate a re-assessment of a standard within two weeks of the first assessment or they forfeit the opportunity to re-assess. With a re-assessment attempt they will gain another two week window to continue to work on the assessment. By this he hopes to encourage students to begin re-assessment immediately and build in a habit of doing and receiving feedback and doing again and of course eliminate waiting until the end of the quarter to cram. The next approach is to to withhold grades from students. He thinks many teachers realize that as soon as a grade has been attached to any assignment students have been conditioned to view it as "done" and are not motivated to continue in it.

My Comment: Michael, I am a student in EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama. I can see your frustration through your words! I have to admit though, I was one of those students in high school. Like you said, if a grade was on it, it was pretty much done-zo for me. I didn't feel motivated to finish and I would become complacent with my grade and move on to something else. I think your approaches to this issue are solid. With holding the grades from the student could work! I would like to know how this worked out for you