Evaluation:
Evaluation was the key component of our entire project. We wanted to see if the students understood the concepts we presented to them. If our results were positive, they would indicate that our different presentation methods were successful. We wanted to prove ourselves.
Slip Slide Collide:
This was the easiest subject to grade. The website that we pulled from already had an evaluative websheet that could be used. We had originally planned on completing the entire sheet in a two days, but our optimism quickly changed. This part took about four days to complete, and even then we had trouble getting the students as excited about it as we were. The students’ pace was much slower than we anticipated. We thought we had allotted the students ample time to complete the worksheet in class, but even our mentor teacher, Ms. Forget, mentioned that despite it being assigned homework they would not complete it. She said it was their time and some would choose not to do it. The results were staggering to us as the average grade was considerably lower than we anticipated.
Hot Cocoa:
We created another worksheet to help with the terms that the students needed to learn according to the standards.
Plate Tectonic Worksheet:
This sheet was the foundation of our project. Each group was assigned a plate at the start for the group for the students to research. We had previously thought about doing multiple worksheets to get information about their particular plate but we were not able to do so due to time constraints. The students used their iPads to do the research, and if they did not have one at the time due to forgetting it or not having it charged we had extra laptops available. We had to walk the students through this as some of them had never done a project such as this. The questions were based on state standard regulations and were beneficial to the final exam we created.
Cootie Catcher:
The goal of this was to create a cheat sheet to help differentiate the three types of plate boundaries and provide terms and concepts the students needed to know. The catcher demonstrated divergent boundaries (seafloor spreading, mid oceanic ridges), convergent boundaries (volcanoes and mountains) and transform boundaries (earthquakes).
Final Evaluation:
Our final evaluation was a cumulative "exam" over everything we had taught thus far. We had five stations. Each station was worth a total of twelve points, so the overall grade for the assignment was sixty points.
Ms. Forget: An activity based on creating a song based on the standards of knowing the concepts of Pangea
Ms. Howard: An activity based on performing a skit to convey one of the geological features we had presented to them in class: volcano, mountain, seafloor ridges, earthquakes.
Ms. Powers: She made a diagram of the center of the Earth and students labeled the different layers.
Mr. Quaranta (Me): I had an activity with Play-Doh to show the different plate boundaries and how they interact.
Ms. Wilemon: Jeopardy over terms and concepts the students needed to know.
Video:
The video was san accumulation of everything the students learned, Beforehand, we created a rubric for the students to follow and this was supposed to be a compass for the students to follow. The video was worth 40 points.
Both the video and final evaluation were added together to make a grand total of 100 points, or the equivalent of one regular test in Ms. Forget's class.
Daily Grade:
Each day we assigned a grade. We intended this to be a booster and we awarded five points each day. We had originally thought that giving five points for just doing work was acceptable. Ms. Forget advised that we give three as the start, and then give or take points depending on the quality of work.