Jeni's+TiLL+learning

My Journal: Till - Year 10 E-portfolios: How do I improve student writing in a second language with the use of E-Portfolios on the school intranet? Week 1: Students completed goals for their writing. Week 2: Conference set up for students to use to keep their writing portfolios in First Class. They will name their document and write in it every Friday for 20mins. Session went very well, the students worked very quietly for 30mins writing once they had set up their document. They all completed varying amounts of work. The feedback next lesson was very positive, they enjoyed it. Week 3: Students will peer review their written work and highlight any errors in a different colour - all in pink. Teacher will then check and

highlight in a different colour Students peer reviewed, some highlighted errors in different colours others corrected. Discussion afterwards seems to be towards just highlighting in a different colour. Some students are really moving ahead fast, others starting to struggle a little. I need to check their work before the next session, they want me to highlight and make a comment Week 4-5 The students did well in peer reviewing their work. I then went through and highlighted remaining errors and then made a comment re progress, types of errors etc.. The students then spent the first part of the session correcting the errors which I had highlighted before going on to write new material Week 7: Jo Guthrie came to visit and watch the class in action. It was a busy lesson with lots of questions about work which I had highlighted and needed correcting. Jo also had an interesting discussion about whether it was easier on the computer or by hand and the decision seemed to be, on the computer! Another point for comment in their evaluation. The next 2 weeks will be interesting as the students are doing a Writing with Resources as part of their assessment for the topic so it will be a great progress test. The students will also be completing an evaluation for our Datasmart programme as well as completing their own progress sheets as to what level they think they are now working on. It is involving more marking time but hopefully with rewards...

Week 8: we discussed the format for the end of term evaluation as a department as we are completing this writing portfolio as a department Datasmart project. The other staff are using books for the students to com;ete their writing in so the feedback from the different areas will be interesting.

= Year 10 Writing Programme – end of term 2 evaluation = Timing: Yes, once week Length: mixed most whole some part Peer checking: yes mixed/ helps you learn/ helps me see my own errors Teacher: great, especially in different colour and comment. Great showing errors but not correcting them/Teacher more accurate Confidence: yes, more fluent, able to write different things/detail has improved/improved in using more grammar and vocab we have learnt Resources: yes, so can make longer sentences/you learn from this Strengths/Weaknesses: yes Book V Computer: Computer – add and delete/ have to think more/can correct it without making a mess (kinaesthetic learner)/get more done/don’t get so distracted/paper doesn’t get lost and don’t have to hand it in/easier to remember Only one student wanted to do it in her book
 * 1)  Student comment
 * 1)  An improvement: yes definitely, students completed a Writing assessment and there are definite improvements in the amount of vocab and use of grammatical structures, especially accuracy eg capitals for nouns and word order
 * 1)  Teacher observation: It’s working really well, students really enjoy independent learning, great to have individual time with students though makes for a busy lesson. Some concern about lack of teaching time but we can alter programme to suit this. I may look at using this time later in the year to further reading skills, ie use of reading material on line to help other skills, especially for more able students