Writing a note giving instructions in the classroom

Mobile Assessing ESL students in the subject classroom Assessment is a multi-faceted issue that has been the focus of considerable attention in education over the past decades. Before discussing assessment as it directly pertains to ESL students, it is helpful to offer a brief overview of its major aspects.

Classroom Writing Instruction Why integrating writing into a course? Students deepen their knowledge of course material by writing.

This, in turn, allows us to teach to their needs. Writing gives students practice in participating in the discipline.

Rather than simply testing their acquisition of knowledge, writing provides an opportunity to analyze, challenge and contribute to existing ideas.

Why Traditional Professional Development Falls Flat

Why are my students poor writers? While it may seem that complaints of student error are unique to our times—a product of text-messaging and media-saturation—the complaint is nothing new, nor is the percentage of errors on the rise.

Robert Connors and Andrea Lunsford conducted a study comparing types and frequency of error of contemporary students with studies done from They found that, in fact, the rate of error about two per hundred words remained consistent over time.

What has changed, though, is what constitutes an error, which depends on current standards of language.

General Format

Our students will be better served if we are transparent about what constitutes good writing in our discipline and if we are clear about how to define error.

John Bean offers some observations about error that may also help us to understand it more complexly: Individual teachers tend to notice different errors. If we are looking for particular errors, they are highly visible to us. By building in multiple drafts, students will have the chance to correct these errors and further their thinking.

In the case of the essay exam, not only are students writing under pressure, but they are engaging in a cognitively challenging task. Not only is this time-consuming and frustrating for the instructor, it can be counterproductive.

Instead, try marking one or two patterns of error you see, and provide an explanation of why a rule has been violated. If the issue is a mistake, you might emphasize the need for editing, providing students strategies of how to do so.

Robert Connors and Andrea Lunsford. John Bean, Engaging Ideas: How do I encourage my students to revise? Many of us, our students included, carry around the idea that good writers, real writers, get it right the first time. As instructors, we need to help students understand and remind ourselves, too that good writers spend much more time revising than they do drafting.

Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts.

Assessing ESL students in the subject classroom

You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something—anything—down on paper. A friend of mine says that the first draft is the down draft—you just get it down.

The second draft is the up draft—you fix it up. You try to say what you have to say more accurately. Anne LamottBird by Bird p26 If we want students to move from the down draft to the dental draft, though, we need to support the writing process.

Here are some ways you can do this: Create writing assignments that leave room for students to explore an issue or problem of genuine interest.

If the writing is driven by inquiry—rather than providing a pre-determined answer—they will be more apt to revise.

Make clear to your students that revision is different from editing. Help them understand that revision involves not only tweaking the text, but also re-examining the ideas within the text. You might provide them examples of a text at different stages of the revision process.

Build time into your course to accommodate the writing process. You might set one deadline for first drafts, and then leave time in class for students to share texts and offer feedback to one another in small groups. Leave adequate time between assigning the paper and its deadline for genuine revision to take place.

That said, try not make your comments so extensive that the student feels overwhelmed. Focus your response on one or two central goals for revision, so that the student has an achievable goal. This gives the student language for what she is doing well, so that she can repeat it.A flipped classroom is an instructional strategy and a type of blended learning that reverses the traditional learning environment by delivering instructional content, often online, outside of the classroom.

It moves activities, including those that may have traditionally been considered homework, into the classroom. In a flipped classroom, students watch online lectures, collaborate in online. Students walk through the process of creating technical instructions by analyzing existing instructions, choosing an audience, writing their own instructions, receiving user feedback, and then revising and publishing their instructions.

Online homework and grading tools for instructors and students that reinforce student learning through practice and instant feedback. A note for our teachers: These lessons are posted so that you may borrow ideas from them, but our intention in providing this resource is not to give teachers a word-for-word script to follow.

Please, use this lesson's big ideas but adapt everything else. And adapt it recklessly; that's how one becomes an authentic writing teacher.

Rethinking Classroom Observation - Educational Leadership

Posted on 20 December by Alexandra Lowe Explaining to someone how to do something is a fundamental communicative skill in any language.

Download the instructions for the Cornell Note-Taking System at the Cornell University Study Skills Resources web page under the subheading "Tips for Reading and Learning From Lecture." Judith Dodge, in the article " Noting What I've Learned," offers a tiered graphic organizer based on the Cornell method.

Ralph Fletcher has been a mentor to teachers and young writers everywhere. Ralph's latest Heinemann books continue this tradition. His newest book, Joy Write, shares the whys and the how of giving students time and autonomy for the playful, low-stakes writing that leads to surprising, high-level growth.