3.6 Collaborative learning and student peer reviews by EUN Partnership aisbl

Sonja, Nis, Serbia

ssumonja — 2016-11-07 11:30:10 UTC

Peer assessment is an important feature in the educational process.

Grazia Paladino, Italy

graziampl — 2016-11-07 12:21:52 UTC

As Anna showed, I prefer origanize personally self-assessment activities to ensure objectivity. Digital tools used by Anna's students are all very interesting, easy to use and free. This year for the first time in my two third classes my students will create an e-Portfolio with Taack just as Anna showed in her video. These digital products will be presented during oral multidisciplinary discussion of final exam.

Dalia, Lithuania

baltijadm — 2016-11-07 12:26:04 UTC

Thank you, Anna, it was very helpful because assessment of collaborative learning and teaching is the biggest challenge. While assessing group work, I always involve students themselves to do self assessment and peer assessment according to criteria discussed before. Still much to learn.

Evaggelia Sariggoli,Greece

evaggeliasariggoli — 2016-11-07 13:56:34 UTC

Anna you are a stunning teacher !!!!Thank you for all the ideas and positive creative aura !!!!!!!!

Nikos, Greece

ntsepelis1 — 2016-11-07 13:58:51 UTC

I strongly support this Anna's "technique". Besides, it is the one I use in my classroom.
Edmodo and Google Docs are two of my favourites.
Edmodo is also pupil's favorite since it looks like an educational facebook.
Google Docs, on the other hand, is one of the most helpfull tools in colab learning.

Maria Daniela Roberto

2016-11-07 14:50:11 UTC

When I divide the class into teams, collaborative learning, I try tocreate too heterogeneous groups for learning, buthomogeneous among them. Digital tools referred to Anna, areeffective to promote collaborative learning and peer study. Usemany times on padlet as a record to develop an initialbrainstorming and let then the sequel to my pupils, through theworking groups.

A. Leen

annetteleen — 2016-11-07 15:36:43 UTC

I use Edmodo all the time. It is very useful and the students love it. Google forms is also useful. I don't use padlet in classes as unless we are in the IT room the students do not have access to devices. I like the idea of the random name picking tool as it would encourage more constructive feedback because students may not know their partners so well. It is important to give student feedback languagestructures to frame positive and not so positive feedback

Stella Maris Berdaxagar from Argentina

2016-11-07 15:49:47 UTC

Group management for on-task activities and peer review depends on how much a teacher knows about his/ her students.
I usually allow my students to decide who to work with unless I find there is something in their performances and dynamics that is not working well. For peer review, I try to let them all participate. It is easy for me because they are small groups. I do not think objectivity can be attained but a reasonably fair assessment of peer performances that contributes to self assessment. .Useful and constructive feedback is key to foster metacognition ,communication and social skills beyond classroom walls. I use Edmodo all the time ; it is my extended community of practice, Google & Office apps as well as other collaborative platforms depending on the goals, the characteristics of the learning activity and the results I want to get. I love OneNote notebooks, HyperDocs, Versal , Emaze , Glogster, , Prezi , among others.

Tamar Chalakheshashvili Georgia

tamarigia — 2016-11-07 15:59:21 UTC

Working on the project at the time the student has the opportunity to choose, how to work, what forms, whether the head of the group. I use google's tools, conducting a survey, padlets.

Anna La Montagna, Italy

monte6915 — 2016-11-07 16:15:25 UTC

Great video full of interesting ideas. Even the questions asked at the end of the video are relevant and effective. 
In my almost twenty years of teaching experience both pupils and their parents want to know more what is the assessment of their summative occurs in numerical terms rather than understanding the mistakes committed or pay attention to the task that is requested. 
 I often do not put the votes to a test and the first question that students ask me is "how much I took?." 
I think we need to pass the idea that an informed and collaborative learning will be long-lasting. 
As for the tools I use the virtual classroom of Zanichelli, padlet, tackk, pixiclip, tondoo, ...

Manoilă Maria, Romania

2016-11-07 16:20:14 UTC

Yes I agree with the approaches proposed by Anna.

Amélie Silvert

silverteacher — 2016-11-07 16:26:04 UTC

Higher achieving students find it sometimes hard to adjust to collaborative working since they feel their ideas might be stolen and that the weaker students might cheat on them. As for the random name picker I also like to let students believe that their names was picked randomly and that I couldn't be blamed for it. Especially when their names came back twice. As for the tools, I love to use padlet enabling the moderating mode. That way, students are not influenced in one way or another especially when it comes to writing. I no longer use Edmodo, I prefer using challengeu. I use Google forms for online assessments.

Nils, Germany

2016-11-07 16:26:25 UTC

Anna's ideas are very inspiring and I'd like to leave my students some freedom. Unfortunately that would lead to lots of discussions with my colleagues.
I haven't tried the tools mentioned for assessment though I came across some of them in online courses. Our school is not that well equipped and I don't have regular access to computers. Our stundets are not allowed to use their mobiles...

Ana Chambel, Portugal

aachambel — 2016-11-07 16:51:37 UTC

When I create working groups I do not usually let students freely choose their peers and the same happens when it is done peer assessment, because I prefer to make sure that the groups are heterogeneous enough so that everyone can contribute with their skills and that the evaluation is not made by affinity.

As for the digital tools that are referred to, I only know the Padlet and Google forms however I not particularly like the Padlet graphic design and I usualy prefer Google forms.

Rosa/ Italy

rosadilonardo — 2016-11-07 17:17:34 UTC

Anna's experience of assessing collaborative learning is very interesting and I'd like to leave my students some freedom.

Helen, Belgium

2016-11-07 17:21:27 UTC

I like the idea of assigning pairs for peer review. Students, especially when younger, will automatically choose to work with a friend and are often not very objective. Giving clear criteria and questions to guide the peer review will help. I would love to have more access to ICT tools and a shared online platform to do more activities like this but it is not the case in my school. I have used Kahoot before and might try to do more with this tool again.

Maria Chiara, Italy

mcricci — 2016-11-07 17:43:40 UTC

Thank you Anna for your contribution, which was clear and inspiring. I agree on the fact that summative assessment may be really tough for the teacher especially when the students' marks don't correspond to the effort shown... but we should change our school system of assessment. I also feel frustrated when I'd like to implement digital tools and lots of students still don't have the Internet at home or at school the connection isn't working. Digital tools require good skills that are developed through constant practice...
At the moment I'm trying to do my best with the poor means at my disposal.... I tried Edmodo and sharing materials with our register, what' up.

iliyana, Bulgaria

2016-11-07 18:45:51 UTC

When I set up students groups to work on a project-based activity, I let students choose classmates they can rely on in their group work.

Adina Marcu,Romania

adinamarcu9 — 2016-11-07 19:13:58 UTC

Very inspiring idea.I would like to leave my students some freedom.

Serena Visai, Italy

2016-11-07 19:21:59 UTC

Anna’s work is amazing and really student centred. She is really a great coach! Being Italian as she is I share the remarks on our system which focusses too much on assessing a product or a performance and not the process to it. As for the digital tool I use Edmodo to collect student works, but I would like to use more of them to boost students’ craetivity and create more meaningful activites.

drazena_potocki — 2016-11-07 20:36:57 UTC

great video

Valeria Manfreda, Italy

valy74manfry — 2016-11-07 20:46:42 UTC

I appreciate Edmodo, it is very useful to get in touch with your student in an educational environment and for the pupils to get in touch each other. I use Padlets, too. I appreciate the idea of freedom of choosing. Anna' way of working is amazing

Gülhanım,Turkey

gul_ektem — 2016-11-07 21:00:03 UTC

Mostly I use padlet. Students can share their picture, ideas, etc. easly.

Sarah Mallia, Malta

sarahborg85 — 2016-11-07 21:15:00 UTC

I tend to group the students myself however my students are only 8 years old. My idea is to mix different abilities and skills however I also tend to change groups every term so that students learn how to work with different students and take up different roles. I also use most of the web2 tools mentioned in this clip such as padlet and edmodo however i also use others such as oxford owl, tellegami and spelling city.

Despoina Amarantidou, Greece

damarant — 2016-11-07 21:27:58 UTC

I usually work Edmodo, Padlet Walls and Google docs when I want to make my students present collaborative work.

Massimo, Italy

massimo_pescato — 2016-11-07 21:28:46 UTC

I like very much Anna's activities, they are a very balanced mix of individual activities and group activities.

Carmen Carella, Marche, Italy

carmencarella — 2016-11-07 21:28:49 UTC

I think Anna’s managing of groups regarding the setting up and the peer assessment can be 2 valid solutions because, as she said, the first option offers students more freedom to decide who to work with and be more engaged, while the second option offers the teachers the possibility to get a more accurate and objective review of peers.
The many tools Anna uses show us that is possible to engage our students more by giving them the chance of using something they were born with and that they easily understand and use: technology. We also use Google Classroom in our school, where I usually embed Padlet pages for funny activities or Blendspace pages for researches or links to online exercise for further grammar practice or Power Point presentations to make them revise grammar or cross-curricular contents, or Mind maps.

Mariangela Bielli, Italy

mariangela_biel — 2016-11-07 21:38:14 UTC

I agree with Anna on leaving students free to decide who they would like to work with and I usually do the same as much as possible. I mainly use Padlet and Google form for collaboration and I am trying Edmodo.

The question Anna poses about assessing for learning instead of assessing of learning in connection with parents and students’ expectation is one of the most challenging and hard to solve

Emiliana Rufo, Italy

emiliana_rufo — 2016-11-07 21:47:40 UTC

I think when working with 10-13 year-old students it's better to create heterogeneous collaborative groups because they are balanced and students with different abilities have the opportunity to find help in the other members of the group.
I use tools to support my teaching everyday and I designed Situated Learning tasks with final products created by students. I think a conscious use of technology can enhance learning and teaching and increase students interests.

Roberta Minì

robertamini — 2016-11-07 22:31:18 UTC

I totally agree with what Anna said in the video:
"Personally, I have often felt miserable when I must assess my students' job, especially when they have put so much of themselves in their work and still it is insufficient! I think that once you start working as a guide and a facilitator, you soon come to realise that our current system is not yet suitable for that: you cannot be coach and referee at the same time. If you are a coach, you obviously feel like part of a team!"

Not only for collaborative learning, assessment in general has always been a crucial point and it will always be. It depends on the contest, on the sudents, on the family, on the territory, on too many parameters and only if you have an ideal class, assessment might be 'easier'.

Since I've started teaching I've often worked with difficult classes, that's why the assessment becomes a very hard issue to face. What I've always done is to evaluate the way each of my students improves his/her learning, no marks will ever have the same weight for every teacher, for every students, in different countries.

Angelo, Rivoli, Italy

Angelo — 2016-11-07 22:31:43 UTC

I think that the wealth of ideas and creativity by Anna in planning the activities of their students are admirable.
I also came to the conclusion that Google forms is the best solution to implement the peer assessment process in an effective and pervasive way. In this ICT are an indispensable tool.
I very much agree that the collaborative skills can not be taken for granted, and that we should think about a gradual training of social skills that, in fact, should begin in the kindergarten.
The Cooperative Learning arrived in Italy 20 years ago thanks to books by Mario Comoglio, but still is not an educational setting ubiquitous, especially in high school.
About evaluation, I have to say that in fact it is often embarrassing. I try to overcome this embarrassing reasoning and arguing with the boys the votes on the basis of the criteria indicated in the rubrics, accepting accepting objections and seeking a reasonable compromise between the students' and my opinion. In this way, I have to say that the moment of summative assessment becomes a highly formative moment, that there would not be if there was not the need to mark a vote on the register.

Carla Diogo, Portugal

2016-11-07 22:58:45 UTC

Fantastic testimony and thank you for sharing so many good ideas!! All Anna's approach seem quite reasonable to me and I wouldn't mind testing them. I know I will. It's interesting to check the importance that she gives to peer assessment as a way of helping us to assess better. I share her doubts but I also have a question - how do you work this way and how do you assess students that will be evaluated by a national exam?

Angelamaria Galderisi, Italy

soleemare_a — 2016-11-07 23:10:29 UTC

I think it’s a good idea to leave students free to decide who to work with because this facilitate collaboration and cooperation. Peer assessment is a different matter: it’s much more objective to use a random criteria of choice, thus avoiding conditioning and encouraging impartiality.
I have a bit experience with Padlet and Google Forms and I’m working to implement their practice in my classrooms.

Fátima, PortugaWhen a student team is working, they can present proposals, video presentations, posters, power points, prezzi presentations or even some kind of conference discussions. Through this kind of activities it is possible to make a clearer, more just and assertive assessment of the work done, either by the teacher or by the peers. Through the different opinions, the evaluation gains a different purpose: it becomes constructive rather than negative. Weaknesses can turn into strengths and students will understand easier that assessment is just one step more in the collaborative work process. Incorporate peer and self-assessment at various milestones. This is a good way to check in on the assignment progress as well as the group dynamics.

fffcaeiro — 2016-11-07 23:17:34 UTC

Natalija

2016-11-07 23:23:20 UTC

I think when working with 11-14 year-old students it's better to create heterogeneous collaborative groups because students with different abilities have the opportunity to find help in the other members of the group.
I use Moodle, Padlet, Lonoit... to support my teaching everyday and I designed Situated Learning tasks with final products created by students.
I think a conscious use of technology can enhance learning and teaching and increase students interests.

Francesca,Italy

francescagiala — 2016-11-07 23:36:46 UTC

I prefer heterogeneous groups because students with varied learning levels, working together and helping each other, can find the best way to reach goals.

Through ICT, teachers are able to create interactive classes and make the lessons more enjoyable, which could improve student attendance and concentration.

I usually use Padlets and Google Forms . I didn’t know the others

Alessandro, Italy

maralex100 — 2016-11-08 00:45:22 UTC

I'm not sure about the best solution about setting groups, that's could be ok!! The random method for reviewing is very good! I love digital tools, I have used at school only Socrative and I'm starting with Edmodo (but slowly).

Elisabetta, SA

anicia1 — 2016-11-08 08:03:07 UTC

I love Anna's videos :-) Coming to school today I was actually thinking that maybe peer assessment is the key, but I haven't tried myself so i can't really say whether it works. I think changing the mindset of students and parents towards the assessing process is fundamental, but unfortunately I don't have an answer on how to do this. I think that if the school and the colleagues do not decide that this is the way to go, it is very difficult to make it effective. In my experience, it can be used with senior students if you start to introduce this approach to assessing and marks from lower grades.

IvanaN, Croatia

nenadic_ivana007 — 2016-11-08 09:40:47 UTC

I agree that students should be allowed to choose who do they work with because they are more relaxed and open to ask questions. I also like the fact that she picks students for peer assessment. I am familiar with all these tools. Unfortunately, I can not use them in class as I do not have internet connection.

Anita M.Italy

2016-11-08 09:44:36 UTC

I think that in a project students could have the possibility to change their groups following their personal criteria .In a project they have a time available for long worksessions thatthey can manage .So , the right fair could be that teacher chooses for some activities and for others could students choose by themselves the members of their groups.For the assessment can be the same .I agree that freedom to choose can encourage them certenly in the relationship and social interaction.I'm not sure about the results .If we think about final result , sometimes spontaneous groups couldn't help in the assessment.But it's good for the social/interactive assessment we evaluate.I agree when students build together their modality of assessment using what thay like , especially digital tools .For that I haven't much experience.

Cristina Paliotes, Portugal

2016-11-08 10:25:47 UTC

I also like in my classes to promote debates and I also encourage student interaction, as well as sharing and brainstorming.
By creating workgroups, I do not let students choose their peers freely. The same thing happens when peer evaluation is done, I prefer to make sure that the groups are heterogeneous enough that everyone can contribute their skills and that the evaluation is not by affinity.

As for the digital tools that are referred to only know Padlet and Google forms however I do not particularly like Padlet's graphic design.

Arnaud Perrier, France

2016-11-08 10:33:27 UTC

Anna's approach is quite interesting. Students feel confident when they are with people with whom they want to work. The method used for the assessment in random form is also a good idea. However, the first point may show limits. What to do with students who remain alone, either because they have no friends or either because they struggle to integrate? Who says that the work is shared fairly and that it is not always the same person working? These are perhaps exaggerated questions but that need to be asked. On my side, I like to use Socrative and Kahoot as digital tools.

Jasna Šojer/Croatia

jasna_sojer — 2016-11-08 11:55:23 UTC

I prefer idea of random name picking, because it alowws students to work with the those whom they know less and get them know better. It is also good to let them sometimes work with the partners they choose but not all the time. I am also wondering how students who do not work in the same group can validate peer work. I like and tried all mentioned tools.

Lidia, Romania

2016-11-08 13:47:27 UTC

Learning through collaboration within the group is an interactive method, but how can you know that students work all equally, because the tasks are different depending on the level and abilities of each student, the complexity of the tasks?
How could manage a national exam where they work independently and not by collaboration.

Valerica-Romania

dvaly2010 — 2016-11-08 13:54:48 UTC

I use different ways of making groups as I agree the idea of collaborating, working, with everyone in the classroom. I have not used examples of digital tools of random name picking given in the video, because I did not know about them, but I will do it in future. My students love Kahoot. I also used Google forms and Prezi. For my students who are little, I think Padlet is wonderful for the moment.

Maria and Anna, Italy

mariadecarlo — 2016-11-08 15:55:19 UTC

Dear Anna, you're a wonderful teacher. We fully agree on the importance of a renewal of teaching and assessment which aims an educational learning and an formative assessment.
Our biggest difficulty is to haven't the digital tools in the classroom....so our work with students is very very limited!

Anna and Maria, Italy

annagrignetti — 2016-11-08 15:55:26 UTC

Dear Anna you're a wonderful teacher.
We fully agree on the importance of renewing of teaching and assessing which aims an educational learning and a formative assessment. Our biggest difficulty is to haven't digital tools in the classroom...so our work with students is very very limited!

Ana Cristina Ginja, Portugal

2016-11-08 16:00:44 UTC

I think that collaborative learning is consistent with formative assessment ... We are building and building knowledge in a collective way.
I believe that summative assessment does not address the effort and course taken by each student ... for even though there is a poor summative assessment, the student may have come a long way in terms of acquiring knowledge and expended a great deal of effort in assignment. Using self-assessment and hetero-evaluation may facilitate this task. Also the use of digital tools like Edmodo, Scrumy, Tackks, Padlets, Google Forms.
In my pedagogical practice I have not yet used any of these digital tools, however the observation of moments in the course of the activity allows me to note the commitment and effort of each student or each group and in the end to reflect together on what we learn and what We need to learn ...

(Sorry for the translation ...in all modules of the course. I do not speak English)

Elisabete Carvalho, Paula Cavadas, Paula Usha, Olga Seabra_Portugal

elisabete — 2016-11-08 17:29:20 UTC

We agree that peer review has many advantages such as the focus on developing the student's judgment skills it also is a fundamental process in the construction of learning and leading to greater autonomy of the students. However, it also has some disadvantages in the accuracy of the process as the friendship between the students can influence the assessment.

The solution based on random choice presented by Anna is quite interesting. The proposed tools for the process (http://www.classtools.net/random-name-picker/64_42Jcc2; http://www.miniwebtool.com/random-name-picker/) appear to be very stimulating and appealing throughout the process, although we have not yet used them for the same purpose.

Finally, we share the same doubts raised by Anna at the end of her presentation. “Students as well as their parents usually take summative assessment more seriously than formative assessment.

How can we teachers persuade students that assessingforlearning can be more relevant than assessment of learning?

How can we plan assessment for learning as an ongoing process without stopping the spontaneous flowing of ideas and creativity while students are collaborating?” (Anna)

Elisabete Carvalho, Paula Cavadas, Paula Usha, Olga Seabra_Portugal

olga_seabra — 2016-11-08 17:31:59 UTC

Finally, we share the same doubts raised by Anna at the end of her presentation. “Students as well as their parents usually take summative assessment more seriously than formative assessment.

How can we teachers persuade students that assessingforlearning can be more relevant than assessment of learning?

How can we plan assessment for learning as an ongoing process without stopping the spontaneous flowing of ideas and creativity while students are collaborating?” (Anna)

Maria Teresa /Italy

teresarughi — 2016-11-08 18:36:21 UTC

I think that in this video Anna has given a relevant contribution both with her awsome examples of group worKs and with her reflections. For older students it is a good idea to let them free to decide who they want to work with, provided the group involves students with different skill levels and abilities.I agree on the idea that technology helps smashing down all barriers and fears and I have been using most of the tools she mentions.(Socrative, Kahoot, Quizlet, Padlet and Google Forms) and I generally revise students' work on Edmodo. The suggestion I have found very interesting is the use of a digital portfolio for projects that encourages self-efficacy and metacognitive reflection. I also agree with her comment on the fact that our system is not suitable for teachers, in the role of guide and facilitator. "A coach is a part of the team". The frequent use of peer assessment as solution is a good suggestion.The biggest challenge she mentions" persude students that they should not identify with their marks" and " that assessment FOR learning is more important than assessment OF learning are a reality in my experience too.

Gisella de Liddo, Italy

2016-11-08 19:08:45 UTC

I agree with Anna that when students are free to choose the modalities of their work the results are quite encouraging! The random picking of the pair members for the peer assessment can ensure a more neutral and objective work of assessment. I have used but am still learning to use some tools Anna mentions, such as Tackk, Padlet, Edmodo. The other tools will be shortly tried and experimented upon.

As for Anna's questions, I think that students and their families will be convinced of the goodness of this new type of work and assessment the more we will use it.

The second question, how can we plan assessment for learning as an ongoing process without stopping creativity, has the same answer. The solutions will be found the more often we use these tools and the more familiar the students will be with them.

Viviana, Italy

vivianasavino75 — 2016-11-08 19:30:58 UTC

In primary school, it's not very suitable to leave pupils free to decide who they would like to work with. In order to implement and assess collaborative work, i think that digital tools can be helpful, but nothing compares to teacher's observation.

Iolanda Moya

2016-11-08 19:36:33 UTC

I'm working in a primary school and in my case is not really good idea to let them choose their partners. I prefer to make groups or peers myself because I need to be sure they will be able to work.

Mina/Italy

ponzianomina — 2016-11-08 19:37:59 UTC

Anna is a brilliant teacher and I agree with her different approaches.
Anyway, I'd like to highlight her precious words ".....As a teacher, the biggest challenge in collaborative learning lies in summative assessment. Many of us will agree that marking is the worst task in our job! It's tough at times to persuade kids that they should not identify with "the mark" and feel frustrated. A mark may gauge the level of an individual performance, for sure not a human being as a whole! Personally, I have often felt miserable when I must assess my students' job, especially when they have put so much of themselves in their work and still it is insufficient! I think that once you start working as a guide and a facilitator, you soon come to realise that our current system is not yet suitable for that: you cannot be coach and referee at the same time. If you are a coach, you obviously feel like part of a team! "

Marina, Croatia

2016-11-08 21:13:31 UTC

I like to randomly divide students into groups. I have used Edmodo and Padlet and I find them useful.

Salomé, Portugal

2016-11-08 21:18:26 UTC

As for the digital tools that are referred to, I only know the Padlet and Google forms however I not particularly like the Padlet graphic design and I usualy prefer Google forms.

Filipe Mira, Portugal

filipe_mira — 2016-11-08 22:25:57 UTC

When I work in a group, I usually create the work groups because I know that they are heterogeneous. I have never used the peer review or the tools described in the video so I have no experience in this field.

Ana, Portugal

anasalonso — 2016-11-08 23:11:11 UTC

I agree that when setting up student groups to work in a project often lets students free to decide who they want to work with. They can form their team. From my vision, the approaches showed in the video are suitable for daily situations. Variety of digital tools are helpful in implementing and assessing collaborative work.

Helly, Vinna

h_swaton — 2016-11-09 06:12:41 UTC

I made good experience in making a student who was high gifted but not motivated to practice responsible for another student who had a lot of problems and a high risk to fail the test. I told him: “You don´t have to practice any more- but work with your colleague and make sure he will pass the test.” And he took this challenge very serious. He worked with his colleague not only at school but also in his leisure time. And he was as happy as his colleague when everything went well.

Marilena, Greece

becsa1 — 2016-11-09 06:21:06 UTC

Well, I usually put the students in groups, so I know there are 1-2 strong students in each team, but the other approach could work as well in some cases. Especially if there are many collaborative activities planned for the school year, it would be appropriate to change things up and try different approaches. The random picking of names for peer reviewing is great and I agree, that it helps ensure objectivity. Digital tools are very helpful for communication between the students, self-assessment and peer reviewing, however in my school it would be very difficult to be applied, we are a little behind technology-wise.

I really liked the question Anna asked in the end: “how can we teachers persuade students, that assessment for learning can be more relevant to them than assessment of learning?” I think that requires a new kind of mentality, than would come hand in hand with negotiation and change in school policy at a higher level.

Galina, Bulgaria

2016-11-09 06:55:02 UTC

Most of the time I use Padlet with my students. recently I have found a tool I am very fond of - have a look at it.

Mirjana Jovanovic, Serbia

mirjana_jovanovic_ns — 2016-11-09 07:08:32 UTC

I use Edmodo platform for communication and discussion and lino for gathering students impressions and opinions. I agree with Anna that both students and their parents are so used to summative assessment, that it is very difficult to change their point of view. Furthermore, the biggest challenge for teacher is how to assess students who put so much effort in their work and yet, the product is not sufficient. That is the reason for spreading our focus equally over both aspects of collaborative learning - process and product.

Ester Degennaro-Italy

esterdegennaro — 2016-11-09 09:49:01 UTC

It's essential that students can use choose the tools they prefer to express creatively. All the tools Anna Laghigna mentions such as Edmodo, Tackks, Adobe spark, Padlets and Prezi are familiar to my students .Before they watch video tutorials that help them to choose better. It implies that teacher keeps her/his professional skills up to date.

Hülya, TURKEY

hulyaos31 — 2016-11-09 10:15:07 UTC

I agree with Anna, it is better to pair classmates who don't know each other well or to use a random name picker tool which automatically teams them up. However, it can be used in younger students. Working together and learning collaboratively ensures the students’ involvement through the activities. Also it is useful to use digital tool to assess their activities. I am using Google Forms while preparing my rubrics. To prepare activities , I am also using Adobe spark Tackk and Padlet. I liked Anna’s idea :to ask students to write a comment on other classmates’ activities.

Isabella Santoro, Italy

2016-11-09 10:17:31 UTC

I agree with Anna and I like also to divide ramdomly students into groups. The students are free to choose their prefered tools,
to decide who to work with and be more engaged.

Ana Franco, Barcelos, Portugal

ana_lufranco — 2016-11-09 10:21:29 UTC

I also usually let my students freely choose their peers, although lately, I have felt the need to teach students to work with any kind of person, of any gender, color, race or intellectual ability, so is the market of job.
As for the tools presented by Anna are excellent. I use the classroom, email and google forms essentially. Providing constant feedback to our students is a great way to encourage them and they realize that the teacher is also committed to improving them.
Thank you Anna for the excellent sharing.

Paula Gomes, Portugal

2016-11-09 11:06:28 UTC

As for the digital tools that are referred to, I only use the Tackk.

Jesus Leão, Portugal

2016-11-09 11:20:31 UTC

According to the age group of the students I work with, by forming groups to work on a project, I usually do not let the students decide who they would like to work with, as there are always children who are never chosen to join groups. However, once I set up the groups, I let the students define the role of each team member.

I agree with Anna's decision when she chooses to use a random-choice tool because she believes this helps to ensure objectivity and encourages constructive and useful feedback among peers.

From the digital tools that Anna refers to, because she considers them useful in the implementation and evaluation of the collaborative work, I know some (Tackk, Padlet, Socrative, Prezi, Goggle forms) and use them in my personal work. After accessing and analyzing the ones I did not know, they seemed interesting. However, I do not usually use them with students, but it is my intention to try them!

Vasso Lalakidou, Greece

lalakidou — 2016-11-09 11:28:21 UTC

I have used Edmodo and padlet with my students last year. The Edmodo environment, which is similar to Facebook thus the motivation for the students' participation, gave the opportunity for collaboration between students and effective discussions upon the assessments. Undeniably, the experience of all participants was remarkable.

Elvia/Italy

2016-11-09 13:43:56 UTC

I use working groups in different ways: when they work in pair, they work with the classmate seated close to her/him; when they develop a project, I form the groups , but they can choose their own roles; when they propose an object, they can arrange their groups alone.
I have been using Edmodo for three years now and I think it is still the better resource for e-learning. I also use kahoot, which helps focusing on an item and powtoon to introducing a new subject.

Cinzia F., Italy

nicomd — 2016-11-09 15:51:30 UTC

I usually leave my student to decide who they would like to work with, I give them suggestions on how to form a group saying for example that they have to include in the group at least an ITC expert and an English language expert for the work to be done. My students often work in pairs and we often change the classroom arrangement so the pair changes as well and they have the opportunity to work with all their classmates.As for assessment I'm trying to learn from this course how to encourage peer assessment that I think is very important but not easy to do especially with younger students.

Donato /Italy

donato_martano — 2016-11-09 16:05:02 UTC

I generally assemble groups myself, trying to balance them so that each has the sam level of competence, enthusiasm, participation, points of strength and weakness. Not so easy and doesn't always work, but makes you know your students.

Maria, Italia

mariagranatiero — 2016-11-09 16:39:25 UTC

most of the works are for group work. Of course, it is very difficult to organize the environment but the guys once again geared to this approach makes the work enjoyable

Costas Moschonas

2016-11-09 17:48:53 UTC

I agree with Anna becuse random picking can ensure an objective way to access. I have use many of digital tools but in different ways and this kind of use that it has been proposed by anna was very useful.

Gina, Italy

ginapalumbo — 2016-11-09 17:55:30 UTC

I agree with this approches and I use the same tools too.

Camelia, Romania

2016-11-09 18:07:11 UTC

I often use random name picking tool. I often leave my students to free to chose team members but I say that groups must be heterogeneous. When working in pairs, we do not need to change the classroom arrangement. I only use Google Forms.

Kateryna Kramnychna, Ukraine

rocksy_12 — 2016-11-09 18:14:07 UTC

I've never heard about Edmodo, Quizalize, Scrummy. I think such tools are very useful for the learning process. Thank you! And I totally agree assessment should be FOR learning, but not "of" learning.

Paulo Martins_Portugal

2016-11-09 18:30:32 UTC

I agree with Anna’s approaches if you are dealing with students groups with higher ages, in my case (primary school 6/7 years old) I decide the groups formation taking into acount several aspects: responsibility, maturity, work rhythm…

About the digital tools, I have no experience with them when implementing and assessing collaborative work. I have to analyse them and see if they are helpful for my teaching level.

DEBORA

debora_defina — 2016-11-09 19:20:32 UTC

The sentence: "Assessment for not only of learning" is really true. Students must understand that an assessment isn't only for successes at school but also in their life out of school.

Marianthi Arvanitidou- Greece

1canislupus22 — 2016-11-09 19:47:27 UTC

Arlindo Pereira, Portugal

2016-11-09 21:14:56 UTC

In first place I liked very much the video. I agree with these different aproaches, for the same reasons that are mentioned. About the digital tools which are helpful in implementing and assessing collaborative work, I only know and use the Padlet. I hope to be able to learn more tools and have the opportunity to apply them.

Giuseppe/Italy

profgcorsaro — 2016-11-09 22:00:21 UTC

I agree. I have personally experienced peer. I think it is very positive for the students. I also experimented with other teachers / students in courses like this.
Thanks for the idea of using Google Forms to allow students to measurement.

Tatjana Lipovac, Serbia

lipovact — 2016-11-10 07:01:36 UTC

I really like Random name picker tool!

Cinzia Centrone

centrone_cinzia — 2016-11-10 08:13:43 UTC

I like very much Anna Lagnigna's activity. I agree with her: in peer assessment it is to prefer to use a random name picking tool. In order to the tools to use in collaborative learning I find those mentioned in the video very interesting. At he moment I konw and use only padlet but i hope to implement my konwledge about other digital tools because I' m sure: they are an helpful support to improve collaborative learning.

Sue AUS

suzanne_durick — 2016-11-10 11:19:37 UTC

I at times choose the groups (allows students to work with those whom they may not have mixed with before - an attempt to extend social learning circles). I like using a variety of collaborative tools and think that randomised peer marking is useful. It can work only if the assessment is set up in a way that the 'evaluating student' is able to assess the group with no negative impact caused by them not being within the group and experiencing the group dynamic first hand.

Ana Pinheiro, Portugal

air_pinheiro — 2016-11-10 12:21:02 UTC

Some of the practices described have also been used in my classes. I often ask students to work in groups, for example in solving biology exercises, so they can exchange ideas, knowledge, opinions ... I always want them to work and learn collaboratively.I verify that this type of methodology, works very well with some students who adapt well. But others take time to feel comfortable.However, the tool I used that worked very well was Padlet, where the students were simultaneously giving their opinions and commenting on the opinions of their colleagues.

Marta, Portugal

istruka — 2016-11-10 13:40:33 UTC

I've done some peer assessment in a different context and I did it in the same way, i.e. I randomly delivered the written work to peers for assessment. This way there is not the chance of partiality in the assessment.As for the digital tools, I'm afraid I've only started using them so I don't have much experience.

Alessandro Ruffino / Italy

2016-11-10 14:30:04 UTC

I agree with her because I use these web tools to assess , to have their feedback and with these tools they can see the peer's work and express their assessing leaving a comment about it. In this way, they feel more free to assess their peers

Agata Kuźmiek - Poland

2016-11-10 14:48:59 UTC

I agree with that to use these online tools to assess. In this way, we can very accurately and easily assess students.

Carlos Silva, Portugal

2016-11-10 15:48:08 UTC

Peer assessment is a good way to make the assessment in group. Sometimes they give not constructive feedback among them but it’s because they are not really used to make it and because they are not worried about the possible frustration of the other colleagues. I already know some of these digital tools, they are really good and important, but I need to work more with them to feel more comfortable.

Josip, Croatia

2016-11-10 15:49:43 UTC

I use Google apps for peer assessment. For me feedback is very important. It's very important to develop that kind of skills

Ioannis Velonakis, Greece

ivelonak — 2016-11-10 16:01:23 UTC

I agree with the use of the random name picking tool during the process of peer assessment because it makes the whole process pore objective for the children. On the other hand, groups should include not only the children they want to work together but also children with different characters and abilities. Also, group membership and roles within a group should change occasionally. Of course, this way is more difficult to be handled but it helps children to grow better their collaborative skills.Also, the tools that Anna has mentioned are very useful for exchanging ideas within a group. I have widely used Google Forms, Docs and Hangouts in my classroom, which my students find useful and amazing. I also know a few things about padlet and Edmondo (a kind of educational social network), mainly from seminars like this one.

Sara Gamito, Portugal

sgamito — 2016-11-10 16:39:51 UTC

Teresa Pires, Portugal

2016-11-10 16:40:33 UTC

Na organização dos grupos de trabalho, não permito aos alunos escolherem os seus parceiros, assim como na tarefa de a avaliação de pares. Para mim, é muito importante que os grupos sejam heterogéneos de modo a que todos possam contribuir com as suas aptidões e capacidades.
Das ferramentas digitais referidas, conheço o Padlet e os formulários Google no entanto não gosto particularmente do design gráfico do Padlet preferindo os formulários Google.

Heidi, Germany

2016-11-10 17:16:55 UTC

I agree with Anna when she leaves students free to decide who to work with, but sometimes I create mixed groups of students with the teamup tool because I like to have weaker students work with advanced ones. I work with teamup and edmodo, also with google forms for surveys. They are really helpful.

emma giurlani Italy

2016-11-10 18:16:03 UTC

thank you Anna for your contribution! I found so many affinities between what you have been talking about and what I have been experiencing with my classes. It's true,

students generally enjoy working together and learn collaboratively.Weaker students benefit from the help of more competent ones. This way mistakes can be experienced as a starting point towards improvement and this reduces sense of failure while increasing on the other end self esteem. Making students responsible for their choices and leaving them free to decide what to perform , how to do it, with whom and with which roles, and taking decisions about time lining and deadlines for presenting their final products increases self esteem and motivation , strengthening at the same time students learning approach . I totally agree with the purpose of encouraging self-improvement through reflection on other people's work and the exchange of constructive feedback among peers. I didn’t know the random name picker tool and I find using it a very good idea.

I found that many things you use to do with your students are very close to the methods we use for our eTwinning projects. As you mentioned in the video we also use to ask our students to comment and reflect upon what they have been realizing during the project and how they have been working .They normally use a metacognitive logbooks where they follow some driving questions:

how did we work?, which tool did we use? What didn’t work well? Why?

What did work particularly well? Why?, what could be done better? How? What did we learn from this activity? What could be reused in other situations ? which tools can be used also in new situations? Here the link to one example of our logbooks

https://issuu.com/atavolaaa/docs/unsere_logb__cher_i_nostri_diari_di_423859b210518a/7?e=18127406/13742451

We also encourage the use of rubrics for peer assessment and group assessment during the various steps of our eTwinning projects using smartphones and tablets according to the BYOD solution. We also use the BYOD method of working to let students produce their final products letting them free to choose which tool they find more suitable to create their final presentation.

I completely agree with you when you say that assessing for learning can be more relevant than assessment of learning and that we must find the right way to convince our students of the crucial importance of this form of assessment .

an other very useful suggestion of this video https://www.scrumy.com/

Mimma, Italy

mimma_gioia — 2016-11-10 18:32:50 UTC

I have always evalueted the way each student improves his learning. I haven't tried the tools mentioned for assessment though I came across some of them in online courses but I appreciate Edmodo. It enables to get in touch with your students in an educational envioment. I think that Anna's work is really student centred.

João Reigado, Portugal

2016-11-10 18:38:11 UTC

I really loved this contribution from Anna. From my experience, when I don’t know the students very well or when they don’t have good collaborative skills, it is preferable to be the teacher to propose the formation of the groups. On the other hand, I encourage students to set up their own learning groups when I have a long relationship with them that allows me to trust their options. However, I think the assessment items should weight differently depending on the group constituents. I agree with random name picking for peer assessment. The digital tool I’m using (also mentioned in 3.5) has a “Student Callout” feature that I use to easily select a random student out of my class. I use this feature with both student’s self- and peer-assessment.

Heidi Belgium

heidi_schrijvers — 2016-11-10 18:43:53 UTC

I don't know all of the tools mentionned. But I will definetly have a look at those as well. Tackk, Google Forms, Wix, are the tools my students work with the most. Sometimes I let the students free to decide who they would like to work with.. But more often I make the groups. I make sure there is a mixture of talent in each group, so that every student can 'shine' at what they are good at.

Maria Panou/ Kalymnos, Greece

maria_themelis — 2016-11-10 18:55:14 UTC

I agree with Anna that our students adore to use digital tools, collaborate at teams and create knowledge in a right freedom environment. We use these tools Anna is mentioned and children enjoy learning indeed!

Elisabete Cruz - Portugal

2016-11-10 19:17:02 UTC

I loved Ana's various approaches to the collaborative learning of her students (the projects themselves and the way they evaluate them). If students can choose who they want to work with, it is much better; If they can choose the themes to work on; If we let them know more and let them work with their own technology (smartphones, tablets ...) that they have access to at school and at home, we will certainly have more dedicated and happy students to learn. Parents have to understand that, more important than passing academic knowledge to their children, is putting them to know how to listen, question, share ... According to the American psychiatrist William Glasser (1925-2013) applied his theory of choice For education. According to this theory, the teacher is a guide for the student and not a boss. Glasser explains that one should not only work with memorization, because most students simply forget the concepts after class. Instead, the psychiatrist suggests that students learn effectively from you by doing.

Olgica, Serbia

olgicaspasojevic — 2016-11-10 19:21:39 UTC

These are excellent tools for collaborative work. I can also suggest Thinglink, Tricider, WeJit, TitanPad...

Jaime Martins, Portugal

joncmartins — 2016-11-10 20:21:02 UTC

I liked and shared Anna's ideas.
The students like to work together.
One great advantage is that the most competent can interact with the weakest ones in the way that the latter do not recent. Sometimes it is also a good idea to name "tutors".
The tutor has always to help the student he/she is tutoring.
The peer assessment is as we all have discussed here in the course a fundamental "tool" for the students' work.
As she also said the peer review is a way to encourage self-improvement through reflection other people's work and the exchange of constructive feedback among peers. I also think the way she chooses the groups, the random name picking.
All the digital tools she refers are very helpful to implement and assess collaborative work.

Cristina, ro

cristinapeicuti — 2016-11-10 22:13:01 UTC

agree with these different approaches

Anabela Gonçalves, José Rui Ferreira and Teresa Fonseca, Portugal

2016-11-10 22:24:48 UTC

The different forms presented by Anna in the video seem appropriate. We regularly use Socrative, which we find useful for doing concept-based
verification at the end of a lesson. Edmodo is a useful tool for sharing information and
clarifying doubts. We also use Padlet regularly to share information or to publish
final versions of some assignments.

Kahoot,
as it assigns a score for the right answer and response time, can lead to students’
eagerness to get more points and so they answer almost without thinking, thus
the teacher doesn’t have very reliable results.

Isabel Graça, Portugal

2016-11-10 22:26:59 UTC

I’m working right now on how to divide a class in groups because I don’t know them very well yet. I will probably divide them considering their interest on the topics to approach. About assessment I like Anna’s idea on the random picking tool. I already know some of the tools mentioned and I intend to explore Scrumy and Wiggio, suggested by Galina, from Bulgaria.

Elena B, Italy

teacherEB — 2016-11-10 22:35:03 UTC

Anna’s work was really inspirational. I think the name picker apps are very useful because they avoid embarrassing situations in the choice of the partner. Peer review is a very good activity, not only for the revision of the work, but also in order to be aware of the goals to be achieved if a rubric is given prior to it. I use almost the same Collaborative tools but not yet the Digital Assessment tools mentioned that I’ll soon try. Anna is right when she says that teachers of the same class should work sharing the same strategies and objectives, otherwise one single teacher has a very hard work to do.

Maria Stalia

mastalia — 2016-11-10 23:33:24 UTC

I totally agree with Anna using random picking for peer assessment. The digital tools she is using are more or less known to me although I have never used any of them for assessment purposes. I will definitely try some of them....

Cristiana, Portugal

cristianafreire — 2016-11-10 23:58:32 UTC

I agree with the different approaches proposed by Anna; I believe that the empathy between members of the group will facilitate the development of the tasks that must be carried out; The random selection for peer assessement makes the assessement less subjective, as intended. I have no experience with the tools mentioned but they seem to me to be very useful.

Isabel Nunes, Portugal

2016-11-11 00:27:22 UTC

Very interesting and inspiring the criteria for creation of different working groups and the evaluation strategies and technological tools.

I think it's very important to create groups to assure objectivity and freedom from judgment. In which the goal is to encourage self-improvement through reflection on the work of other people and the exchange of constructive feedback among peers.

Very interesting use of the following tools of random selection:

http://www.classtools.net/random-name-picker/64_42Jcc2

http://www.miniwebtool.com/random-name-picker/

The review performed by peers leads to verify the work by comparing it with his own work, and may reflect on how others have found a different solution for the task assigned.

I agree with Anna as a teacher, the greatest challenge in collaborative learning lies in the summative evaluation.. "Students and their parents usually take summative evaluation more seriously than the formative assessment."

The challenge: "How can we convince teachers students that the assessment for learning can be more relevant than the learning evaluation? How do we plan the assessment for learning as a continuous process without stopping the spontaneous flow of ideas and creativity, while students are collaborating?

Olga Keramida-Greece

olkeramida — 2016-11-11 03:29:05 UTC

Very Interesting!
" I have noticed that high school students respond better if they are made responsible for their choices "
really true.

Vanesa, Croatia

2016-11-11 08:14:04 UTC

I agree with Anna and I find her way of teaching inspiring.

Atanasija, Croatia

atbilic — 2016-11-11 10:54:10 UTC

My students loves working in groups. I always try to group students in a diferent way then in previous group work. There is always students who are not so familiar with each other so working closely they learn to appreciate each other and learn to work freely and be relax in comunication and collaboration.

In our classroom we have only one laptop so it's a little bit difficult to work with tools mentioned in the video.

Cristina Rocha, Armindo Serra, Stela Batinas, Fátima Nave, Ana Marques, Sara Gamito, Martine Mendes e Rita Gil, Carmo Martins, Conceição Varela, Alexandra Figueiredo - Portugal

profarmindoserra — 2016-11-11 11:02:43 UTC

We agree with the different approaches presented in the video by Professor Anna.

We have already done some evaluations in pairs or in larger groups but with the same principle presented.

We believe that the empathy factor among the elements that make up the group is a facilitator for the development of the work that needs to be done.

We are of the opinion of a random selection for peer evaluation, makes the process more interesting and rich without prejudice to the evaluation.

Some of us have some experience with the aforementioned tools and other digital tools, and others are not even now sharing these practices among colleagues, but we agree that they are very facilitative and useful.

Aula Digital (grupo Leya) -
http://www.leyaeducacao.com/z_professores/i_133/ct_28/

Catia, Sweden

katyfpr — 2016-11-11 11:20:20 UTC

Those approaches are very inspired and I completely agree that it helps to keep students motivated. However (based on my experience) allow students to choose their partners it does not work well all the time. Usually the good ones try to be with the good ones, and there are always students (due to their personality) that will be alone. In my lessons I always make the groups and I always tell to my students that we need to learn to work with everyone.

Ana, Portugal

2016-11-11 12:14:24 UTC

I found very interesting the way and the tools used to set up groups. I totally agree that there must be different approaches towards the type of work that's being proposed to students. I recently started using Padlets and the blog as a way of assessing collaborative work and I will certainly make use of some of the proposals presented. Anna's concerns towards assessment are the same as mine: "Students as well as their parents usually take summative assessment more seriously than formative assessment. How can we teachers persuade students that assessing for learning can be more relevant than assessment of learning? How can we plan assessment for learning as an ongoing process without stopping the spontaneous flowing of ideas and creativity while students are collaborating?"

Elisabetta Italy. To be honest I use these digital tools such as Edmodo or edpuzzle to make my students practice in class or at home some online activities in preparation either for their certificate exams or to get them write some short texts to comment videos,get them do some quizzes.I could also assess them individually because these platforms provide teachers with assessing instruments. However, I still can't use these tools as an official assessment instrument because in my school the use of online grading without a paper-based test is not allowed yet. When my students work in group I have rubrics to assess the process and their products. Work in progress as for self assessment grids and peer assessment.... I'm trying to get inspired by all these wonderful teacher colleagues

elisabettamarigo1 — 2016-11-11 14:56:57 UTC

Maria Rita, Italy

mariarita_pepe — 2016-11-11 15:54:57 UTC

Anna's work is always inspiring and as an Italian teacher I agree with everything she says about the difficulties we meet and the problems we face daily, while trying to implement these activities. As to the tools, I have often used Padlet and Google Docs for collaborative activities. My classes regularly use Edmodo, although it takes a little bit of time at the beginning. My next step is introducing the idea of e-portfolio because I want my students to document what they do and to use it also as a reflective journal.

Margarida Sousa P.T.

2016-11-11 16:06:54 UTC

I don´t believe in spontaneous groups, created by 9/ 10 years old students.
Of course, I´ve already tried it and the result was girls groups and boys groups! That´s how they feel comfortable to work with their friends. So, I choose the groups and they are responsable for the organization and distribution of roles inside the group. The curious part is that they begin to know their classmates better because without group work they hadn´t this opportunity and some of them become friends, too.
As digital tools, I just use google and youtube. We have created a blogue, last year, with all the texts of our students:"bloguecastelodepalavras2".
I also use the digital book of Portuguese.

Clara, Portugal

acjesus — 2016-11-11 17:49:17 UTC

Normally I leave my students free to decide who they would like to work with and to decide each team´s member role. I never used a tool to form groups. Anna´s approach is very reliable, so I will keep it in mind and use it in my classes. About the tools used in collaborative work, this school year I´m trying to use as much as I can. Students like it a lot and they use it to P2P reviews. They enjoy playing Kahoot and they really have a lot of fun while learning and being assessed.

Carmen Rodríguez,

c_rodvix — 2016-11-11 18:02:46 UTC

Working as a primary teacher, I think spontaneous groups are quite “tricky” because sometimes some children are silly or not working properly. However, as a starter, I try to give pupils the chance to decide who to work with as I think this make them feel important and “under control”. It´s also a way to know them better and trust them…Why not? Sometimes you can get surprises because they respond better than you think. In the case, that you know for sure that there are some groups that are not going to work, I split them but at least they always have the chance..

In relation to the tools, I find the use of ICT could help specially in secondary school. In my case, the lack of time or the age, makes difficult the use of some of them but anyway, there a couple of ideas in the video that I would like to try. I ´ve never used scrumy and I think it could be very useful and easy to use with little children. Thanks for your video Anna. ��Z�z

Nehir ÇABUKER

nehircabuker — 2016-11-11 18:12:28 UTC

when we start to a new project I also leave my students to make free thoughts themselves. This approach is usefull for their selfimprovements. we use padlet, googleforms for surveys and assessments

Olga Oliveira, Portugal

olga_amaro — 2016-11-11 18:19:26 UTC

I liked very much all the ideas presented by Anna.
Usually I leave my students free to decide the groups. About the tools used in collaborative work, frequently we use Socrative, Kahoot, Prezi as well as a kind of blog. Frequently the students are responsable for the other students evaluation.

Dhurata, Albania

2016-11-11 19:13:41 UTC

Usually i use Padlets, Google Forms, easpoll, Quiz, Kahoot, Prezi and many other tools.

Ana Fernades, Portugal

apmfm — 2016-11-11 19:29:51 UTC

I agree with the different approaches of Anna: free choice in the creation of the work groups and random students names called for peer evaluation. The random choice will make the assessment more credible. I don’t have experience on the use of the digital tools mentioned and used by Anna.

José María Díaz, Spain

josemaria_diazfuentes — 2016-11-11 21:26:22 UTC

The assessment of the final product is in my country the main objective of all the education plans. It is sad because it is clear that it is the learning process that makes our students grow and mature and it is the delicate process where our best work should be.

Petra, USA

drpe — 2016-11-11 22:41:20 UTC

I like the different approaches. I usually let the students choose teams based on their individual interests, too. I will only pick team members when students don’t get along, or when the same students always work together unwilling to let others “in.” Random peer assessment works; if desired, it can be done anonymously. Regarding the tools, I have not yet worked with Scrumy or Tackks. I have used all the other tools mentioned, and I think they are very useful.

Marisa Badini

marisa_badini — 2016-11-11 22:42:00 UTC

Margherita-Italy

margheritabalistreri — 2016-11-12 05:41:21 UTC

I think Anna's work is inspiring and interesting.When my students work in teams I usually let them choose the members freely, sometimes integrating some weaker elements.Empathy is the first step to work collaboratively.I find peer assessment an important tool for students'work because this lets them reflect on the others' one. I agree with random name picking for peer assessment. I have never tried the tools mentioned

Jole, Sicily

jolecapo — 2016-11-12 07:22:37 UTC

I prefer to be the one to form the groups because I believe that my students are still too small and need to be guided. I use Padlet, Google Forms and wikispace, a collaborative platform that helps me a lot with the Digital Storytelling.

Sidonia Voica, Romania

sidogeocris — 2016-11-12 08:36:46 UTC

The video is very interesting, but my students are a low understending level of the competences and I prefer to explain them how they have to integrate the digital tools in the work team.i believe that my help ensure objectivity and I like the different approaches.

Elena FP, Italy

2016-11-12 10:06:06 UTC

When doing team work, I also agree the teachers would let students form eterogeneous groups, picking random names for peer assessment. My students are 14 to 20, so I think I can let them work with the partners they want (of course, unless someone gets excluded for some reason). Of course, I monitor the group work, to be sure the roles are decided and respected.
As for ICT tools, I'm sure they are a great way to implement collaborative assessment: I use Padlet a lot, for example. I don't use other tools Anna mentions (like Socrative) because I don't like quiz-style assessment. I teach Literature and History so I prefer to focus on critical thinking skills rather than remembering names and dates...

Annamaria Egido, Italy

2016-11-12 11:05:15 UTC

I agree with the different approaches of Anna and i found very interesting the way and the tools used to set up groups.

Rosa Calvino

antonella_demaio — 2016-11-12 11:20:24 UTC

Anna refers to different digital tools which are helpful in implementing and assessing collaborative work. I 'll try to use Tackks, Padlets,

Ljiljana LD, Croatia

2016-11-12 13:44:47 UTC

Agree with

Zeljka Korlevic, Croatia

mravak57 — 2016-11-12 15:28:14 UTC

I agree with Anna in changing the way of forming the group. I teach math and find many things hard to implement in my work, but I think ICT tools are of great help

Astrid Hulsebosch

AstridVE — 2016-11-12 15:47:09 UTC

I like to use Google Form for assessment, it's easy and immediate. For the momento this is my tool. ( I'm a teaher in a primary school)

Nicola S. - Italy

spotonicola — 2016-11-12 16:01:15 UTC

In my opinion sometimes it can be useful that the teacher forms the groups and gives the roles, because it can happen that some students want always to work with the same mates. Students should be asked to work with different people, even with those mates they don't like so much. This is a good opportunity for everybody to know better other people and perhaps to become friends. I agree with Anna when she says that peer-assessment has to be anonymous, especially when students are not used to it. At first it should be done randomly in order not to hurt students' feelings, too.

What about the digital tools mentioned by Anna? Padlets is an easy and user-friendly one and it's versatile too. It gives the opportunity to create a basic portfolio and to share it quickly. Thanks to it the teacher has the possibility to monitorate his student's work in a glimpse. I haven't ever used Scrumy, but Anna's words made me curious about it!

David Doherty Co. Donegal Ireland

daviddoherty — 2016-11-12 17:09:32 UTC

David Doherty Co. Donegal Ireland Module 3

daviddoherty — 2016-11-12 17:09:32 UTC

Anna first let me complement you on your work..its excellent and looking at the pictures from your classroom has given me some ideas to pass along to my language colleagues. Anyway listening to you is like been in my own classroom with students focusing on the grade rather than the comment.
I do find it easier with younger students who learn from the start that this is the way I do things and so they become resigned to it. Exam students are more likely to want to be graded for their work and by me not their peers. It will all take time ...I think and a lot of patience and persistence

Cristina/Pisa

2016-11-12 17:11:33 UTC

I teach in a middle school and I use Edmodo to assess my students' homework or assign it to them. I know padlet and google form but I have never used them as assessment tools and peer reviews. Kahoot too, has been used by me to create questions they prepared at home but not to assess their knowledge. I think Anna has inspired me. Thanks!

Stavroula Lada, Greece

pde4424 — 2016-11-12 17:38:57 UTC

I agree with Anna about the random picking of peer viewers because otherwise the students feel uncomfortable in both sides. Nevertheless, they have to get used to obligatory peer learning, because this way they will learn that serious and objective peer reviewing is a great way of getting better.

As for the web tools mentioned, I have used padlets and google forms.

3.6 Collaborative learning and student peer reviews When setting up student groups to work on a project, Anna often leaves students free to decide who they would like to work with and each team member’s role. However, when it comes to peer assessment Anna prefers to use a random name picking tool, as she believes this helps ensure objectivity and is more likely to encourage useful and constructive feedback among peers. Do you agree with these different approaches? Anna mentions a variety of digital tools which are helpful in implementing and assessing collaborative work, such as Edmodo, Scrumy, Tackks, Padlets, Google Forms etc. What are your experiences of these tools? As for groups of students working together, I personally prefer a mix of weak and strong students, otherwise I get groups who are desperate and confused with the workload and others who excel and leave everybody else behind, which then makes classroom management difficult. Having a mix of different abilities allows everyone to adapt to the group mode, slowing down or speeding up, the fast achievers are the moor in the group and the weak students get support within their group. I think digital tools are valid in many respects, however, I am a bit worried that too much tinkering around with different tools will more or less confuse the students, at least mine. Quite a few things can just be done low tech wise in the classroom in a face-to-face activity, especially in the English language classroom where speaking is of major concern.

stuhlpfarrer2 — 2016-11-12 18:18:30 UTC

Sabrina Petrillo, ITALY

spwillothewisp9 — 2016-11-12 19:06:24 UTC

Generally speaking, when working with my students (14-19 aged), I try to divide them into “didactically correct” groups even though I usually leave the last word to them: the same happens in the choice of each group leader who has to report the final results (not a much sought-after role!). So I prefer not to interfere too much in their choices unless they need advice on the team formation.

In my opinion what is worth noticing in the video shown is Anna Laghigna’s right choice to make the peer assessment process anonymous so that her students need not to be aware they are assessing the work of their friends since assignment of assessors to assessees would be quite a difficult matter.

When it comes to implementing and assessing collaborative work through digital tools, I must say that Edmodo, Google and Forms are the ones I use more frequently.

Merle, Estonia

merle_pahn — 2016-11-12 19:38:53 UTC

I also let students free to decide with whom to work with. I use Google Drive apps, Kahoot and other tools but I didnt know about Teamup. Now I know and I will try it.

Emilia/Romania

Emilia_T22 — 2016-11-12 21:26:35 UTC

I'm not sure if it's good to let students make their own group.Maybe it depends on their age.This can work with teenagers.Peer assessment is good to be done by different students each time.It encourages constructive feedback.I enjoyed the way Anna talked about the teacher's roles when working in collaborative learning as a guide, facilitator and the fact that it's difficult to assess when you feel part of a team being a guide.I have seen that she and her class used different digital tools that helped them to collaborate and to give feedback .I have experimented Google Forms, padlet.

Arminda Pereira, Portugal

armindapereira1 — 2016-11-12 21:37:35 UTC

I agree with the different approaches presented in the video by Professor Anna. Anna's work is inspiring and useful but is difficulty implement these activities in daily bases. I also let students free to decide with whom they want to work. I believe that the empathy factor among the elements that make up the group is a facilitator for the development of the work that needs to be done.
But for another hand allowing students to form their own groups will likely result in uneven groupings. If possible, arrange groups by skills and/or backgrounds. For example, ask students to rate their comfort/ability level on a number of skills (research, background knowledge of course topics, work experience, etc.) and try to arrange groups that include “experts” in different areas. Another possibility is to do a preliminary assessment; and then based on the results, purposefully create groups that blend abilities.
In my opinion a random selection for peer evaluation, makes the process more interesting and rich without prejudice to the evaluation.
Anna mentions a variety of digital tools which are helpful in implementing and assessing collaborative work. I have often used Padlet and Google apps for collaborative activities. I never used Edmodo, Scrumy or Tackks. My next step is introducing the idea of ePortfolio or a learning diary because I want my students to document what they do and to use it also as a reflective document.

Enrica Maragliano - Italy

EMGe — 2016-11-12 21:59:41 UTC

Usually I prefer to chose the group members randomly if there are no particular reasons to do in a different way (group work to be done - at least partially - at home in a class where students live far each other, incompatibility between some students for bullying etc.) and I assess students in two steps: a score (usually 40%) given for the group work and the remaining score given for the presentation and the questions asked by teacher and school mates (and stakeholders if present). To share the works I use Padlet that is very easy for my students and easy to be embedded in the eTwinning TwinSpace-

Helena Louzeiro, Portugal

helenalouzeiro — 2016-11-12 22:11:55 UTC

Professor Anna's work is very interesting but unfortunately is not easy to apply in my class, because my students only have 6 and 7 years old.
But wiil never know if later, I can aplly with them or with other students.
The digital tool that are used are very interesting.
I use the google forms, kizoa, issue and the padlet and my students love some of them.

Reneta Raicheva

renyraicheva — 2016-11-12 22:32:40 UTC

Amazing experience, great digital tools, creative team. Congrats, Anna & students! Thanks for sharing the nice practice! :)

Rosa Italy

rosafiorenzaguidi — 2016-11-13 05:50:48 UTC

I never used these tools in implementing and assessing collaborative work. I think they're usefull for the students.
Anna has done a great work. Thank's to share.

Maria laura, Italy

mammolimlaura — 2016-11-13 08:30:19 UTC

I am not sure that using a random name piccking tool you may have more objectivity, since students know each other ( even superficially) and thay have on opinion about each other, (quite often wrong) but based on what they see and how they are viewed by the class groups.
I use Forms for polls and I think that using rubrics with forms is a really great idea! It gives anonimous results and the students can feel free to express themselves.
My students love Kahoot and Socrative so I use them very often, especially in the Flipped class modus, to check what they have understood from the materials I gave them for study.

Matthias Giger, Switzerland

mattgig — 2016-11-13 09:11:10 UTC

In our school we use an LMS (Moodle) and OneNote for collaborative tasks, peer assessment and rubrics, because then you've got all the data in one place and can reuse existing evaluation tools.
Also forming of groups can be automatically done or by hand, depending on a projects needs.

When using digital support in teaching one has to decide on basically to strategies: Either use a huge variety of tools which do a job perfectly but probably integrate badly, or using an integrated solution which goes beyond what a single tool can do and pay the cost for a system which is more difficult to maintain.

As collaboration between teachers gets more common, I think that the latter approach builds a better foundation for future development.

Giovanna Wiplinger Croce

giovywip — 2016-11-13 09:54:14 UTC

Thanks Anna for your inspiring video. Yes, it is a big challenge for us as teachers to assess the outcomes while we know how much effort some students put in their job in spite of the poor result...that is the most difficult part of our job. But nevertheless if the focus is on the process of the group work we may allow students to have even poor results and help them to see mistakes and fall back as a chance to grow and do better next time. Our attitude towards them can make the difference in spite of the poor results

Betina Astride, PT

betinaastride — 2016-11-13 09:56:39 UTC

Thanks for your ideas, Anna. Usually I don't use such kind of tools in my class. My experience says, my primary pupils prefere to talk directly . But I will try some tools soon.

Majella, Ireland

dempseybrian099 — 2016-11-13 11:26:17 UTC

Thanks Anna for your excellent account of using collaborative learning. I think you have answered your own questions in how you have used technology to aid formative peer feedback. I have used different tools in formative assessment and found that while the tools can aid sending and displaying of materials, provide an interactive environment and processing and analysing functions, the role of the teacher cannot be underestimated. The teacher needs to make decisions on who gives the feedback, needs to moderate it and then to add to it if there are gaps in the formative feedback.

Daniel Caridade, PT

dcaridade — 2016-11-13 12:04:49 UTC

I find this video very enlighting. Some of the tools I used before, such as Scrummy and Google Forms (with Flubaroo), and padlets, obviously. I agree with the choices made while sorting out groups, I think it gives them more responsability, and allows more positive interaction when they choose their own group mates. As for peer assessment, I think the spinning wheel is a very fun tool to use in a class. But I'm more inclined to the employment of anonymity while assessing their peers leaving them more freedom to express themselves (but I would leave the anonymity just between students, with full knowledge of the teacher, restraining them from making less constructive observations). Just checking out Edmodo and Tackks - lots of new tools to examine in this 3rd module, it will take a while :)

Concetta Drago, Italy

concetta_drago — 2016-11-13 12:44:48 UTC

I definitely agree with Anna about the feeling when I must assess my students' job, especially when they have put so much of themselves in their work and still it is insufficient! Once you start working as a guide and a facilitator, you soon come to realise that our current system is not yet suitable for that: you cannot be coach and referee at the same time. If you are a coach, you obviously feel like part of a team!
How can we teachers persuade students that assessing for learning can be more relevant than assessment of learning?
Using more peer reviews can help. Students can give mutual support and feedback.

Cinzia Billa, Italy

2016-11-13 13:33:17 UTC

Precious!
Thanks, I use Edmodo and Google tools, as well as padlet. But the other tools were new. I think these tools help foreign language students and teachers to go deep in assessment and in increasing creativity and motivation!

Anabela Gomes

prof_anabelagomes — 2016-11-13 13:45:22 UTC

Awesome.
First students has to get use to, but then we can benefit them with it.

Raul Coutinho

2016-11-13 15:03:48 UTC

In the first cycle programming classes, I let the regular teachers choose the groups because they know the profile and the interaction of each student. Having chosen the group, they are free to propose, promote and develop the project

Sander, BE

sander_vreven — 2016-11-13 15:13:25 UTC

There are 2 sides on picking names random or not.
Random is good to use for groups who are used to collaborative learning and assessment. But with groups that aren't used to do this I would not let them choose nor use a random tool. As a teacher you can but students together that can learn from each other.

About the tools: it's amazing that you can acces these online but not everyone has got a smartphone, internet, .... I still have students who have to go to the library for internet, we haven't got a good connection in our school, ..... pff I wish It would be easier sometimes.

Richard, Belgium

2016-11-13 15:19:14 UTC

Another set of inspiring activities: thanks! AS a Primary school teacher, it is easier to build collaborative learning skills of pupils since they are with us for most of the week. The first few steps towards the process can be difficult for some children, but with careful modeling of the process and the creation of well defined roles success can be had relatively quickly. I switch between creation the groups that work together myself( when I want to ensure a genuine mix of abilities and personality types) and at times I let the children create groups of their own choosing. They are instructed as to whether these groups are to be quite relaxed, or of there needs to be a mix of boys/girls etc. The handing over of control to the children of this process works well after they have done a few sessions of collaborative learning. It is quite interesting as to how they group themselves. The use of pegs, or an online tool to create groups would be an exciting addition to the way in which groups are created, but I would not want to use it all the time.
At the start of the year, we share our methods with parents and explain how ALL methods of assessment are important. This is also shared with the students. Thus they tend to take all assessment seriously and see the definite value in assessment for learning as well. It is a crucial element of every class. When the variety of Afl routines are established it is quite easy to adjust teaching, the direction of a lesson, or aid a particular group or individual more dependent upon their response: something we all do. The interdependence of the projects seen here is a great example. As long as we share that all assessment is important, and behave in a way that shows it is all important, then the students and parents will see it that way too.

We can also be coach and referee: simply tell the students that this is the case, set up the rubrics to assess, enable peer and self assessment, assess the process and the product.

Carmen( Ro)

carmenada69 — 2016-11-13 15:45:35 UTC

I agree with Anna, it is better to pair classmates who don't know each other well or to use a random name picker tool which automatically teams them up.To prepare activities , I will try using Tackk and Padlet. I liked Anna’s idea to ask students to write a comment on other classmates’ activities.

Antónia Brandão e José Ruão, PT

dolores_brandao — 2016-11-13 16:04:26 UTC

Inspiring. We loved Anna presentation and she gives us great tips and puts interesting questions. When our students are working in a project we, like Anna, often leave our students free to decide who they would like to work with and each team member’s role.

Assess the work is difficult as we already mentioned, but Anna mentions to a large variety of digital tools which are helpful in implementing and assessing collaborative work, such as Edmodo, Scrumy, Tackks, Padlets, Google Forms etc. our experiences of these tools is limited, but we use sometimes Google forms and Padlets, also Kahoot. The other ones we are going to explore them as soon as possible.

We think that the last questions that Anna has posted are fundamental . Teachers and students are used to assess learning and not to assess for learning.

And the last question is so big...some time ago one of our students told us that school kills curiosity and creativity. That idea bring to us so many doubts...

Orsola , Italia

2016-11-13 16:14:33 UTC

I agree with Anna. I usually let the students to create the work groups. I use Padlet and Google apps for collaborative activities.

Tina M_Macedonia Greece

tinamellos — 2016-11-13 16:28:37 UTC

The different approaches are quite inspiring.
A great observation that through collaborative learning activities ''top students admit that they can learn more''!
On the statement ''high school students respond better if they are made responsible for their choices'' I would add that all students can respond much better -sometimes more than expected- when being made responsible for their choices.

Conceição Varela / Portugal

conceicao_varela — 2016-11-13 16:41:18 UTC

The role students play in the organisation of the collaborative work is indeed different at different levels/ages. However, even at the secondary level, there is a tendency for the students to organise themselves around friends or best performance students, in order to avoid conflicts and to ensure a good outcome. In this context I believe the teacher as an important role in order to ensure homogeneity and keep the average level of the groups performance. Unless, of course, that the activities are organised and planned in such way that the class outcome depends on the outcome of each group and, therefore, of each student in each team. Peer assessment is something that, although important and desirable, is not always of easy implementation and often does not produce the desirable results. Anna identifies, correctly in my view, that the major problem is that the students are not at ease with sharing their opinions between each other and related with each other's work due to shortcomings in other areas of learning. Nevertheless, it is one of the 21st century skills that we need to develop in our students so one needs to keep trying and improving the peer assessment practices with our students. In the context of collaborative work, it is clear that the use of digital tools is a must since these tools make it much easier for the teacher to plan the activities and to follow the progress of students along the activity as well as for the students to record and publish their work/assessments. Concerning my experience with the mentioned tools, it is not much since I only used Padlets and Kahoot up to now. However, my intention is to extend my experience to other tools as I get more engaged in the collaborative learning process.

Odete Pinho

modetepinho — 2016-11-13 17:19:13 UTC

It is important to use digital tools in implementing and assessing collaborative work. I don´t have experiences of these tools.

Eduardo Pinheiro, Portugal

eduardojgpinheiro — 2016-11-13 17:40:35 UTC

I totally agree with Anna with these different approaches.
I use, with my students, some digital tools wich are helpful in implementing and assessing collaborative work, such Edmodo, Socrative and Google Forms and I think there are very useful.

Vitalija, Lithuania

2016-11-13 17:52:02 UTC

A wonderful and inspiring video. Thank You, Anna!
I liked the idea that Anna lets her students free to decide who they would like to work with and each team member's role. Sometimes I do the same. But it takes less time for me to devide them into groups. The teacher knows the level of the pupils' knowledge better and foresees the productivity of the group work. I want to have pupils of different abilities in a group. Then they have more opportunities to adapt to the group. Fast working students help the weaker ones in the group.Anna mentions a great variety of digital tools. Of course, they are valid but our teachers themselves are not well experienced in them. We use Google forms. Now I want to use more. On the other hand, in a language classroom face- to-face communication should dominate, speaking is very important during the lesson

Patrizia Italy

2016-11-13 18:27:05 UTC

No matter the outcomes are, we, as teachers, have to encourage and involve students each single day in each single activity they do so that they can feel being always successful even if the results of their work isn't as good as they have planned at the beginning

Alena Jandlová, Czech Republic

2016-11-13 18:51:19 UTC

I agree with Anna´s opinion that peer assessment based on random choice leads to more objective results. Moreover I highly value her idea of peer assessment via Google online forms (when student use their mobiles), I think it is really helpful in terms of objectivity and overcoming shyness although some rules of positive feedback should be discussed beforehand as well. Maybe, the more collaborative activities with rubric assessment are implemented into our teaching (and then turned into grades), the more the student will accept the grades as assessing for learning. Or the grading system will be replaced by only formative assessment

João Peças - Portugal

2016-11-13 19:25:39 UTC

About first questions made by Anna, I think to try to convince students that it is more important to assess for learning that the evaluation of learning must explain to the students that even though what they are doing is wrong are to develop their capacities for reasoning and analysis. As such it does not matter just what they learn, but how they learn.

Francesca, Italy

francesca_lombardi1973 — 2016-11-13 19:28:48 UTC

Thanks for this interesting video, I signed a lot of digital tools that I don't know yet and I'm curious to experiment their efficacy very soon.

CÁTIA SANTOS - PORTUGAL

badkat187 — 2016-11-13 19:38:36 UTC

I agree with Anna. About the tools I only work with WORD, POWERPOINT and google forms, but I also know about padlets and kahoot (discussed in 3.5).

Catarina Rodrigues, Portugal

canrodrigues — 2016-11-13 20:36:16 UTC

I appreciate Ana's methodology. She gives some freedom when working collaboratively but she ensures the objectivity when using peer assessment. In what concerns the tools I only know Padlet and google forms.

Sara Viotti, Italy

sara_viotti — 2016-11-13 21:33:27 UTC

I feel something very special when listening to Anna's video talk. Yes, indeed, this course was specially designed to pass from theory to practice, but what she can do in her lessons is science fiction for so many teachers! When she says she considers herself miserable at he end, at he time of assessing and marking, I think she expresses all the feelings everyone of us has in the heart for his/her pupils who worked hard.I downloaded the full transcription in order to use the links.

Pedro Elias, Portugal

pedroelias — 2016-11-13 22:37:30 UTC

I agree with Anna. In my classes, I usually use Kahoot, Socrative and Plickers.

Teresa Rowett - Portugal

teresarowett — 2016-11-14 01:07:55 UTC

Very good work you do with your students Anna. I dare say that is the ideal way to work. We are all trying to go there and do our best in the meanwhile! Regarding the work groups' formation, I think you can do it both ways, it all depends on the goals you want to achieve. Sometimes you need to form them the way you consider the best, other times you let the students be free to join who they want. If it helps their motivation and they work in a responsible way, it's even better.
Peer reviews is a great way of transferring responsibility to the students. Being in the referee's shoes allows them to look at their work in a different light. Later they will be more meticulous when working on their own tasks.
The tools mentioned are also good tips.

Simona, the Czech Republic

simonabrothankova — 2016-11-14 09:45:47 UTC

As for the free choice of members of the groups, I partly agree as I can make groups of students with certain skills and/or knowledge. On the other hand, some students need not be willing to cooperate but that is something they should learn at school as well. I believe the two approaches (free choice and teacher's choice) should be used.
For peer assessment it can be more objective to assess not only friends who are more likely to view each other in a more positive way.
Unfortunately I have no experience with the tools mentioned apart from the Padlet. But it is my belief that too much technology is not a good thing.

Sandra, Portugal

sandra_alves_ — 2016-11-14 09:51:52 UTC

I agree with Anna on the different approaches.
The empathy between members of the group will facilitate the development of the tasks and
the random selection for peer assessment makes it less subjective.
As for the new technological tools, I established the first contact recently. I'm starting to learn how to work with them.

Katarzyna Kwiatek-Grabarska, Poland

2016-11-14 12:55:18 UTC

My thoughts on assessment are exactly the same and to be honest I have no idea how to get out of the system applicable to me as a teacher assessment. Assessing knowledge limiting to a minimum while the most give the opportunity to demonstrate in various additional forms. If a student is interested and wants to support then go and receive extra points that raise its assessment. Sometimes, however, so that no treatments do not motivate a student to work. Sometimes even the little thing, praising also does not help.

Rossana De Martino, Italy

rossana_demartino — 2016-11-14 13:59:44 UTC

Very great and interesting video! I agree with Anna for peer assessment to garantee objectivity to the evaluation, so it's a good idea to choose at random. But for the setting up of the group it depends on the relationship among the students, because it can happen they form homogeneous groups for interests and abilities. It happened in a class of mine where I wanted to give them the freedom to choose their classmates of the group, but this idea failed because all the best students wanted to stay in the same group.
For the tools used by Anna I'd like to know more, I use here Padlet and I know little Edmodo, in my classes I use Kahoot, Prezi and Popplet.

Mafalda Lapa, Portugal

lapa_mafalda — 2016-11-14 14:20:07 UTC

I agree with Anna approaches. I have used some of the apps presented but some I will have to explore. It is a reality that there are many tools than can help us in group work.

Eliana Di Bella, Italy

2016-11-14 16:21:30 UTC

Anna's video was very helpful. Like Anna, I strongly believe in the power of collaboration, and She gave me a lot of idea that I could use with my students. I do use: Kahoot, Padlet, Google Appa for Education. I have never used Scrumy.
The idea of picking in a random way is very good. It makes assessment more objective.

Francesca, Italy

francescapulvirenti1 — 2016-11-14 17:09:28 UTC

I agree with Anna?s criteria of matching students, even if with younger students you have sometimes to help them in choosing . I agree for the peer assessment. I have used Blendspace with my students. I used it to share lessons materials, exercises, and leave free students to enter in it at home to prepare for the lesson. I know Edmodo, Prezi and Padlet baut at the moment I have never used them .

Lucrezia Di Molfetta Italy

edimol — 2016-11-14 17:44:38 UTC

Anna's video is very interesting. Many of the tools she suggested are wily used in my classrooms: Google forms,
Kahoot, Padlet.
I agree that assessment can be more objective using such kind of tools.

Rossella, Italy

2016-11-14 18:26:38 UTC

I think what is very good proposed, but for younger students is essential to the supervision and guidance of the teacher

Ana Schade, Portugal

ana_vaz — 2016-11-14 18:29:04 UTC

The introduction of Peer Reviews and constructive feedback helps students to review the work of other peers and compare it to their own, allowing them to reflect on how others have found a different solution to the assignment and help each other. Random choice of students in hetero-evaluation does not seem relevant, because the desired objectivity is achieved when we ask for a hetero-evaluation to all students.

António Gonçalves, PT

2016-11-14 18:31:00 UTC

In collaborative learning, it is important to self-evaluate, as an individual and group assessment process.
Hetero-evaluation is usually done when presenting the product and in the final communications. Thus, the random choice of students is no longer relevant, since hetero-evaluation guarantees objectivity and feedback among peers.

The digital tools used by Anna to assess are important and facilitating the difficult task of evaluation.

Cristina Teixeira, Portugal

2016-11-14 20:08:20 UTC

Anna’s vídeo is very interesting and useful and I think that is the ideal way to work. About the work groups' formation, it all depends on the goals you want to achieve. If I want to work in equal levels or different levels to achieve a specific objetive I personally choose the groups. Other times I let the students be free to join who they want.

Peer reviews is a great way of giving some responsability to the students.

In what concerns the tools, unfortunately I only know Padlet.

Rosella, Italy

2016-11-14 23:04:12 UTC

Teachers need to empower their students and give them a leading role in their own education. It’s no doubt that most students are their own biggest critics, and that’s okay; focusing that lens can have fantastic results. By engaging in the process of thinking about and assessing their own work, they act on the evidence of their own learning and take responsibility for it. Student self assessment as a part of a teacher’s pedagogical toolbox has broad intuitive appeal. It would seem to encourage metacognitive processes that are important for the deep learning required of 21st century students.
Students who engage in these activities are more likely to develop internal attributions, a feeling of empowerment, and a sense of autonomy.

Dulce Freire, Fernanda Cunha, Marco Fernandes and Vítor Silva, Portugal

marcocfernandes — 2016-11-15 11:32:32 UTC

Here too parents and students give more importance to summative than formative assessment, as we have already mentioned in section 3.3.

We think that change depends on government guidelines, by changing our educational policy and by restructuring government-defined national curricula. What we evaluate is just knowledge and not the supposed skills for the 21st century (far from it). We are thinking that changing mindsets is difficult, at least in our school.

Yes, we agree with Anna’s approach regarding peers assessment. As for the tools mentioned, our experience is very limited in this area, as we have mentioned before, repeatedly. 5

Antonia, Netherlands

chanja — 2016-11-15 13:13:50 UTC

Again Anna, thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience on collaborative learning. Listening and reading your story and the mentioning of all the tools you seem to use with such an ease, makes me feel a little incompetent. Maybe I should take a year off to practise using all the tools....

Talking about the assessment of collaborative learning with colleagues we also came across the issue of how to show to the parents and school management the development of the 21st century skills the students go through working on projects? How to record this? Focus in our education system is still on summative assessment.

Isabel Rato, Portugal

2016-11-15 14:25:15 UTC

It seems important to me the freedom to choose the colleagues to work with (especially when students are older) and the "chance" to review / evaluate the work, because it allows for greater objectivity.

Edmodo and Padlets can be useful digital tools for evaluating collaborative work.

Olga Tsaruk, Ukraine

ovotsaruk — 2016-11-15 21:20:15 UTC

I liked these Anna's words most of all:" It's hard to be a coach & a referee at the same time." I have done the course about Google services in teaching. During my eTwinning session I got aquainted with Kahoot. Edmodo, Scrumy, Tackks are new for me. Thanks for sharing!

Marta Pereira

mpereira89_1 — 2016-11-15 21:55:39 UTC

In the same way that students learn differently, i believe we should diversify teaching methods, so i think mixing different approaches seems to me to be good. Certainly Anna prefers to mix different approaches because she has already tried alternatives and considered that this is better.

Lívia, PT

2016-11-16 09:39:49 UTC

The first thing I need to have in mind when preparing this type of work is my students' age group and their skills so far. First, I have to prepare a group of students to something completely new. They don't work like this in most public schools. It's a greater challenge for teachers rather than students. I know some of the tools mentioned from other courses and I've used some and they are really helpful! Google itself gives us a lot of different tools to work with and share with others. I really want my students to work collaboratively, so they improve their performance in all the skills we work when learning English. Of course parents want the final results. The summative assessment. Though I believe students can get better grades and be more successful if they work together. In my school, students are weak and with this type of work they feel motiveted and work more! They watch videos outside the classroom, they do quizes in the library and they like doing these! Let's change parents' perpective of teaching and learning. At least, let's try!

Thomas, Austria

2016-11-16 10:05:29 UTC

I find the tools mentioned in the video very useful in class - especially padlets are easy to use and apply.
Anna seems to mix different approaches because she has experienced others as well and thinks that mixing approaches is a good way to foster students' collaboration.

Ângela and Tânia, Portugal

taniaalves23 — 2016-11-16 20:08:20 UTC

The way Anna works, in our view, makes the students more independent, able to lead a group.
These are good work suggestions and the tools mentioned are useful for use in the classroom, as is the case with padlet.

Katarina,Serbia

2016-11-16 23:44:58 UTC

Very interesting.
I agree with Anna and these different approaches.And first students have to get use to,but then we all can benefits with it.
For younger students is better to supervision and guidance of teacher.

Maria Concetta Catalano, Italy

cettinacatalano644 — 2016-11-17 01:31:23 UTC

In my collaborative work experience, I always make a random selection of the group members. The students know that it is a choice that avoids, or at least limits, any conflict. Furthermore, this strategy also serves to erode the frictions.
I have used, and I use often Prezi and Padlet, simple to use and truly affordable for all

Lúcia, Portugal

2016-11-17 13:06:40 UTC

I totally agree with Anna’s approach when she gives her students the freedom to decide who they will work with and each team member’s role. The only way students will learn how to make decisions is by making them and not by following directions. If you want them to be responsible, you must give them the responsibility. Nevertheless, this is something that is still as challenge for both teachers and students in our schools as most students are not yet used to this type of work, either because many classes are still teacher-centered or because they find it easier to have a more passive role in their learning process.

I am slowly trying to implement collaborative work in my classes and students do enjoy working together as they realize that they can share ideas and help each other and sometimes even overcome their difficulties as they don’t feel exposed to an entire classroom.

Peer reviews are also an excellent way to guarantee impartial feedback among peers. They are able to reflect on their classmates’ work and compare them to their own work, which will give them the chance to get in touch with other solutions and approaches and look at their own work in a different way, which will ultimately lead to the improvement of their own work in the future.

The digital tools mentioned are very helpful in implementing and assessing collaborative work. My experience with these tools is still very limited but I would like to explore them and use them with my students. ��g1b�

Vitor M. N. Fernandes, Portugal

vmnf — 2016-11-17 14:07:39 UTC

(My learning diary:
https://padlet.com/vmnf/t15kcywjqs93 )
The randomization of student name on assessment seems a nice strategy compared to teacher selection and finger pointing. First the feeling on being selected vs. a random chance (my "bad luck"), second if colleagues did it before... It just seems that now is my time to do it. I think it becomes natural to be in that position and not some hidden agenda of the teacher based selection. So, yes, I agree.
I need to increase my usage of collaborative tools for sure. I have some experience with Padlet, Google docs & forms and Doodle. Padlet: mostly from this course, I confess, but also had some training on Web 2.0 before. Google docs is used extensively on group reports, Google forms for evaluation and Doodle for scheduling.

Helene Stavropoulou, Greece

elenistavro7 — 2016-11-17 17:33:53 UTC

Yes, I absolutely agree with these two different approaches. I, too, do this in my class practice. One difference: in my classe the students usually form groups according to their common choices in relation to the themes of the project. It's more motivating in my opinion.

An intervention that is itself a whole program for the current school year! Thank you Anna for having offered us these tools of random selection and especially those of implementation and evaluation of collaborative work. I have not yet used these tools for evaluation. I will do it in the near future. Thanks again !

Domenica Marino, italy

marinomimma16 — 2016-11-17 17:56:16 UTC

In my collaborative work experience, sometimes, after having set out the basic criteria for the composition of the groups, I let the students free to join in working groups, in most cases, I made a random selection of group members . However, when we do an evaluation , I have better to make a random selection, because I agree with Anna and consider that this helps to ensure objectivity and it is more likely that it encourages an useful and constructive feedback among peers.
Anna talks about a variety of digital tools that are useful for the implementation and evaluation of a collaborative work. I in the future I will try to use them in my teaching, now I often use Prezi and Padlet, because they are simple to use and extremely affordable for all.

Giovanna, Italy

giovanna_biceg1 — 2016-11-17 19:17:47 UTC

I teach in a Primary school, my students are 10 years old. I prefer to chose the members of each group, but I change them every time.
I chose to have peer assessment raising hand and discussing together the "marks".

Maria Rizza/ Sicily:

rowri — 2016-11-17 23:15:14 UTC

I agree with Anna in leaving students free to choose their partner to work with in the group and to decide the member’s role. I do not use so much self assessment as Anna shows in her video, But now I understand that it is a good practice which I have to implement. I have never used the random name picking tool because I did not know this tool but I will experimnt it in the class; I agree with the importance of making sure that objective peer assessement occurs because it encourages constructive feed back among peers. Anna seems to be a very creative teacher as she uses lots of variuos activities and tools ; I know most of them and I use most of these tools too in my class, because they facilitate communication and collaboration among students but also these tools let students to have their portfolio, so they can get a documentation of their work, which is a tangible way to show to themselves and others what they have learned through the years.

Fatih TOY, Turkey

2016-11-18 17:55:16 UTC

I don't think leaving students free to decide joining which group etc.Because students can favor their close friends and some students cannot become eager to work with other students who cannot be aware of group responsibility etc.Using name picking tool while peer assessment session seems to work efficiently. I have been using Edmodo and Padlet for 2 years and they are just very promising for collaboration in the classes.

Isabel Costa - Portugal

costaisabel60 — 2016-11-18 20:29:24 UTC

I really believe that peer review it's very important. I like very must the instructions presented to the students. I like too the freedom that students have to decide who they like to work and the teams member's role. I use google forms to make peer reviews with my students. It helps them to think and make peer assessment with some rules and objectives. It is a good tool to avoid problems when students have difficult to face colleagues.

Natália Ferreira, Portugal

2016-11-18 20:29:41 UTC

I agree with Anna's approach when she gives her students the freedom to decide who they want to work with and the role of each in the group. In this way they will feel more involved and responsible for their learning.

I implement collaborative work in my classes. Students like to work in groups, particularly in the mentoring scheme, where the most qualified help those who show difficulties and take responsibility for their learning.

Peer reviews are also a great way to ensure peer feedback. The guarantor of impartiality lies in the random choice of names. What I have not done yet, but I think I will start applying for a job that I will soon develop. In formative evaluation I have used Kahoot, Socrative and Padlet as digital tools.

Paula Duarte, Portugal

2016-11-18 21:11:19 UTC

Anna's project is very interesting. I think she is doing a very good job and is a good example as a teacher.
Normally, I also let students choose who they want to work with. But peer evaluation is done in the group itself. I believe that the way Anna uses can bring more objectivity.

Of the collaborative work tools mentioned by Anna, I know Padlets and Google forms and I also use Google sites and Google Drive. I also usually use Kahoot and Geogebra in the classroom.

Maria Vasilopoulou, Greece

mbasilopoulou — 2016-11-19 14:04:23 UTC

I believe that the benefits of collaborative learning are multiple and teachers should learn from each other, get ideas and inspiration, experiment and use various web tools to facilitate collaboration and evaluation among students. Tackk, Padlet, Kahoot and Google forms are tools I use with my students quite often but I would definitely like to try the ones suggested which I am not familiar with.

Rui Vieira, Portugal

miguelvieira_com — 2016-11-19 16:21:03 UTC

Anna explains her experience of assessing collaborative learning with 14-19 year olds through a project-based approach, particularly focusing on peer reviews. She explains various digital tools she uses to set up collaborative learning as well as assess it. She explains the challenges she has faced and offers some solutions and related questions for reflection.

I agree with her. I usually work with classical took such as word, powerpoint, excel, but also with other tools like plickers, socrative and kahoot ...

Evi Karella-Greece

spevispevi — 2016-11-19 22:53:57 UTC

Anna's methods, tools and way of teaching are extremely interesting. Students take responsibiliy for their own learning. If a teacher teaches that way I believe make students see knowledge under a different prism and they can really appreciate assesment for and not of learning

Maria Tomaz, Portugal

anjostomaz1 — 2016-11-19 23:24:07 UTC

Anna provides very interesting tool suggestions that put students to evaluate and give feedback on their pears' presentations, enabling constructive feedback. I have never put these tools into practice but I will use them briefly.
I understood that my concern for summative assessment is shared by Anna. In this way sharing more concerns lead us to realize that we are not alone and that it is necessary more moments of reflection on these aspects.

Virginia Esteves

virginiaesteves — 2016-11-20 01:15:03 UTC

Peer review is effective . It is important that students are enrolled in assessment. From this assessment they are also learning and improve many skills.
Anna presented a lot of usefull tools to work in collaborative project and some are also adequate to assess too.

Carmela Cundari, Italy

melcunda — 2016-11-20 11:23:35 UTC

I prefer to create the groups myself, because I know my students and I try to ensure to each group a well balanced number of students. About the evaluation, since my students are very young they still have to learn to be objective, I try to do peer assessment about very small tasks, but I still have a lot of work to do.
I cannot say that I use to do collaborative work in my classes, I'm still learning, anyway I already use some digital tools: Padlet (when we are putting together individual works), Tackk (I've created some pages where my students can find games created to review lessons, expecially vocabulary), Kahoot and Quizizz (I always use these tools for formative assessment), Google forms (to evaluate eTwinning projects) and some others.

Ariana Vacaretu, Romania

ariana_vacaretu — 2016-11-20 14:25:42 UTC

I also think it is better to pair classmates who don't know each other very well or to use a random name picker tool which automatically teams them up for ensuring objectivity of the peer assessment (I usualy use TeamUp). However, sometimes, for establishing the groups for a collaborative work I don't let the students choose the team members but I randomly team them up or I use different other criteria for establishing the groups (it depends on the aim of the gorup work).

Nazaré Firmino, Portugal

nazare_firmino — 2016-11-20 15:01:35 UTC

I completely agree with Anna's different approaches. When my students are free to decide who they want to work with, they become more responsible during work. I think the use of a random name picking tool encourages students to be more responsibles, assertives and impartials in assessing their peers. In working groups and in formative assessment I have already used Socrative and Padlet. I learned how to use many others digital tools - Kahoot, QR codes, Google Forms, Tackk, Edmodo, for example – but I have not yet used them in this context of collaborative work. I intend to explore other digital tools and take advantage of their potential as teaching tools as well I intend to become more engaged in the collaborative learning process.

Angeliki Kougiourouki, Greece

akougiou — 2016-11-20 16:13:10 UTC

As Anna mentioned I often leave my pupils free to decide who they would like to work with and help each team to set up members’ role because I believe that good collaboration starts even from this very beginning. I also agree with her about the random picking of peer reviewers and when it comes for evaluation concerning the collaborative work and results I use padlets, googleforms, kahoot and answergardens.

Manuela Ortigão, Portugal

mortigao — 2016-11-20 18:00:45 UTC

I agree with Anna and I prefer to set up groups in order to ensure objectivity and freedom of judgement, so I leave students free to decide their group mates and decide the member's role. I never used a random picking tool to help me in students peer assessment I really like it and I'm sure I will try it! I use Edmodo to flip my classroom and assessing my students work, padlet and google forms and there are great tools.

Harisa, Greece

terxara — 2016-11-20 19:48:47 UTC

I agree with Anna. when students assess, they must be objective and it is better to review peers which are in different groups and are not their friends. I have used some of the apps Anna mentioned. I set up my virtual classes with edmodo , padlet where students write their opinions. I also use AllForRubrics for rubric creation. I use my edmodo acount for this app so i import all my students' accounts

Elisabete Gouveia, Portugal

2016-11-20 22:09:15 UTC

Anna explains her experience of assessing collaborative learning and presented a lot of usefull tools to work. It's a very interesting projet, because she gives to their students the freedom to make their own decisions.

Laurentina Soares, Portugal

2016-11-20 23:23:28 UTC

When I make groups of students I also leave them to decide. Usually they became more responsable with their work and with their decisions.
For colaborative work assessement I use google forms, kahoot and sometimes padlet.

Cristina Abegão

2016-11-21 02:00:51 UTC

Anna giving their students the freedom to make their own decisions is a very good expericence in assessing collaborative learning.

Marina-Italy

2016-11-21 11:33:32 UTC

I also use my blog to have the students interact and read each other comments in order to get ideas or check themselves. This is useful especially for the weacker students. I took note of all the tools Anna is using, some of them are new to me and I'd like to try them. Thanks!

Münevver, Turkey

2016-11-21 17:03:52 UTC

If students are younger, for instance 9-12, I believe that it will be more appropriate to create and use matching games to make groups. They will enjoy even in the process of making a group. And some young learners can be merciless toward others and they can easily tell that they do not want to work with one of his/her friends. Sometimes, you also need to bear in mind that if groups become like a melting pot (students with different skills), the activities will achieve the objectives. If the students are 15-19, I believe that it is more appropriate to leave them free to create their own groups. Because, at these ages some students need to prove themselves and the others that they are grown up and they can make their choices :)) Of course, again if they always choose working with the same students, we need to use different techniques to create different groups. Anna mentioned in the video about a lot of tools from Edmodo to Google Forms and I tried using some of them beforehand with my students. I used Edmodo, Prezi and Glogster and students enjoyed a lot. The only problem is that I have too many students in the school and these collaborative works creates work load density  for me; but not a big deal. After all, I am a teacher. I know it is not easy but I love my job.

Palmira Serrano, Portugal

palmiraserrano — 2016-11-21 20:49:01 UTC

I agree with Anna's different approaches because for an assessment to be effective and objective it needs to be sincere and constructive. If the elements of the group have affinities between them this assessment is more difficult.
As for the tools I am aware of them and I think they are effective and give great feedback

Irena, Poland

irenagd — 2016-11-21 22:06:51 UTC

I like Anna's methods very much. It is much better to let students choose their partners to do team work but to gain objectivity and constructive feedback it is much better to organise it randomly.
I used some of the IT tools mentioned by Ann and hope to use the others because I am convinced about their helpful role in our classroom environment. Our students appreciate this kind of activities because they are much younger and treat them as common tool which they are familiar with.

Jose, Portugal

jafscruz — 2016-11-22 00:17:15 UTC

Assessment is very important for students, and they need to understand and be an important part in the process. Let them decide some parts of the process is also making them more responsable for the process, and therefore an incouragement of being assertive in the feedback provided by them. Usually I use moodle platform assessment tools, such as comments in forum, glossary, wiki and database activities, as peer reviewing.

Conceição Aleixo, Portugal

caleixonline — 2016-11-22 10:01:55 UTC

I agree with the options made by Anna because it’s important having moments for students to choose with whom they are going to work and moments they must work with others students chosen in a random way. I usually use Edmodo with the all class and Google Forms for different activities.

Ionela Lazea, Romania

kameeliah16bis — 2016-11-22 17:23:17 UTC

I think Anna's lessons are very well planned and I also like that she uses many ICT tools to assess her students' knowledge.

Mariana Tomás, Portugal I think Anna's method is good because students are free to choose their partners. So the collaborative learning is more sucessful

nita_ramos_tomas — 2016-11-22 21:30:02 UTC

Amélia, Portugal

ameliamagalhaes — 2016-11-22 23:55:10 UTC

I agree with the different approaches presented in the video by Professor Anna.
I have already done some evaluations in pairs or in larger groups but with the same principle presented.

I believe that the empathy factor among the elements that make up the group is a facilitator for the development of the work that needs to be done.

I am of the opinion of a random selection for peer evaluation, makes the process more interesting and rich without prejudice to the evaluation.

Some of my colleagues have some experience with the aforementioned tools and other digital tools, and others are not even now sharing these practices among colleagues, but I agree that they are very facilitative and useful.

Francisco Pinto, POR

2016-11-23 15:20:32 UTC

In the collaborative work I prefer that the teacher make the choice of the group trying to be heterogeneous so that the students with more abilities help the weak ones. Some of the tools I've used, others I've learned right now and I find it quite interesting.

Sandra Teixeira, Portugal

2016-11-23 15:59:32 UTC

I agree with the two approaches presented in the video. They serve differents objectives.
About the digital tools, I never used the examples given in the video. I've already used sensors and simulators in the computer, smartphone and tablet.

Cidália Marques, Portugal

cidaliam — 2016-11-26 12:25:30 UTC

The approach on Anna´s video seems amazing. My experience with work groups uses a different approach but is in the same spirit.
I have a robotics club and students with different levels of expertise. Some are in the club from tree years now and some started a few monts ago, I divide de students randomly but by levels of expertise. In this way all groups will have students from each level and they learn basics from each other.
We use tools like google forms, padlet, tacks. Each team up, titanpad, Twidla, according to each team preferences.
The projects done by each team presents a deeper learning result.

Anna Maria, Italy

mattielloannamaria — 2016-11-26 21:40:21 UTC

It is important for me, as Anna does, to leave to the students the possibility to choose their partners in a group. I used some of the tools mentioned by Anna such as Edmodo and padlet, my students are really involved.

Cristina Parente, Portugal

CrisParente — 2016-11-27 11:51:57 UTC

I agree with Anna's aprroaches. I've already used some of the digital tools she mentions such as Tackks, Paddlets, Google Drive, etc.

I agree with differentiated approaches used by Anna. Students must be granted autonomy but it is also important to ensure the objectivity and provide the students with goal specific tools.

paulina_rozmus — 2016-11-27 21:27:05 UTC

Asun Ara

2016-12-06 10:48:12 UTC

I agree with Anna and its approaches, but not at all. I think that students can choose their mates to work with and they will feel more confortable if they work with those mates that they think they will work better, but I think that it is very important that students work with other different students and they will also learn a lot. In our proffessional life, we have to work with a lot of mates and we are not always happy with our colleagues, So I think that if our students should work with all their mates, they will learn some social skills and they will learn a lot from those good and bad experiences. Moreover, in the peer assessment, we, as teachers, should get that our students do their best in order to be objective when they are doing their peer assessment. Probably at the beginning it will be more difficult for our students to be objective, but if they really take on a commitment with the project and their mates, they will be able to be objective with their best friends since they will understand that this is the best for their friends' learning.

Personally, I think that digital tools facilitate assessment very much since they make teachers not need so much time and the assement mustn't be during the lesson but at any time. Moreover, digital tools record students' learning development and students can be conscious of their learning. The most important thing is that students should be aware of assessment as a way of improving their learning and not as a way of punishment.

Marian Dragomir

2016-12-13 08:55:35 UTC

I have always evaluated the way each student improves his learning. I haven't tried the tools mentioned