Monday 26 February 2018

Using statistics to create accountability and ownership towards blogging...

In 2013 I wanted to my class to take responsibility for ensuring their completed work was published to their individual blogs, so I asked them to analyse the number of posts they had published over the year. We graphed these results and analysed why some months were stronger than others. This was such a powerful learning opportunity that I have introduced this at the start of each new learning year since then. 

Developing a level of accountability and responsibility for blogging regularly are the reasons behind this task. As the statistics available to each learner are personal to them, this quickly allows each person to make a connection to the learning. Over time I have adapted this task to looking back at blog post totals by year at the beginning of the new school year, as mentioned perviously, to looking at blog post totals by the month in term three. 

This is an amazing motivator as there is no hiding from what is still sitting in Google drives compared with what is published on blogs. The analysis process (done in teacher chosen pairs to help develop new working relationships) promotes a wealth of rich conversation and a healthy sense of competition. I find it really interesting listening to the honestly behind the reasoning why blog post numbers have fluctuated over time. The best part about this learning is the ongoing discussion that emerges afterwards as the analysing continues. I display the DLOs on the wall and find that my students tend to gravitate towards this display as the connections are strong. 

Here is the link to my planning for those interested in trying this in their own class. The links to the student blogs below will provide great exemplars for your students. 


Some students took this a step further by creating a Screencastify to explain their learning.

    

5 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing Robyn, this is a great idea and will help motivate students to blog more often. I look forward to trying this out in my classroom as students have already been learning about how to present data

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  2. Kia ora Mele! This is absolutely fabulous! Wow! I love your "youtube" clip. Amazing!!!!!

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  3. Kia ora Robyn

    Thanks so much for sharing this complex (yet simple) lesson with us. You have shown clearly how you have linked the Maths curriculum to Manaiakalani pedagogy and kaupapa. The learning experiences come through clearly in your learners' posts and Mele is a super teacher.

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  4. Very helpful to me as I begin to learn the effective use of blogging and google sheets for myself and students.

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  5. Thank you for sharing this. This was passed onto me as an idea for my class. What a great idea.

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