Blogs on Student Work Examples

I am a 24-year-old college student who sometimes just wants a grade, but most of the time wants thorough, purposeful and encouraging feedback that helps me strengthen my writing skills. As a Secondary English Education major at East Carolina University, I have been exposed to various methods of teaching literature and writing, and have archived all of my past papers in binders and file cabinets for future reference. My friends think I am in need of an intervention for being over-organized, but I think that being more aware of how my instructors teach and assess students will improve my writing and provide me the opportunity to identify assessment methods that I can make my own in when I start teaching composition.

My previous post focused on planning entry events for project-based learning so that projects launch with students' curiosity fully engaged. Today, let's focus on the other important bookend of a project. The culminating event is when students share the product or result of their investigation, receive feedback, and celebrate their learning.

Editor's Note: Today's guest blogger is Amy Whittaker, one of the co-producers of the STEMposium event.

On April 1st, a sold-out crowd of 250 students, teachers and civic, business, philanthropic, nonprofit, education and technology leaders flocked to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco for STEMposium^TM - a celebration of excellence in K-12 STEM education innovation presented by the nonprofit EnCorps Teachers Program with co-host Citizen Schools.

I want you to reach up and feel the bumps on your head. Let your fingers run along the hills and crevices of your dome; examine the terrain. End your exploration by palming your entire head like a basketball. Now I want you to unzip your skull. I can hear the slow clicking of each metal tooth. And inside your head you won't find a brain, but an eyeball: a large, gooey eyeball pivoting on an elastic tendon. Searching. Looking. Staring. It's your mind's eye. And it depends on you, my writing friend, as to how much that eyeball can see.