My Best Work...

I have done a lot of online assessments before I took this class, so I was not too surprised at many of the assignments and readings in this class.  I have used a CMS before so I did enjoy looking at others and then staying with what I use.  I really liked the Infograph assignment.  This was one tool I have not used before so it was fun to create my “Supporting Formative Assessment” Infograph; however, I did not consider this my best work.  I have to be honest; I was not looking forward to the Minecraft/gaming part of this class.  I don’t really like these types of games and I really didn’t think I could even use this type of assessment in my class.  I was, for a lack of a better cliché, a fish out of water with this assignment.  So, since I had no idea what I was doing…I really had to learn something totally new, and that is why I think my Minecraft assessment was my best work.

For my assessment, I could have made a more detailed looking castle and I was disappointed that had to ask for help to create a mote.  I could have also added more information about the play Macbeth.  But with this assessment, I had to start from scratch with no real direction and a hope to just pass the module.  I got lost in the training part and didn’t really finish the training because I couldn’t find my way back.  I then started to panic about what I was going to do for my assessment.  The whole Minecraft idea is very Medieval to me so what I thought about for my assessment was either Beowulf or Macbeth so I picked Macbeth.  I have always images in my head about what that castle would look like so this started my Minecraft assessment.  This was the strongest part of my video, describing how I would create Macbeth’s castle and how I would hope my students would add to it to make it better. I tried to add some symbolism and fun details and I think they turned out pretty good.

This assessment supports the way I learn best…by doing.  I had no prior knowledge of how to use Minecraft or how to even make my own creation.  Knowing that I HAD to do this assignment, I was forced to learn the basics of Minecraft.  After a lot of trial and error I started to get into the activity.  I knew it wasn’t perfect, but that wasn’t the point.  The point was that I did something until I felt comfortable doing it, and I had a vision of what I could eventually do.  This supports my learning in that I am very hands on and like to practice things until I get them right.  I think what I really took away from this assessment is that I shouldn’t be afraid to learn something that I normally wouldn’t do.  I can use different forms of assessments to get my point across.  All I need to do is leap and go for it.  I need to look at assessments I might not consider, just because I might be hesitant to try them doesn’t mean that my students would be.  I need to learn to keep an open mind about assessments.  My students will appreciate the different ways I can test them because not all of them do well with the usual paper, pencil tests.