Discussion Posts and Personalized Learning
This formative assessment gives students an opportunity to personalize their learning while engaging in collaborative discussion with their peers around their chosen text(s) or work.
Preparation
- Decide an area of the curriculum where students can be given the freedom to explore different texts based on personal interests within teacher-set parameters. Some examples include: poetry, short stories, tv episodes of a program with a consistent platform and structure (such as Last Week Tonight or The Daily Show), episodes of a podcast, etc.
- Alternatively, this assessment can also be done with passages in a work. Students can select a passage from a work that they personally find interesting or engaging.
- Decide if the discussion will be based on a question, or if students will share a passage/excerpt from the text and write a short commentary on it.
Process
- Assign students the task of reading, watching, or engaging with a text that is of personal interest within the parameters provided.
- Assign the discussion post prompt or question. (e.g., Identify the main argument of the text, choose a short passage that had a strong effect on you, evaluate the writer’s use of evidence, etc.).
- Ask students to write their response to the prompt/question.
- Next class (or for homework) ask students to choose a classmate’s discussion post. They need to:
- Read the text the student selected and wrote about.
- Read the student’s discussion post on the text.
- Instruct students to respond to their classmate’s discussion post. They may agree, disagree, or build on their classmate’s response.
- Have students respond to their peer’s responses on their original post.
- Ask students to reflect in their portfolios: What did you learn from this process? How does a written discussion differ from an oral discussion? Which do you prefer? Why?
To see this in the context of a unit, check out this post:
Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay
