When we were in class the other day, one of my classmates talked about pop-its. About the history, this kind of toy started from bubble papers, which we used to wrap up and protect objects, to stress balls, to fidget spinners, to squeeze hangers, and current, pop-its are popular in the US!

I have noticed and had all this stuff. For one reason, these are just small toys which are inexpensive and can realize stress; for another reason, they are sued to help students concentrate or release nervousness while talking to me. However, I did not know that pop-its hit the frontline currently until my classmate talked about it. Therefore, I ordered it online. I played it with my family. We had a good time challenging each other.

The pop-its has other two functions other than realizing stress, it helps children to develop their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. Also, it stimulates cognitive development by applying children’s decision-making skills and thinking about how to win the game.

Here are my cute toys:

Check it out if you’re interested : )

As global citizens, why do we need to learn different languages? Watch the video and find out the reasons!

This experiment really opens people’s minds. Looking from a broad anthropology perspective, we are all family. Thus, stop treating people with stereotypes and biases. We should respect diversity and embrace difference.

As I learned types of assessment previously, I would like to share my reflection of what I read through just now.

How does the assessment work? It begins with planning on how will we know learning has occurred, so rubric sand criterion has been created. Then we, teachers, apply different types of assessment to investigate students’ learning outcomes. The questions involves how students demonstrate their learning, what kinds of formative feedback they received, and what steps of learning. Then, what activities enable students to learn? Finally, teachers provide summative feedback to students. After all these compoenets has consisted a cycle, students learn from self reflection and feedback. Then, it comes to goal setting. Next, The other leanrning cycle begains again. During the process of learning take place, we learn based on previous experiences and accumulate the connecting dots to constructive the new knowledge based on the old ones. This is how learning happened. 

Then, Involving students in the assessment process becomes an infulencal issue. One of the best ways to help students understand what will be assessed is to establish the assessment criteria with them. Working with students to develop rubrics and other assessment tools is a powerful way to help students build an understanding of what a good product or performance looks like. It helps students develop a clear picture of where they are going, where they are now and how they can close the gap. This does not mean that each student creates his or her own assessment criteria. The teachers have a strong role to play in guiding students to identify the criteria and features of understandings they want their students to develop.

A second way to involve students in a meaningful way in the construction of assessments is to work with them as a class to identify what good work looks like. What is the difference between strong and weak work? What performance criteria do they think are important? Does everyone understand what to do to attain the expected outcomes? This type of student involvement takes time and teachers may need to encourage students to contribute in meaningful ways.

Last but not least, there are still many competencies that can not be measured by tests or assessments. These traits are as important as learning and academic performance.