Student projects

This semester when we moved online due to the corona virus I realized that taking tests online at home wasn't ideal.  Instead of giving final exams to all of my classes I chose to assign student projects.

Wow.  Students loved it.  They were able to create and personalize their learning.  Instead of worrying about a student cheating on a test (which I knew the temptation would be very high with a very high stakes test at home with no proctor) and introduced the projects as "show and tell" in Spanish.  They made "All about me" projects and I was so impressed with their creativity and their depth of application of the knowledge from this semester.

As an instructor I can see ways to improve this project in the future:  my rubrics weren't quite perfect, my directions could be more specific, I could let students know this project is coming a bit sooner so they can plan for it, etc.  But overall this was a home run.  

I've been reading The Teaching Online Survival Guide and the authors point out that in Bloom's taxonomy creation is one of the highest levels.  Assigning creation-level assignments helps students process their learning at a high level.  

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