Erica's Self Evaluation

My second mini-lesson went a bit better than the first one. I might have made it more communicative by playing Jeopardy! ® on the blackboard, rather than the computer. Being that far away from the class was a mistake. I couldn’t hear the students’ answers well, and it was noted that I frowned a lot when I had to ask them to repeat. Next time I would have the categories with answers written down and just write the categories and amounts on the board. Standing closer to my students and being more upbeat and enthusiastic would go a long way toward making the lesson super-communicative. I do think that letting the groups work together to come up with the right answer is a great group activity, but I would change it a little so that a different person each time got to answer out loud. That would keep any dominant students from doing all the work, and ensure that others got an equal chance to participate.

Erica's Test Evaluation

Subject/verb agreement

This quiz tests subject verb agreement, using the simple present and past tenses.

Practicality:
I found this test to be very practical. The quiz is available for free online, which makes it affordable, easy to manage, and can be easily printed out for the students. This class can also be taken online, but I would rather it be a pen and paper test, unless my class is spending a lot of time on the computer. For a key, it’s easy for me as teacher to answer the questions myself and then submit for grading. I can then print out the answer key for grading myself.

Reliability:
This test appears to be very consistent. It asks the students to choose between two possible answers. The tense is the same on each question, however. There is no ambiguity—the answers are clear.

Validity:
I believe that it is valid, both for content and face. The students should believe that they are being tested on whether or not they can properly conjugate a verb and make it match the subject.

Authenticity:
Authenticity is whether or not the test relates to the material taught, and I believe this does. If you are teaching grammar, you are going to explain to your students that some verbs take an ‘s’ at the end and some don’t, and it depends on your subject.

Washback:
Once students’ tests have been graded and returned, if they got any wrong answers that the other answer is the right one. I think that it may take another mini-lesson by the teacher to reinforce why, if very many students got a lot of answers wrong, though.