WPP

      The purpose for my project is to promote students communicative as well as writing skills in mandarin. Moreover, to take this opportunity to foster a Mandarin learning communities for my 8th grade class through the usage of technology.

      According to “20 Ways to Use Edmodo”it allows students to communicate with each other anytime, anywhere in different ways. I would like to take advantage of that. Therefore, I designed a writing activity through Edmodo. The topic is posted through notes. Students can turn their writing work in by “replying”to the post. Then, they need to read their peer editor’s work and give suggestions on grammar errors, good points and how can the writing be improved. Later on, they need to go back to their original writing, revise it according to their peer’s comment and then finalize it. To complete this assignment, they need to have two writings, one is the original writing, and the other one is finalized writing.

    What’s more, students can also practice Chinese character typing, which is a crucial skill nowadays for 21st century learners. I also chose a topic that students are interested at “Describe an animal you like the best.”

     This project is designed based on the following information:

     Content Knowledge (CK): The process of mastering a language develops from Listening-speaking-reading to writing. This activity combines reading, writing, editing, reflecting. These four skills foster a cycle of learning while students collaborate on one another’s ideas.

      Technology Knowledge (TK): This activity requires students to be able to type in Chinese character, to give respond to one another’s post on Edmodo as well as to gather information from the resource that I provide online.

     Pedagogical Knowledge (PK): To ensure a smooth transition from learning the new language points to the accomplishment of the work, I scaffolded students from the usage of the words and sentences to analysis of the short context and then to short story writing.

      Moreover, I provide detailed questions that guide students on commenting on one another’s writing. The implication of my project is overall a success. My students were very excited from the beginning of the activity. They definitely put in their biggest effort. They loved typing Chinese characters in computer. As they worked on their writing, most of my students keep themselves challenged by choosing sentence structures that are complicated. Based on the commenting that I received, they all took responsibility to help each other on doing a better job. The comments they provided are meaningful as well. All these really surprised me and I have decided to keep this writing activity as part of my writing assessment for my students.

     In the process of the activity, I made a minor change.While I was designing this activity, I planned to let my students comment on 3 other students. However, I have 16 students, if they all respond to 3 others, the posts might be too long. So I decided to let students comment on 1 other classmate using our clock partner chart. These two students will be editing peers. In order to evaluate, I asked them to write what they like about their peer’s writing, what mistakes. Also, they need to contribute at least three more sentences to make their peer’s writing look better.

     In my WPP presentation, I have given an example of one of my student, Eric’s work. In his writing, he describes giant panda, such as its looks, what food does panda like, where does a panda live. His peer editor suggested him to give some information on “where does panda originated” as well as the activities that a panda likes to do. So in Eric’s final writing, he added the sentences that Maddie suggested and it not only makes his writing interesting but also develops some depth of the usage of this language.

This is my WPP presentation.