An overall snapshot where 75% of my students are meeting criteria tells me that learning took place and that the scaffolding may have had a positive effect on retelling abilities. It also suggest that my students are ready to move on to something new and perhaps more challenging.
It may be useful to make an Anchor Chart that reminds students of what a good storyteller looks like.
There are pros and cons to using only one way to collect evidence. Adobe Voice is an easy App to use and gets good results, but I’m thinking of my one student (Jordan) who made silly noises on his initial pumpkin patch recording and then refused to retell the story of “The Tailor”. Jordan is extremely shy but usually not defiant. Speaking is often difficult for him and he acts silly or shuts down if he begins to feel uncomfortable. There are other ways to encourage him to speak or to offer opportunities for retelling in more.comfortable, non-threatening activities. An example was when I quickly gathered a small group of children around the -pad and we had fun saying “my name is…” and creating a short recording of it. Jordan was in this group. There was no pressure and he joined in whole-heartedly (see the example under the post “The Tailor: Our final product” called “my name is…”).
When listening to the recordings, I noticed that many students had difficulty choosing words when moving from one frame to the next. Another scaffolding activity might be to teach some connecting words that will enable them to move smoothly from one idea to the next
63% of my students had little or no difficulty using Adobe Voice. It may be time to provide more instruction about the App and opportunities to use it in other ways (i.e. recording finding in Science or documenting Math activities). I have also made note of the 4 students who may need some assistance next time we use the App.
A wonder: What would happen if I took away the story map prompts. How well could my students retell? Would I see more creativity and imagination? Would they feel freed up from following the pictures or would they experience more difficulty?