One of the most practical ways that student laptops are used in 6^th grade Bible is for their Journals. Each day, students come into class and write down a question (called an Essential Question, or EQ for short) that is posted on the board but they don’t answer it until the end of class. When the lesson begins, we talk about what the objectives are for the day and what they should be able to tell me, explain, do, show, demonstrate, etc. Many times, this will be directly related the question (EQ) that was on the board when they arrived. In setting the lesson up like this, they know exactly what they are expected to understand by the end of class.

     When they answer the question at the end of class, it requires them to synthesize what they heard, read, saw and interacted with in the lesson into a written response, often linking it to an example from Scripture. Students type their responses into the document that they share with me and then “reply” on a previous comment of mine to let me know it is ready for checking.  As soon as students reply on a comment, within a few hours, an email is sent to my Inbox and I can often check their response that same day. I can then provide specific feedback, which is one of the most effective ways to improve student learning. It also means that they have almost unlimited opportunities to go back and work on making sure they understand the information before the end of the unit. They can ask for clarification during the next class and it provides many opportunities for one-on-one instruction and re-teaching.

                                   Here is an example of on-going, individual feedback:

constructive feedback:

and timely and conversational feedback: