At the End...

Reflection has been the over-arching theme of my semester in our Learning Disability block of classes. Our professors wanted to create an experience this semester to produce reflective teachers. Each time we are in the classroom, we reflect. Before we teach we write a pre-reflection. We think about what were are going to teach and how we feel about it, and after words we fill out a post-reflection, and think about how things went that day. At the completion of a project, reflection is vital.

Reflection allows us to think about what we did and what we can do better in the future. The key is to make reflection meaningful. I have done reflections in that past that didn't mean anything to me. I didn't put any real thought into it. The same goes for our students. We need to allow freedom with reflective thought, I feel that I can provide a guide for my students, but it will only be meaningful if my students can provide their own thoughts and feelings.

Today Marjorie and I finished our website. Upon reflection, we talked about how creating the website was actually fun. I could see this being a fantastic opportunity for my students in the future, but I will need to make some alterations to best suit the needs of my students. This is the purpose of reflecting, I thought of a way to make the activity better in the future.

Activating Prior Knowledge and Meaningful Assessment

Activating Prior Knowledge and Meaningful Assessment

It's more than a test!

Activating prior knowledge, in my opinion, is one of the most important components of teaching a successful lesson. In my current placement, the student’s experiences are significantly different than my own. I am from a small town where I can relate farming terminology and Walmart jokes into my lessons and my peers would understand. The student population I currently serve has grown up in the city and many students come from a lower income household. If I am talking about combines in relation to a social studies lesson, my students (for the most part) would have no idea what I am talking about.

Setting the stage for learning new knowledge is a must! As a pre-assessment I like to use the K from a KWL chart. The K stands for “what we want to Know” and helps me assess where my students are starting and what they already know about something. The L stands for “what we want to Learn” and helps me direct my lesson in the direction of student interest. I think this part relates well to Project Based Learning because I can focus on what the students want to find out about a topic. My W serves as my meaningful assessment at the end, and stands for “what we Learned”. This portion of the KWL allows me to evaluate the effectiveness of my lesson and whether my students met our objectives.

In relation to our project, I cannot simply assess a student on his or her prowess for acting or the ability to hit all the high notes; I have to look at multiple areas of assessment. I am more concerned about the effort put forth, the attention to what needs to be done, not merely the performance aspect. Furthermore, high stakes testing is not the "way to go" when aiming for meaningful assessment.

Before and After: Prior Knowledge and Meaningful Assessment

Before any project, large or small it is important to establish an understanding of where each student is coming from. I've definitely experienced this in classrooms. Just recently, in fact, I was working with a group of students who were reading a selection and were then supposed to answer questions. One of the questions had to do with the game of chess, and it was asking a rather abstract question that even I had difficulty understanding. The student didn't know what chess was, which obviously caused an even bigger damper on her understanding of the question. One great way of establishing prior knowledge is using a KWL chart. A KWL chart is a place for students to organize what they Know about something, what they Want to know, and after the lesson, what the Learned about the topic of study. Establishing this prior knowledge is so important, because it helps us understand where each student is coming from...where they're "anchored". When it comes to the conclusion of any lesson, the authors point out that assessments need to be meaningful. They cite an example of a student who turns in a research paper late, and is given a much lower grade than what the writing exemplifies. The paper is late, yes, but has it's tardiness contributed to the quality and content of the writing? No. Grades should be based instead on multiple categories, with student work ethic being only one. This makes a tremendous amount of sense, especially when considering my own project. When doing something like a musical, inevitably, there will be areas where some students excel and others...not so much. As an educator, I cannot base Susie's grade on whether or not she can hit a high A or not; but maybe Susie works really well at organizing things for the backstage crew, or even being a chorus member on stage. Using multiple categories for assessment makes so much more sense than one aspect of the student's abilities compromising their entire grade.

Digital Story :)

I composed a digital story about dance and choreography: a brief introduction to the different styles we might be using to choreograph our show!

Expanding...

When I think about real learning...real, deep learning, there's one thing that comes to mind: relevance. So often, students ask us questions that we don't know how to answer this. I think of my own students, and their lamenting: "When will we ever use this in the real world?" It is a legitimate question, and one that should not be brushed off. Students need to see the real world connections between their learning, and real life. One way that many teachers across the world are achieving this, is by branching out with their classrooms. Any teacher can make connections with experts and other schools. It takes time, but a teacher can generate a list of experts who are willing to help. Another way, is by connecting students to other classrooms around the world. Some classes have even made connections with university students who provided elementary students with feedback on their projects via comments on the students' blogs. The EAST (Environmental and Spatial Technology) initiative model of learning is a technology and collaboration based model that allows for project-based learning to occur using student driven learning. One of the most important aspects of this initiative, is the idea of student driven learning. As teachers, if we see potential in a student to excel at something outside the box, we should let them! Not only that, we should be thrilled that they want to take the information and run with it in a way that makes sense to them. We don't have to "micromanage" as one educator put it, because the outlines we have for projects will not always fit each individual student. I think it will be interesting to see how students respond to our project using "My Fair Lady". Connecting with the class in Europe will definitely be helpful, and we'll work on trying to get ahold of an expert in this field, perhaps a former star of the show, or a historian who knows all of the ins and outs of the show itself. Furthermore, students will always be encouraged to expand their knowledge in their own way...even if it means stepping out of the box and trying something completely different.

Digital Story!

I will be doing my digital story on how to read music, focusing on different kinds of notes and their values.

Let's Keep this Project in Motion.

Let's Keep this Project in Motion!

The most frustrated I ever felt during my schooling years certainly had to be in eighth grade. I hated when Miss M got rolling with questions, because they were always pointless. Why do we do math? Why do we do English? I wanted to say "I don't know, you tell me!"

Asking the right questions, and more importantly, asking pertinent questions, can keep our students rolling when working on a project. To me, nothing was more frustrating then being half-way through our math lesson and Miss M starting in with the stupid questions. No, I don't care why I have to know how to find the mean of these numbers, let me stumble upon it when putting my mind to use in a project!

As teachers we are not the sage on the stage, and we need to hand those reigns over to our students. Why shouldn't our students be asking each other questions and opening up to each other during our projects? I want my students to communicate among themselves and know which resources can help them do this.

I have a fear of whole class conversation. In the classroom I currently serve, we have several students with receptive learning disabilities. This basically means that when I stand there saying something, the student hears what I am saying, but the process of understanding is not happening, and my words are not being stored in the child's long-term (or even working) memory. I don't want these students to be left out in the dark when it comes to group discussions. I like to use think-pair-shares. I tend to start these off with a question I pose to the class, and then have them think independently, share with a partner, and then share out. This gives all of my students a chance to process and think.

Allowing our students to be in their groups during instruction time (while working on a project based learning excursion) can be beneficial for all. Our students will be thinking and discussing among themselves and can apply what we talk about to each groups' topic.

As teachers how do we progress monitor without interfering? I like the idea of an exit slip. Ask the students if they feel their group is making progress, or if they need any help. Every student needs to hand in a response in order to leave class, and now the teacher has information without being invasive in the group process. Teachers can encourage student reflection without being invasive as well. A five sentence summary in an individual journal at the end of a week of work can be an excellent way to gain insight and make decisions regarding the groups.

Lastly, teachers have to expect those speed bumps.We don't want our students to feel frustrated or discourage during the project, and our discreet progress monitoring can help prevent these issues from emerging. But what if something slips under our radar? I see this everyday in practicum. My students get frustrated with the work and shut down. With our topic, musicals can provide many opportunities for set backs. Lines to memorize, music to learn, dance steps... it can be daunting! We need to be prepared to address these issues and keep our students positive.