Setting aside time for reflection because students need time to see all the accomplishments and skills they have gained through their journey of the projects. Students get to actually create their own meaning of the project and not just the idea that you as their teacher may have had in mind.
Students need time to reflect and elaborate because students need the opportunity to see how their project skills have grown throughout the entire project. Students also will see how well they can give and receive critical feedback, and how they hold themselves to standards that are set by themselves and others. Students also need the opportunity to see what challenges they have overcome and realize that they worked hard and accomplished things that they believed were impossible. This will help show students what they did to actually make the project move forward. Lastly students need time to reflect on positive experiences that make them more confident and cause them to look for more.
Schools build tradition and identity through being proud of something that their school is good at. Some schools are really good at sports and the community rallies around the team, other schools are great at school symphonies and have concerts held year round and other schools are good really proud of science competitions and have medals displayed from years of winnings. Within your classroom set a tradition so students will be excited to come into your classroom and want to participate in the tradition.
Celebrating students work is awesome to allow your students to actually care about the amount of effort they put into the project. Put on an event, create a blog, hang up the art work through displays or cabinets where your school’s identity will be built up as place of learning through projects.
I will use these concepts in my project because I will try to show the entire school or at least our pen pals in showing our weather reports. I will also have the students reflect on the type of work that they did and how much they have learned and accomplished throughout the project.
I like and agree with what you said about students creating their own meaning and not just working with the idea that the teacher had in mind. In my experience, students need to be given more opportunities to do that. I think they are often under-estimated and not given the chance to be more independent learners.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you said about students needing to be able to give and receive critical feedback. I think it's important for student to be able to do that early on. Reflections will definitely help accomplish that.
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