A moment of celebration

As the year ends and a new semester is knocking at the door, I thought it might be prudent to take a momentary break from my hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing over a new grading system and look at a few successes from this past semester.

May you find many successes to celebrate in the coming year!

1. This is NOT an AVID student:

This kid isn't a valedictorian, and perhaps not even on Honor Roll. But this kid is a solid, good student who regularly takes Cornell notes, interacts with them, shares them and learns from the process.

It's taken a mountain of work from teachers, students and admins across campus for this success to materialize, and it's a particular dream of mine for students across our district to adopt a process that promotes inquiry, collaboration and ownership of learning among our adorable kids.

When I saw this kidlet reviewing notes just before taking the final, I knew we are on the right track.

2. Reflection and student self-assessment:

When I started running, I remember reaching nine minutes of continuous running was a huge milestone for me. It took weeks of effort, and it was HARD. I try to remember those moments, now that running for nine straight minutes wouldn't even grab my attention.

I'm somewhere in that early Couch-to-5K stage with my efforts to increase opportunities for reflection and self-assessment in my classroom. One part of these early "training runs" was a major culminating assignment for my students: creating blogs and reflecting on the semester.

I gave a few guidelines: write four posts, each with a particular focus. I asked for a minimum of 250 words, showed them how to create a Blogger account and sent them on their way.


I was pleased with the variety of responses from students. Nearly every reading and writing assignment was identified by at least one student as the most powerful. Most students' work was truly insightful, focusing on growth and goals that might be impossible for me to notice among more than 100 students.

And kids had the chance to exercise their writing chops in a personal and unique way.

I also used more Learning Logs and Cornell note summaries to promote reflection.

We're moving, slowly, toward the goal of student self-assessment as a cornerstone of learning in my classroom.









3. Coming soon to the airwaves: The voices of my students!

For more than a year, I've been trying to figure out the best way to have my students create podcasts, which could build their skills in reflection, self-assessment, speaking, listening, understanding audience ... I could go on and on.

Thanks to a very generous gift from folks on Donors Choose, and to my awesome friend who strong-armed me into creating a Donors Choose project, you may soon hear these kidlets, loudly and clearly.

Check out this beauty:
 

The plan is for my students to continue their blogs, with an emphasis on goal-setting for the semester, and then use those musings to start making podcasts. Eventually, I'd like kids to podcast about issues important to them, as we navigate what for most of my students is the last semester of high school.

I'll keep you posted. :)

What successes are you celebrating?