By setting aside time for reflection, students are able to feel good about their accomplishments that came from the hard work they put in to the project. The students are able to create meaning from what they learned in the past few weeks, through thinking critically about what they learned, what they enjoyed about learning, how they’ve grown as learners, and what (and how) they want to learn in the projects to come. When students are able to reflect on ideas such as how the project was important to them, how specific learning behaviors helped them, their skill development, how their collaborations improved, and their growth in learning dispositions (challenges, frustrations, joys, etc).
Schools build tradition and identity by continuing to accomplish great things year after year. These great things could be anything from sport powerhouses to a school symphony. They bring pride to the school and create an expectation of excellence. When people in the community see the accomplishments being made at the school, they are more willing to help out to create even more opportunities to grow. When everyone is involved in these accomplishments at the school level, the entire community can feel pride and feel honored to have helped in the creation of the tradition.
Celebrating a project allow students to: look back one more time on the project they just completed, acknowledgement of how hard work and commitment contributed to the success of the project and culture of excellence at your school, appreciate for those who helped, display of learning (both student creations and presentations), look inside the learners with opportunities for them talk about their processes and growth, and lastly an opportunity to showcase the projects to colleagues, administrators, parents, and others in the larger learning community. These celebrations help the students become more aware of what they actually learned.
This chapter relates to my topic/project in the section where it discussed Starting a “Visual Conversation”. The blog that my group will be creating at the end of this semester is our way of presenting all of the different technologies we used to complete our assignments and the blog is the glue we are using to display it for everyone to see.
I agree I think that it is very important for students to set aside time for reflection. Students are able to feel good about their accomplishments that came from the hard work they put in to the project. The students are able to create meaning from what they learned in the past few weeks, through thinking critically about what they learned, what they enjoyed about learning, how they’ve grown as learners, and what they want to learn in the projects to come. It is great for students to have this when doing a project.
ReplyDeleteHey Karlie! I agree that students need to take the time to reflect on how their "collaborations improved" because if they do not learn from their mistakes then they will continue to make the same mistakes again. Also, when students realize what challenges them, they are more apt to change how they learn and work with new projects.
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