Learning Circle Members and Roles:
Time Keeper: Jozelle
Facilitator: Jada
Record Keeper: Rebekah
Encourager: Justine
Overview:
Our group started our learning circle by talking and summarizing the two chapters. What are the next steps to take after you and your students have created a standard for this upcoming project, then life happens. Students have lives outside of school that is for sure, so it cannot be helped that some things happen. So, this student was unable to fulfill the standards that they set up with you (as a teacher). Our group was wondering, how we go about this phenomenon. One thing that we thought about is still having them assess their work. In the student’s self-assessment, have them as the three questions: 1. What did you do well? 2. What can be improved? 3. What are your next steps? This way, students reflect on their ability to fulfill the standards and that is when we know as teachers understand that students are aware of self-improvement. This also informs us, teachers, that they know the standards, it was just they were unable to live up to them. This is good evidence that we could assess as teachers.
We also saw this happen in our Pre-Internship. We included the students in creating a rubric based on what a great presenter looks like. Students gave a lot of ideas of what a great presenter looks like so we created a success criteria based on that. However, on the day of the presentation, students are unable to live up to the success criteria (low voice, having their back facing the class, and so on). In the end, we reminded the students what seem to be a great presenter looks like, and the students will reflect on their performance based on the success criteria. But still, the students were not able to fulfill the standard that they had set. So, we are still wondering about how to go about this.
Another problem that our group raised was when the students were unable to improve (with everyone’s help). What do we do as teachers when this phenomenon happens?
Concluding Thoughts:
We are back as four members, but that does not stop us from having a dynamic between each members. We have been connecting the readings from our Pre-Internship experiences and I think that is a great way to go about the readings. Our group have established a google doc file and folder where we upload the conversations that took place in the learning circle.