Help! I need to make
more time for students to share their work with
more time for students to share their work with
This blog is really
two parts – one part is about a helpful tool I learned at iNACOL, and the other is
looking wondering how you make time for students to share their work with one
another…….that doesn’t require the brain numbing 28 person individual presentation.
two parts – one part is about a helpful tool I learned at iNACOL, and the other is
looking wondering how you make time for students to share their work with one
another…….that doesn’t require the brain numbing 28 person individual presentation.
One of the most
helpful takeaways from the iNACOL conference was seeing the ways that other
teachers out there were trying to differentiate learning for their students. My
favorite of these was called “The Learning Menu” – not particularly earth
shattering or mind-blowing – but something that stuck for me and that I implemented
as soon as I got back for my very burnt-out-of-lectures-seniors.
helpful takeaways from the iNACOL conference was seeing the ways that other
teachers out there were trying to differentiate learning for their students. My
favorite of these was called “The Learning Menu” – not particularly earth
shattering or mind-blowing – but something that stuck for me and that I implemented
as soon as I got back for my very burnt-out-of-lectures-seniors.
Here is mine:
My “Learning Menu” is a Google Doc where students in my Psych class went through different topics in the Health Psychology field. Some sections provided choice, while others required them to learn some foundational knowledge, and concluded with a chance to demonstrate some deeper learning. If you are interested in seeing the Google Doc it’s here.
Step 1 – students worked on the first two sections on their own & we jigsawed the mental health conditions out in class the following day so students could learn more about the ones they did not watch the video for.
Step 2 – students did boxes three & four followed by a day in class where we made wellness related goals for ourselves that had to be backed by the research from the videos that they watched for these tasks plus some others that they found online.
Step 3 – students were given a choice about how they wanted to demonstrate their deeper learning (see choices above, and full assignment here) and were off to work on their own for a bit.
The amazing part of this assignment is that I did not have to lecture (my seniors are over lectures AND me at this point in the semester) and I STILL felt like they learned as much if not more than if I had! Because they came to class having digested some content ahead of time. Our conversations were richer, students got to learn about different psychological disorders from one another, and class time was used more effectively overall – if this seems like it would be of any value to you I would love to talk more about it.
BUT as they completed their deeper learning assignment I was excited by their creativity and realness with the assignment. It hadn’t dawned on me that because there was so much freedom with the assignment their final products would be so varied. One student interviewed his sister (a special ed teacher) to see how she practices self care in a stressful job. One student who rarely speaks in class talked about how he cares for a family member with bi-polar disorder & why talking about mental health is so important to him – just to name two. Cool right?
While I gave them a lot of personal feedback/kudos on their assignment, it seemed like a disservice that they completed these projects in a vacuum and didn’t have the opportunity to share out what they did.
So, to my question – how do you get your students to share out their work in a way that is meaningful and engaging?? Twenty-eight separate presentations would be boring as hell, but I worry that if I asked them to share out in small groups they would be off topic (am I just projecting my former student self?) What tips and tricks do you find that works, and how do you do it without taking days out of the unit??
Let me know if you have any ideas please!