Taking risks has been my theme for the 2017-2018 school year. I have jumped completely out of my comfort zone with dressing up, acting out the Bill of Rights, empowerment lessons, using out of the ordinary items such as Oreos, adding a mission statement, and changing my expectations. But one risk I added and will continue to use is the digital portfolio for reflections.
I originally started a digital portfolio idea in Room 303 for three reasons. Reasons one and two: students could showcase their work and growth throughout the year. My third reason was influenced by my own observations with students. During my past years of teaching, too often students (and myself) would end a unit, move on, and completely forget what just happened. History doesn’t work like this, but a portfolio would help the students wrap up a unit with purpose.
My platform for digital portfolio was Google Sites – easy to use, but many flaws that I will not get into now. At the end of every unit, I wanted students to upload an artifact they created along with a reflection on what they learned. When I first introduced this and provided a template………….oh my. To say it was a struggle is an understatement. I had students Googling answers to reflection questions for their own creations – how does that work? This portfolio has been a work in progress all year long.
Throughout the year, I tweaked questions, changed the amount of artifacts to upload, opened it up to the students to freely write. The digital portfolio is still a work in progress. Currently I’m reading, Learn Like a PIRATE, by Paul Solarz who discusses how he has students constantly reflecting. He uses a similar portfolio concept, but I have learned some great ideas for next year’s portfolio concept.
Here are 5 ideas I will incorporate into my portfolios for next year:
- Go over reflections more in-depth with students – sometimes it’s hard for me to place myself in the shoes of other people. To me, a reflection is natural and simple. As a result, I see it as simple for others as well. It’s vital to not assume this, and show others how to reflect and the power of reflection.
- Drop Google Sites and use Blogspot or WordPress – Google Sites is easy, but sometimes things get deleted and it’s unable to be recovered. It doesn’t allow students to change fonts, or change picture sizes easily.
- Have students reflect at the end of every lesson within a unit – the best way to learn and grow is reflecting daily and at the end of every major lesson.
- Use a “Tell Me More” strategy – Every reflection question should be answered with at least 2 sentences. The second sentence has a focus of telling me more, or expanding on the learning/artifact.
- Use reflection and synthesizing questions – examples include: 1) What was your favorite station/activity? Why? 2) Find another group that you feel explained the topic better than you did. Why did you choose this group? What did they explain well? 3) Describe how the lesson went for you. 4) What have you learned due to this experience? Interpret how the lesson went using one of sets of terms: strengths/weaknesses or successes/setbacks.
Allowing students to reflect in a timely manner can allow them to take their learning to another level. As I have found this year, it’s important to have them reflect as learning is occurring, not after a grade has been issued or at the end of a unit.
Moler's Musings 