Midweek.... and still jetlagged

Today was quite busy. We had a long day of class in which we talked more about culture and watched a movie called 49 & up which is about following up on the lives of 14 brits starting at age 7 and catching up with them every seven years.


*After lunch we got to watch and learn about some amazing differnt topics from the masters students:
--> One of the sessions that I chose to watch was about student-led conferences in kindergarten. I chose to learn more about this topic given the fact that I am placed in a kindergarten classroom next year and thought it might be something that I could incorporate next year while interning. In this session I learned how to use portfolios with five year olds as part of a station. The students worked all year to build up their work and come up with reasons as to why they would like to put it in their portfolio. There was a lot of prep work with the students, but it all payed off in the end when the students shared them with the teacher and their families. She had the parents come in one day for a day of centers, one of them being a station in which the students would show off their work. The parents found the experiences to be very beneficial in that they could get a feeling for where their students were at academically and socially as well as gage where they were in relation to their peers. The center idea also gave the parents an opportunity to see what the kids do on an every day basis. The student-led conferences were a great esteem builder for the students as well as an effective way to incorporate the students' families within the school and specifically the classroom. Each week there was differnt criteria on how to pick out a piece from the students' work. One week the students would be asked to pick out their favorite piece of work, another week a piece that they learned something, etc.


--> Antoher session that I chose to sit in on was on eportfolios and how to assimilate them within the classroom. This particular teacher had each of his students create and manage their own eportfolio on a wikispace. Each student had their own personal account in which they would upload their own work either by a scanner or online documents. The students would then upload reflection pages in which they would comment about their work, write about what they liked, what they would change, what tey would do next time. The students were then able to constructively comment on their peers' work. Before this was all put into use there was a lot of prep discussion/ instruction that had to take place in order for everything to run smoothly: issues about trust, differentiating between what is and what is not appropriate to be posting or commenting, ways to upload images/ comment, etc. The students then were able to inform their famililes about what they were doing in class by sharing the username and password with their parents at student-led conferences. The parents were encouraged to comment on their student's work; a great way to check the progress of their students on a regular basis. This was this particular teachers first year piloting this project. One thing that he did say that he would change was informing the parents better. He said that next year he would like to hold an informational night in order to better familiarize the parents with the program and how to access the wiki. At the end of the year he passed out surveys to his students in which he concluded that the students not only enjoyed the experience they also felt at they end that they had learned something new. I think that this is a great resource that I could definately see myself assimilating into my own classroom some day :)