Showing posts with label reflection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reflection. Show all posts

Monday, April 07, 2014

Russian Nesting Dolls Project


Today in 7th grade we are creating Russian nesting dolls (Matryoshka). The students get to choose the subjects and I have seen some amazingly creative choices. While many of the students have used popular characters such as superheroes, Disney characters, and sports teams others have created their own 'line'.

The next step will come later when they reflect on their choice for subject matter. We will do this later in the week and hopefully will have a few students record their reflections on video to share here. 

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Explorer Reflection

Today I want you to write a blog post reflecting what you have learned from your research and presentation. Below is the required information for you to include in the post.
  1. What you learned from creating the PowerPoint.
  2. What you learned from creating the essay.
  3. What you learned from giving your presentation.

Monday, June 14, 2010

What I Learned this Year

It is time to do a little reflection on the past year.

There is a desire in my community for more interaction with my school. I had a lot of success with visitors coming to watch streaming video on my blog. I had over 40 viewers watching this basketball game. There were almost 100 visitors watching our district spelling bee. Obviously I need to make streaming of our school events a priority.

Comments4Kids has started to take off. Leaving a comment is something that can really help encourage students to write and to write better. I hope to expand this into more classrooms next year.

Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it. I really wanted to move to the position I am in now. It was a way to do "my tech thing" with a larger group of students. Unfortunately the position wasn't all I bargained for. My students needed to learn the skill of typing, but it is a very personal learning process. As a teacher it tends to be pretty unfulfilling work. Fortunately we are moving typing down to a lower grade level so that I will only have to teach one semester of it next year.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Creating a Visual Sequence of Events

We are going to work on creating a visual sequence of events from a book we will read in class. Your responsibility is to identify one event in each chapter of the book we are reading to capture in some visual format. Here are some ideas that you may want to use:

1. Use Paint to draw your visuals.
2. Draw you pictures on paper. Use bold colors so when we digitize the picture we can see the work.
3. Use cut paper. As you know, I am a huge fan of cut construction paper art.
4. Use charcoal or pastels.
5. Create 3D models using objects or clay.

Mrs. Smith has agreed to let us use her art supplies for those of you that need them. Make sure to thank her when you get them.

As I read the story to you, take notes about a specific scene you would like to capture from each chapter. There are fifteen chapters so you will have to create fifteen visuals.

After you have created visuals from all fifteen chapters we will create a Voicethread where you will explain what is happening in each picture. On the first frame of the Voicethread you will need to reflect on what you have created. Include what you did well and what needed improvement.




The book I have chosen to read to you is The River Between Us by Richard Peck. I chose this book because of the excellent writing and the subject matter. The story takes place not to far from here and tells a story about an important battle in the American Civil War that you probably never heard of.

The purpose of this assignment is for you to create a visual sequence of events. I will use these as models for next years 4-8 grade classes. Let's make these excellent models for next year's students!

Directions:

1. Listen and take notes as story is read.
2. Create visual representations for each chapter.
3. Take picture of the representations if necessary.
4. Create Voicethread and describe each image.
5. Reflect on what you have learned on the first image of the Voicethread.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Reflection Using Audio Recorders: Vocaroo

Today we are going to add some audio to our blog. I want you to record a reflection about what you have learned in one of your classes today. The audio should be at least 1 minute long. Click here to go to the Vocaroo site to record. After you paste the audio into your blog, write a quick review and include how you could use this in your classes.

Remember, if you sign up the site will save your Vocaroo's!

Monday, August 24, 2009

Reflections on Typing

Below is the audio to my fifth hour keyboarding classes first attempt at reflection. As you can tell from the audio, they obviously are not used to reflecting (at least in a classroom setting.)

Because I know reflection is an incredibley powerful part of the learning experience, I know that I need to continue to help them develop this skill. Even in keyboarding I can help my students become better, more reflective learners.